Rainy Day Treadmill Workout and Nutrition Advice From Kara Goucher

It was raining today and I didn't want B to be out in the cold since he's been getting a cough, so I decided to give the last-resort treadmill at our apartment gym another shot. B kept himself fairly entertained with a movie, bubbles, and walking on the treadmill next to me for a little bit, but he still wandered around a lot more than I was comfortable with.

 I know I should just wait until Scott gets home and go at night, but I'd so much rather get it out of the way and be able to relax and stay home at night. It's really hard to continually look over my shoulder and make sure he's not getting into trouble while I'm trying to huff and puff my way through a workout.  Good thing this treadmill thing only happens once in a great while, but I am really looking forward to the day when we have a treadmill in our house!

I did one of my favorite treadmill hill workouts today. 

Here it is:

Start with a 1 mile warm-up, then...

Treadmill Incline	Time	Speed
2%	5 minutes	7.5 (Whatever a normal walking or running pace is for you.)
3%	4 minutes	7.5
4%	3 minutes	7.5
5%	2 minutes	7.5
6%	1 minutes	7.5
0-1%	5 minutes	easy jog, or walk
6%	5 minutes	7.5 (Get through this and the rest of the workout is cake.)
5%	4 minutes	7.5
4%	3 minutes	7.5 or faster
3%	2 minutes	7.5 or faster
2%	1 minutes	As fast as you can! (You'll feel like you can fly!)

End with a 1 mile cool-down. 

Actually, I was a huge wimp and only did part of this today. I stopped after the 6% incline for 5 minutes, and then ran 1.5 miles at 6.5-7.5 speed with the incline back down to 1.) I had to stop to talk to B, and when I stopped, I suddenly felt sick and nauseous. The combination of feeling a little sick and having to continually talk to B and watch him made me decide to cut the original workout short. It was much easier to watch B when I wasn't trying to gut through those hill intervals. Even though it wasn't an ideal workout, I still got really sweaty, got my heart rate up, managed to get 6 miles in, and now I can stay home and relax with the family tonight!

Glad I got that sweaty workout in because it was followed by me getting to clean a nasty, gag-inducing mess out of B's underwear. The joys of potty training. Ugh. Good thing I made that goal to work on my inner calm!! I wasn't tempted to yell at B at all, but I could definitely feel my blood boiling like lava on the inside as I was cleaning up the disgusting mess, trying not to dry heave. I seriously repeated the words, "inner calm" to myself a couple times, out loud. It may sound weird, but it actually helped. A lot! And so did the sweaty treadmill workout. Running is definitely great stress relief. Thank you running for helping me keep my sanity through the joys of potty training. :)

In other news, I have a new nutrition goal after reading the nutrition section in Kara Goucher's Running For Women book last night. 

She said, "If you change only one thing in your diet as a runner, drink a recovery shake after each run, then shower and get dressed. It will make a noticeable difference in how you feel the rest of the day, how well you recover, and how hard you train on successive days. The key is combining protein (whey protein is ideal) with carbohydrates within 15 to 30 minutes after you finish your run. If you can't have a shake or smoothie, go for chocolate milk. Then follow that with a meal within two hours to keep the muscle-recovery fires burning."

I'm not very good at eating within 15 to 30 minutes of a run. After a long run, I usually shower and get ready first before I eat. After reading this I decided I wanted to start drinking a recovery shake after my workouts. I've never bought protein powder before, but I'm thinking about giving whey protein a try. Here's an article I read today about whey protein health benefits. 

I haven't made it to the store yet, but I did make a really yummy smoothie after my run today and added some chia seeds for the protein. 

Today's smoothie had one of my new favorite smoothie ingredients, avocado! I just tried it out yesterday and loved it so much that I couldn't wait to have it again today. 

Here's the recipe:

1 C. almond milk

2 large strawberries

1/2 frozen banana

handful of spinach

1-2 tsp. chia seeds

1/4 small avocado

(Yesterday I added a little cocoa powder to this smoothie so it was a chocolate banana smoothie. It was nice and creamy too because of the avocado. I highly recommend trying it!)

Do you use protein powder? If so, what kind do you like? 

Have you ever tried avocado in a smoothie?