Plant Powered Coach

 

Since my last update, I was honored to be asked to be a Triathlon Coach for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Georgia Team in Training Summer Team. I'm so thrilled - having coached for TNT in TN in 2009 and just finished Ironman 2011 raising money for LLS it's great to be coaching for GA. As most people know, this is a volunteer position so I'm balancing my full time job, family and coaching. It's been great. It's so thrilling to watch people you coach make strides! I helped coach a swim clinic Tuesday night and to watch the group from the beginning of the clinic and see their improvements by the end of the 3 hour clinic, it was amazing. I was jumping up and down on the side of the pool with joy!

My workouts have been going well. I was wondering how my nutrition changes would impact my training and so far, no problem. I've felt better than normal and have been sleeping great. What have I been eating? Tons of vegetables as you would think. Mostly mixed with brown rice and some sauce. I have made some energy bars with beans, agave nectar, peanut butter and oats and that's what I've had when I'm in a pinch for time. Still mainly steel cut oats for breakfast, lunch is usually a veggie burger with roasted vegetables on top and dinner has been a variety of things really, udon noodles, rices, tempeh and/or faux meat.

 Picture is my Dinner tonight: Trader Joe (TJ) Brown Rice, TJ Stir Fry Veggies, Field Roast Grain Mexican Chipotle crumbled. Cheap, easy, delicious and FAST!

I've eaten at a few restaurants here that have been vegan friendly. By my work there is Broadway Cafe and that is REALLY good. I've also tried the tofu scramble with mushrooms and peppers at Flying Biscuit and then last night we had dinner at Green Sprout and I had Kung Pao "Chicken'". Green Sprout is Vegetarian so they have almost every Chinese type dish just made with soy 'meat' or Tofu. Brad has been a trouper, he tried the General Tso "Chicken" and seemed to like it. The last time that I had been to Green Sprout I was with my friend Paige and we had made a pact that we were going to sign up for Ironman Arizona. That was our serious lunch where we were doing all of the pros/cons of signing up and deciding if we were serious or not about doing the race. I'd say we were - I did IMAZ in 2011, Paige didn't get in as she kept getting bumped out of the sign up and it closed in 10 minutes. Not one to let that stop her, she signed up for Ironman CDA 2012 which is in June (I'm volunteering for the race so I can help cheer her on up close). 

This week I'm looking forward to keeping the intensity up on workouts and exploring more vegan options for food! My workout song last week that kept me pumped was Usher, You Don't Have to Call. I hadn't listened to it in ages and it really got me pumped up for a few runs so we'll see what I dig up from the past this week. I'm still on Chris Brown's Beautiful People too.