I'm in love!

With biking, that is. My shins and calves have been yelling at me for the past week or so from all the race training I've been doing, so I decided to give them a break from high impact road running by taking my mountain bike out for a spin. And oh boy, was it wonderful.

While I have always enjoyed a nice leisurely bike ride, and have frequently used the bike machines at the gym when the treadmill wasn't cutting it, before today I had never gone for a bike ride purely for exercise. I ended up riding about ten miles in 55-ish minutes, and loved every minute of it. There's something about going fast with the wind in your face that brings out my inner 8 year old. I had a huge grin on my face the whole time, and when I got back home I felt utterly exhilarated.

The other great thing about biking is you have too much fun to realizing that you're working your butt off. When I approach hills on my runs, inside I'm thinking 'why do I do this to myself?' Today I attacked hills. It was great. When I got inside to get myself a glass of water, I realized that I was dripping in sweat. Nothing better than working up a huge sweat and loving every minute of it. Needless to say, I will be incorporating bike rides into my exercise routine in a big way.

The only downside - my butt is KILLING ME. Hopefully my bum recovers soon!

Foodwise, my day was equally fantastic! After my ride, I downed a glorious green monster. My brother was disgusted, but I just pity him for being unaware of their amazingness. Work flew by with some help from Chobani greek yogurt (I like to cut the flavors in half with plain, otherwise it's too sweet for me), hummus and pita, and a banana. To be honest, all I was thinking about at work was dinner, because today was the day I finally tried a veggie burger.

I've been doing my research on these babies, because I didn't want to turn myself off to the idea of veggie burgers by picking a yucky one. I finally settled on Amy's Texas veggie burgers, and they are DELICIOUS. I toasted a slice of Ezekiel bread, smeared on a teeny bit of hummus, then added tomato, lettuce, avocado, and my yummy burger.

I don't know that I will ever go fully vegetarian, but I am going to try to see how much I can alter my meat intake by substituting foods like Amy's burgers. I really admire people who are able to cut meat out of their lives for good, for health, environmental, or cruelty free reasons. I'll see how it goes!