Here’s what works for me – my snacks *must* contain protein in it. If not, I’m going to just end up cranky and hungry. But if my munchie contains a decent amount of protein (and fat, too), then I feel satisfied for much longer.
Do you know the word “hangry?†It’s a combination of hungry and angry. When I sense that Henry is getting hangry, I practically RUN to the fridge for a protein snack. A hangry toddler is a scary thing…
But, truthfully, a hangry Caitlin is no better!
So when I snack (usually once in the morning, after workouts, in the afternoon and after dinner, which we have pretty early), I always reach for something with protein in it. String cheese and cheese sticks are a big favorite in my household! The Sargento® Natural String Cheese variety has 8 grams of protein per serving – that’s more protein than a serving of almonds (about 23 almonds) or a hard-boiled egg.
Check out how this favorite snack stacks up against the competition:
Servings sizes: 1 cheese stick, 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, 1 ounce of almonds, 1 egg
Sargento® is my favorite brand because of all the different varieties (14 of them!), like Cheddar, Cheddar-Mozzarella, Colby-Jack, Cheddar-Jack, Pepper Jack, and more. I love them because they are portable and fast so I can stay fueled on the go. And I keep them in the bottom drawer of the fridge so Henry can easily grab them, too. The Sargento® Natural Cheese Snacks have up to 8 grams of protein per serving, so they keep you feeling satisfied and definitely not hangry!
One of my #1 healthy living tips is to keep snacks in your gym bag. You should fuel right after hard exercise, and if you leave the gym empty handed, you’ll feel that blood sugar start to crash. So I always try to keep my bag stocked with snacks. I’ll even throw a cheese stick into my bag as I head out – it survives just fine in my bag for an hour or so! These snacks are great to eat in the locker room or on the way home.
Check out our new dining room light. Fun, huh? It’s actually an IKEA light – less than $100. I originally envisioned this light in our bedroom (here’s our bedroom makeover). But I ultimately decided to keep the fan in there and decided to put this pretty chandelier in our purple dining room instead!
We broke in the new light with a pizza party!
Mmmm. Pizza.
Anyway, when we bought the house, there was this circa 1990s light in the dining room (which was also a lovely forest green). Wowza. Instead of buying a new light, we opted to spray paint it oil-rubbed bronze, which actually looked pretty nice and served as a decent placeholder for the last three years.
I got the idea to buy the IKEA Stockholm light and “hack†it into a different shape (it should be more narrow and long) thanks to this Apartment Therapy post. This is the shape of the original light.
I’m still playing around with the shape – you can pull the ‘wands’ out and move them around – but really like this one. I think it looks futuristic and I like that I’ve left it not perfectly symmetrical.
But first… I wrote an article called“10 Things I Learned After 1000 Days of Parenting†and I’d love for you guys to check it out! It’s all about how the Husband and I parent together without wanting to kill each other. Hah. All joking aside, you probably know what I’m talking about…
Now, onto those fitness questions!
Can you tell me about your hiking backpack?
Our hiking backpack is a Snugli, and I bought it on consignment when Henry was little for about $30. Sadly, I can’t find it for sale online anymore, but this one seems similar. But here’s what I like about my Snugli: it has a fold-in kickstand in the back, so you can put the baby in it on the ground and then safety put it on yourself. There are straps to keep the baby from falling out if you leaned over. And it’s pretty comfortable, even for long hikes, because it has a thick waist strap and a chest strap. The shoulder straps are super padded. The thing that I really like about it is there are a LOT of pockets – two big ones in the back and several small ones around the waist. It’s easy to carry baby + multiple water bottles, food, diapers, a change of clothes, and more. We use the hiking backpack for non-hikes, too – it’s been great in airports and on travels.
Are you still breastfeeding? How did you do that long triathlon while breastfeeding?
Easy – I pumped! I pumped in the car at 6 AM using an inverter on the way to the race. This was about an hour before the race started, and I pumped until I was totally empty. When I do hard exercise, I don’t produce much milk. My body is busy doing other things! I’ve heard people say that hard exercise reduces your supply, but honestly, that is not exactly true for me. It reduces my supply temporarily but goes back to normal when I’m done moving. Because of that, I didn’t get super uncomfortable during the race. I was working so hard for 3+ hours! I didn’t feel the need to pump again until 11:00 – 11:30 AM.
I notice you don’t run with a GPS watch. Why?
I have actually become pretty anti-technology about my workouts (save for music). I use to run religiously with a GPS watch (a Garmin) and initially loved the ability to look down and see my pace and analyze my splits after. However, when training for a big race a few years back, I ditched the GPS watch and haven’t looked back. At the time, I was running “slow†for me and looking down to see a big pace was constantly discouraging… Especially when I actually was working as hard as I could! I decided that I wanted to run based on how my body felt, not what a watch said. While I liked some aspects of the watch, it also screwed with my head and made me feel bad about workouts that I should’ve been proud of. Remember – if you’re running, you’re lapping everyone on the couch! The bottom line is that you don’t *need* a watch to train for a race, and it’s kind of freeing to run without it.
I did 3 dark miles this morning – I am still sore from Sunday! Ouch.
Today’s Question: Do you use technology like a GPS watch for your workouts? Why or why not?
I originally did Lake Logan International back in 2011. At the time, it was one of my strongest triathlons to date, and I was in love with the course. It’s a truly beautiful triathlon in the Pisgah National Forest, and since it’s in a valley in the mountains, the weather for the race is always cool. I always said I wanted to go back and do Lake Logan again, but life got in the way until now!
I was nervous in the weeks leading up to the race. As I wrote before, I felt like I hadn’t trained hard enough, especially when it comes to the bike. But as race day approached, I started to calm down and feel pretty darn excited. By the time Brandi and I started to lay out our gear in the hotel room on Saturday night, I was downright giddy!
This was Brandi’s longest triathlon ever (she’s done a lot of sprints) so we decided to go to the course on Saturday night for the optional race meeting so we could scope things out and calm any last-minute nerves. At the race site, I met up with my buddy Megan from Orlando! If you’ve been reading for a while, you may remember Megan. She lives in DC now. I was so pumped to see her. This was also Megan’s longest triathlon, but she’s in the process of training for Ironman 70.3 in Miami.
I REALLY lucked out with the BEST TRANSITION SPOT humanely possible. Seriously – my rack spot was on the outside of the first lane, right next to the bike in and bike out. Wahoo! After familiarizing ourselves with transition, we headed back to our B&B and got in bed by 8:45. We had an early wake-up call!
When my alarm went off, I rolled out of bed, put on my clothes, and was ready to go. Out the door in 8 minutes – no joke!
We drove to the race start in the dark, and just as the sun started to come up, we got our chips, got body marked, and set up transition.
So – funny story. I belong to an awesome triathlon Facebook group called Tri-Fecta. One day, someone alerted me to the fact that, in the group, a person had posted a transition meme of the “You’re doing it wrong†variety. The meme was a picture of me sitting down in transition and tying my shoes! Although being turned into a meme for your shitty transitions is NOT what a triathlete aspires to, I actually found it pretty funny (hey, this is an accepted risk of blogging, right?). But I will admit that being turned into a meme for my crap transitions has made me reeeally want to be better at transitions (and with some effort, I have definitely improved).
Thus, my goals for this race were:
Not to suck at transitions!
Swim strong but steady. No rushing.
Bike slow. Just survive it because I wasn’t trained for 24 miles.
Run balls to the wall, as fast as I could.
Before I knew it, it was time to start!
SWIM: I was really glad that I wore a wetsuit for this race. I did not wear a wetsuit in 2011 because wetsuits made me panicky back then, but now, I am more comfortable than ever in open water. My plan of attack for the swim was, like I said, to go steady and not rush myself. I focused on getting into a groove and concentrated on keeping great form. Before I knew it, I was passing under the bridge and approaching the deck, which I pulled myself onto and ran into transition.
BIKE: I did a pretty good job of transitioning quickly and getting onto the bike. The course was rolling hills save for a big steep hill at the beginning and end. I was passed by a million people (okay, maybe 40?), but that’s pretty typically for me on ANY triathlon, let alone one that I am undertrained on the bike. The bike course is BEAUTIFUL (lots of farms and animals). I tried to just focus on being happy to be on my bike and not worry about my pace.
However, the entire time I was on the bike, I wondered where Megan and Brandi were – I knew that I had exited the swim before them, but both are WAY faster than me on the bike normally, so I expected them to catch and pass me. When neither did, I got a little worried!
RUN: T2 was super fast. As I exited transition, I ran by Brandi and Megan coming in – turns out they were just a few minutes behind me. Now, the run course at Lake Logan is super hard. The first 5K is straight uphill, which can be pretty demoralizing if you don’t know it’s coming. I remembered this from 2011 so it was no biggie. I knew that I’d had 3.1 miles of downhill to make up for the energy I lost going up, and I put the pedal to the metal and began to pass, pass, pass people.
I passed a whopping THIRTY SIX PEOPLE on the run (yes, I counted). Those were all people who probably crushed me on the bike, so that felt pretty good! Hah. I tried to turn my mind off as much as possible and just give into the physical discomfort. I have realized that this is my favorite part of a hard race – getting myself to the edge of my abilities and staying there. Maybe that sounds weird, but I think that’s why I get such a rush when I finally cross the finish line.
My times:
1500 Meter Swim: 28:55
T1: 3:59
24 Mile Bike: 1:35:07
T2: 1:44
10K Run: 57:30
Total: 3:07:03
Just to compare, here’s 2011 result. The upshot is that I was about 5 minutes faster this year because I was way faster in the swim (probably helped a bit by that wetsuit) and a lot slower on the bike.
Swim: 38:08
T1: 3:21
Bike: 1:29:39
T2: 3:02
Run: 57:44
Total: 3:11:53
My trisuit is C/O MooMotion and is super comfy. Highly recommend!
I was the first of my friends to cross, but Megan was shortly behind me (and won the female novice division!) and Brandi right behind her. Everyone was *super* pleased with their results, which is always fun! We were all immediately talking about doing the race again next year…
Oh, and I got to meet my blog friend Adrienne, who totally killed it. She is tall and I am short, so we tried to come down and up to each other’s levels for this picture. Hah!
And I have to say that I am pretty thrilled that I overall improved my pre-babies, mid-twenties time from 2011. I *know* it’s not true, but it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your physical abilities to go crap as you get older and when you have kiddos, especially while they are young. This race reminded me that it’s very important for me to make the mental and logistical space for my favorite activity because I really, really love racing.
This weekend was the big RACE WEEKEND for Brandi and me! After training and planning for months and months, we were super excited to tackle the International triathlon distance (1 mile swim, 24 mile bike, and a 10K/6.2 mile run). The race was in beautiful Asheville, which is about 2.5 hours west of Charlotte. I have been to Asheville numerous times, but I think this trip really showed me how much Asheville has to offer.
Asheville is an amazing vacation destination – there’s so much to do. It’s well-known in the region for its food, outdoor sports, cute downtown, and other offbeat elements. I worked with the Asheville tourism board to bring you a summary of just a few of the cool activities. Here we go!
Brandi and I left Charlotte at 6:30 AM on Saturday morning and drove directly to the Adventure Center of Asheville for some ZIPLINING.
There were three things that I really liked about the Adventure Center of Asheville. First, it was very close to downtown Asheville. There are a ton of outdoor activities around Asheville, but some of them are located an hour or so away, deeper in the mountains. That’s great, but if you’re there for a short weekend, it’s nice to have something like the Adventure Center of Asheville super close by.
Second of all, I can’t say enough great things about out guides. They were SO funny and nice. I was a little nervous about ziplining, but I could tell they were very experienced and safe.
Third, the Adventure Center of Asheville has a really cool obstacle course/zip line park that kids (and adults) of all ages can participate in! I have never seen something like this that younger kids could do – and the obstacles were WAY cool. We have something similar in Charlotte (at the Whitewater Center), but this really blew the WWC out of the water. I would *love* to bring Henry back when he’s older – I know he’d be super into this obstacle course.
Actually, this trip got me really excited for the “big kid†stage in general because there were so many family-friendly activities in Asheville.
And after lunch, we checked into the cutest little B&B called the Applewood Manor Inn. There are so many great places to stay in Asheville but this 5-star B&B is truly a gem.
Built in the early 1900s, it’s a 7-bedroom house with a wonderful husband and wife innkeeper team. I can’t say enough great things about Nancy (and if you read reviews, I’m not the only one!). She woke up at 5AM to give us coffee before we left for our race (!) and packed us breakfasts to go (granola, yogurt and gluten-free muffins) since we were going to miss breakfast. How awesome is that?
Alright – I bet you’re wondering how our triathlon went. Well, it was awesome! I worried about this race so much (you can’t screw around with an Olympic distance tri, can you?). I’ve had a very busy past few months and it’s been hard to squeeze in training… but I somehow busted out a great race. Wahoo. I’ll recap it for you tomorrow.
Have you been to Asheville before? What did you do?
