January Mileage + Road Trip Snacks

This post will be short and sweet, as I am about to hit the road to Dallas for Sarah's wedding. But it is mainly to hold myself accountable for the miles that I hope to run before the year is over.

By the way, is anyone else having a hard time believing that January is already over? Where in the world has the time gone? I know they say the spring semester moves much slower than the fall, but I'm honestly having a hard time believing that. I'm sure things will slow down once the dreaded STAAR test is over and done with, but for now, I feel as though things are moving 100 miles/minute!

Workout

I thought about leaving for Dallas yesterday. But I just couldn't justify missing a day of school with just TWO months (yikes) left until the STAAR test. That, and getting a sub is often more work than just showing up to school. And leaving Friday after school would have put me in more traffic than I was probably willing to put up with, so leaving early today was truly my best option. And I knew that between driving home from Dallas after what should be a fun wedding weekend, and Super Bowl Sunday, a workout probably won't be happening. So I am happy that I was able to log a couple of miles this morning before leaving.

So, I went to sleep nice and early last night, with the intent of waking up early to get my run out of the way so that I would be sure to have enough time to get all of my belongings together for a night in Dallas. I woke up around 7:30am and went for my usual 5.2 mile run around my neighborhood, a little faster than usual this time. As much as I loved the warmer temperatures this week, the cooler weather is ideal for running, especially in the morning. So, it felt great to stretch my legs a bit before sitting in the car for over four hours.

January Mileage

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this is mainly to hold myself accountable for the miles that I told myself (and Amira) I would run. If I make myself report my mileage on the blog each month, then hopefully I won't check in with something low like 25 miles, because that certainly won't see me hitting my goal of 1007.5 miles. So, the total number of miles that I ran in January is ... drumroll, please ...

113.3 miles

That's a bit more than the number of miles I hope to hit each month (84), but I am glad to be starting out ahead, rather than in the hole. Because it's inevitable during those summer months, as well as volleyball season, that I will fall behind a little bit. So I may as well build up the mileage while I have the chance.

Road Trip Snacks

Because I am going to be in the car for around 10 hours (ugh) this weekend, I made the conscious decision to be smart about my road trip snacks, so that I wouldn't be tempted to stop at McDonald's or the first place I saw on the side of the road when my stomach was twisting with hunger. Not that McDonald's doesn't have any redeeming qualities, because it does. But fast food combined with long periods of sitting doesn't always sit well in my stomach. In order to remedy that, I made sure that my car was stocked full of healthy snacks, that are easy to eat while driving, of course.

We have:

• Cuties
• Mini Honeycrisp Apples
• No Bake Energy Bites*
• Luna Minis
• Grapes

And of course, a CamelBak filled with water, plus a few additional water bottles as well. Can't be getting dehydrated now, can we?

Granted, I don't plan on eating all of these snacks in one sitting, rather, I hope to spread them out throughout the course of my trip. Failing to plan is planning to fail, so this list is exactly how I plan to avoid that. Other great snacks would be nuts of any kind (a great chip replacement), as well as carrot and celery sticks (but because I prefer to pair those two snacks with hummus, I'm leaving them at home this round).

*I believe I have put a similar, or maybe this exact, recipe on the before, but because I know it has been awhile (I promise that one of these days I will get my blog organized by pages and tags and I don't know, maybe update my age?), so I'll post it again for you guys. These recipes are all over the Internet, so I'm just joining the ranks of many, many others, and many, many variations. 

*No Bake Energy Bites

Ingredients:

• 1 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (I have tried making these with almond butter, and they just don't hold as well)
• 1/2 cup coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1 tbsp. chia seeds
• 1 tbsp. flax seed
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• Pinch of cinnamon

Directions:
1. Combine all ingredients into a large bowl and stir.

2. Place bowl in the refrigerator and let chill for at least half an hour.
3. Remove from refrigerator and roll into little balls - you can make these as big or as small as you would like.
4. Store balls in an airtight container kept in the refrigerator for up to one week (if they last that long).
5. Enjoy!

To me, these things always taste more like dessert than something healthy. But isn't that the ultimate goal? These are perfect to pop before a workout, and they're absolutely acceptable to eat just because. The oats provide some healthy carbs, the peanut butter some healthy protein, and the chocolate, well, what's a day without chocolate?


I hope you guys enjoy your weekend. See you for Survey Sunday!