Today’s Run: 7.1 miles, s-l-o-w

I usually have a really hard time running recovery pace…it just feels so slow! But after two hard workouts yesterday, I knew that my legs needed a break, so I focused on keeping it easy.

“Wait, two hard workouts? But you only talked about hills yesterday.” Right. But my friend Jaylin (my running inspiration) saw this post, where I sang the praises of Carly from The Body Firm, and she suggested that I try Carly’s Wednesday night class, Core and Tabata. And I’m glad she did!

 (This is The Body Firm‘s picture, not mine, and I think it’s from the Friday tabata class. But you get the idea.)

If you’re not familiar with tabatas, here’s how they work: you work as hard as possible for 20 seconds and “rest” for 10, repeating that cycle for four minutes. Each four-minute set is called a tabata. Last night, all the moves were on a bosu, which meant our cores had to work the whole time. We did 20 seconds of push-ups with a 10-second plank, then 20 seconds of plyo mountain climbers with a 10-second plank. We did those two sets for four minutes, and that was tabata one. The second tabata was 20 seconds of lunges with a 10-second rest (so we could switch legs), then 20 seconds of football runs with a 10-second squat.

I was dripping sweat by the end of the first tabata. I don’t mean that hyperbolically. The bottom of my bosu looked like a little pond. And by the end of the workout, this was all of us:

(source)

 It was awesome. We did each tabata three times, so in a mere 24 minutes, we got a total-body, strength-and-cardio workout that was a real butt-kicker. Definitely try tabatas–especially if you’re short on time to work out!

When I got home, J asked me if my ciabatta class was delicious. Maybe he thought I was training to do this:

Speaking of ciabatta, let’s talk about bread. If you’ve perused the bread aisle lately, you’ve probably noticed that a lot of bread is not so healthy. Even the breads whose labels look healthy – proclaiming things like whole grain! heart healthy! – list about 9 billion ingredients, including high fructose corn syrup and a bunch of weird preservatives that most of us can’t pronounce.

Of course, not every bread is unhealthy – some of my favorite healthy breads are Food for Life, Rudi’s, and Udi’s – but none of those are available here. And if you can’t eat gluten, your options are even more limited. So what’s a sandwich-loving girl to do?

Eat collards, that’s what.

These giant green leaves are ideal for making wraps. Just wash one and leave it a little wet, microwave it for 20-30 seconds, hack off the stem, and fill the leaf with your favorite sandwich fillings.

Does it taste like bread? No. Don’t be ridiculous. But it tastes good, it’s healthy, and you can pick it up and eat it sandwich-style. So that’s a win, in my book.

It’s like a little present. Surprise! It’s a turkey burger!

If you don’t like or can’t find collards, red-leaf lettuce works well, too.

 

Have you ever done a tabata workout? If not, do you want to now?

Favorite sandwich fillings?