Marathon Road Map, Day 12 (WITH CAKE)

Another day, another smoothie. I'm on day 12 of the No Meat Athlete Marathon Road Map meal plan, and my race — my third marathon — is just two days away!! I'm ready and not ready at the same time. Does that make sense?

I'd like to say I stuck to the plan all day, but that's a lie! I had an unexpected (and delicious) deviation today. But more on that in a few. My morning started with — yep — a smoothie! After a 2-mile shakeout run, my last run before the race. I'm taking Friday off to rest my legs. Today's smoothie was ugly but tasty. Banana, strawberry, almond-cashew milk, hemp protein powder, sunflower seed butter, and kale powder.

Morning snack was Veggies & Hummus. I went with carrots and celery with Trader Joe's Spicy Hummus Dip.

The meal plan calls for last night's leftovers every day for lunch. But we had our monthly staff luncheon today at work, and we were meeting up at French Truck Coffee in Crosstown Concourse. Their menu is pretty healthy, but there aren't a ton of vegan options (just a couple). One of those is the Savory Quinoa Bowl — a breakfast bowl that's served all day with quinoa, arugula, tomato, and avocado. It normally has goat cheese, but I ordered mine without that. I don't love arugula, but it's okay sometimes. It was alright in this. I would have been a little bummed about the small size of this (it would be okay at breakfast but too small for lunch), BUT ...

... WE ALSO HAD CAKE. VEGAN CAKE. Every month, we celebrate staffers' birthdays, and we have a number of vegan/vegetarian folks. This month, we had two vegetarians (one who doesn't do dairy and another who is on-again/off-again vegan), so there were TWO VEGAN CAKES from Muddy's Bake Shop. I can't turn down vegan cake, meal plan or no. I chose a slice of the Chocolate Mint Cake.

And it was so drool-worthy. I didn't realize that I'd missed sugar until I took a bite.

That said, about 15 minutes after consuming the cake, I started to feel pretty gross. I felt sluggish, and then I got a headache. I know it's just because I've been eating so well for so many days, and adding all that sugar was a shock to my system. No regrets though. It was delicious, and the bad feels passed.

I brought my afternoon snack salad to work, and eating that definitely helped with the sugar crash. Raw veggies cancel out cake hangovers, right? This simple salad had bell pepper, sprouts, green olives, and French vinaigrette.

After work, I headed straight to the St. Jude Marathon race expo to pick up my bib! I'm going back tomorrow with Paul to get his bib (he's running the 5K), but I was eager to get my stuff asap. Then I ate my dinner at home before heading to a friend's house. Tonight's meal was Sweet Potato Curry with tofu, Thai red curry paste, steamed bok choy, and brown rice. I feel like this also helped erase my cake hangover. And look at that beautiful bok choy flower!

I hadn't planned on eating anything else, but when I got to my friend Shara's house for girl's night, she'd made Vegan Zucchini Pizza Bites. These are so good, and I feel good when I eat them — lots of them. She bakes zuke slices topped with marinara, olives, mushrooms, onions, and peppers. 

I'll be back on Sunday with a full race recap! Y'all wish me luck!