I was excited to do mile-repeats on the track this morning since I didn’t make it out for a run yesterday. Plus, I had wanted to do mile repeats on Monday morning, but my plantar fascia was bothering me, so I just ran a few easy miles.

Once again I didn’t sleep very well last night, but I wasn’t tired when my alarm went off at 5 a.m. this morning, thankfully. I got up, quickly dressed, and ran to the track. (It is so nice living near a track!)

Workout

Warm-up: 2 miles

4 x Mile-repeats:

#1 ~ 7:43

#2 ~ 7:29

#3 ~ 7:14

#4 ~ 7:00

Cool-down: 2 miles

I didn’t mean to do negative splits (running each one faster). I would have rather had my times be more consistent, but I suppose this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I was planning on running only 3 repeats, but since the first one was so slow, I tacked on a 4th one. I felt good and my legs felt really fresh (probably since I didn’t run yesterday). It was nice to get out on the track and do some “speed”ish running.

Breakfast

For breakfast, I enjoyed a cool bowl of:

- Nancy’s Lowfast Plain Yogurt

- chia seeds

- unsweetened shredded coconut

- Quaker Oat Squares

- frozen blueberries

- almond butter

- agave nectar

Lunch

Lunch was a modge podge of different foods.

Salmon Chowder from the freezer.

Tastes just as good as when I first made it.

A piece of bread to go with the soup. It would have been nice to have some “fancy” bakery bread, but this is what we had in the house–oh well.

A juicy nectarine.

Roasted chickpeas–Pumpkin Spice Roasted Chickpeas (I ate about 1/3 of the container.)

I’ve been wanting to roast chickpeas for a while now and finally took the time to find a recipe and do it!! Isn’t that always the hardest part?

Through a variety of blogs, I tracked down this recipe for Pumpkin Spice Roasted Chickpeas from Peas and Thanks You.

Pumpkin Spice Roasted Chickpeas

Ingredients:

1 can of chickpeas, rinsed, drained and patted dry

2 T. maple syrup

1 t. canola oil (or oil of your choice)

1 t. apple cider vinegar

1/8 t. salt

1/4 t. nutmeg

1/4 t. ginger

3/4 t. cinnamon

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.  Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl until evenly coated.

Spread chickpeas on a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray.

Bake for 25 minutes.  Stir chickpeas every ten minutes to ensure even crisping.

I was very happy with how these guys turned out! I wasn’t quite sure that I wanted to make a sweet version, but it seemed like it was worth a try. I ended up eating them plain for lunch. I would have liked to use them as a topper on a salad, but we didn’t have any lettuce in the house. They were great plain though! Sweet and full of a cinnamon flavor–almost like honey-roasted peanuts. I sometimes struggle to find good protein sources since I don’t eat a lot of meat, so this is a great option for me.

Question

How do you deal with a extremely busy schedule?

I like to make a lot of lists to help me stay organized.