Book Review x 2

Lets get the good stuff out of the way... and by good stuff I mean my eats and workout :)

EATS
Most of these were the same as the past few days...

Breakfast- GF Tasty Hot Cereal 
Lunch- Lasagna + Smoothie + Iced Mango Peach Tea
Dinner- Lasagna, yes I had it twice today.  Not only because it is so good, but because when I got home from the event I was working tonight I wanted to eat my arm off because I hadn't eaten in 8 HOURS!  I eat like every 3 hours, if not more frequently so my body wasn't willing to wait for this girl to make something.
Snack- After seeing Meghann make on of Tina's 3 minute cookies, I decided I needed to try it and I love sweets so it didn't take much to convince me to make something as simple as this

Pre-mic

Post-mic

Mine did not exactly turn out like the other ladies, I did something goofy.  However, I was pleasantly surprised!  Instead of it being like a cookie, mine was more like a pannekoeken!  Like I said I was pleasantly surprised, I wish I could tell you what I did to make it like this, but I have no idea.


WORKOUT
My body was pretty sore today, so I didn't try out the P90X instead I went to the gym and took it a little easier...

• 2 miles @ 8:20 pace... This is way faster than my 1/2 marathon pace (9:30/mile), but I'm trying to increase my pace so I guess this is a start :)  The primary purpose of running these two miles was to ease into running 4 days a week and up my weekly mileage a little since I am banking on signing up for a 1/2 or full marathon soon.  
• 10 minutes biking... I got bored real quick, so I wasn't on very long
• 20 minutes of shooting hoops
• 20 minutes lifting weights... same routine as last time

BOOK REVIEWS

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For those of you who do not know, I love the city of New Orleans!  It has a soft spot in my heart for a number of reasons: 1.) I've visited there twice and love both trips! 2.) My boyfriend used to live and teach down there and his love sparked my love for the city. 3.) The Hurrican Katrina tragedy broke my heart and to hear stories from my boyfriend, since he was down there right after the storm to help out while he taught, and read about stories of individuals and families it breaks my heart.  Both times I was down there the people were the kindest of kind.  Although I am from Wisconsin and the Packers are my favorite team, I have grown to love the Saints as well.  I have never been to an athletic event that was more fun and full of energy than the Saints game I went to in the Super Dome this past December!

Anyway, I could go on for ages about how much I love that city, but the real reason I tell you that is because that is what drew me to this book.  Home Team is a book that talks about the hope, renewal and survival of not only the Saints team, but the city of New Orleans.  This book shows the real character in the Saints players that we don't always hear about or see in professional athletes.  Although a good chunk of the end of this book is about the Saints Super Bowl win, the majority of the book tells about struggles and choices that Sean Payton and his team have had to deal with and how he learned from them and became motivated by them.  I truly think is an inspirational book and I would hope that all of you, whether you have the passion that I have for that city and that team, would love it as well! If you have read it or do read it in the future, let me know what you think!

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Now on the totally opposite end of the spectrum for me was What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.  Now going into this book I did not really know anything about it, but I know it was talked about quite highly by some people I know as well as by some of the bloggers I follow.  But, unfortunately for me, this was not a book that tricked my trigger.  I'm not sure what I expected, but I know it was not a ramble.  To me I never could quite figure out where this book was going, what the point of writing and publishing this book was.  Maybe I missed it (if I did please help me out), I wouldn't be overly surprised by that ;-) Anyway, I actually read to page 102 of 180 hoping that it would miraculously spark my interest, but it never did.  I even skipped to the end to see if maybe something back there would hint to me what this book was about, but I just wasn't havin' it.  Despite the fact that this book did not entertain me, there were some interesting pieces in it, for example:

"Human beings naturally continue doing things they like, and they don't continue what they don't like... That's why I've never recommend running to others.. If they're not interested, no amount of persuasion will make any difference."

"Muscles are hard to get and easy to lose. Fat is easy to get and hard to lose. A painful reality, but a reality all the same."

Don't take my word on these books though, try them out for yourself, but be sure to let me know what you thought of them :-)