I ended up taking another rest day on Wednesday. I was working the front desk at the new gym last night and watching everyone do the CrossFit workout (running, box jumps and wall balls) and I just couldn’t motivate myself to jump in to the last class of the evening. I feared that if I attempted to box jump it would end up more of a box face plant given the soreness in my quads. I rolled around groaning on the foam roller instead and then came home and cooked dinner.

I cooked green lentils and quinoa together with water and vegetable broth and topped it with a little feta. I sautéed a Trader Joe’s salmon burger and some squash and onions.

I had a really productive morning. I stopped for breakfast and coffee around 8:30 and had a peach and some toast. I love South Carolina peaches. So big and sweet!

I think the extra rest day helped because I woke up feeling much better overall. I went for a run before lunch and it felt easy and good (well, as easy and good as running in 85 degree weather can feel). Without trying my average pace was a lot faster than my Monday run.

Lunch is brought to you by the color orange! Arugula blend, broccoli slaw, sweet potato, yellow tomatoes, pecans, dried cranberries and feta with honey balsamic. If you want to know how to make a salad filling, top it with sweet potato. This one had staying power.

I’m on a protein smoothie for snack kick this week. I made a chocolate peanut butter and banana shake this afternoon at work. Several months ago I ordered some Metabolic Nutrition Protizyme protein powder and a rep from the company offered to send me all of the flavors to try. Honestly, I don’t use protein powder often but I like this product. It’s medical grade and doesn’t have any artificial sweeteners. I’ve tried the vanilla, chocolate and banana so far. I also have a peanut butter cookie sample that I’ve yet to try and I hear it’s pretty amazing. I’ll let ya know what I think!

I’m so spoiled at the gym because we have a Vitamix. It puts my home blender that won’t even crush ice cubes to shame! I like to bring my shake ingredients to work so I can use the fancy blender. 😉

I trained a client this afternoon before heading to the Y to teach BodyPump. I am starting to train clients again after taking a break when I transitioned to Metro and I am really enjoying it. I put up a Personal Training page on the blog so check it out if you’re interested!

I’m too lazy to go get my memory card and edit the picture of my dinner tonight (it was a grilled cheese with tomato) but here is a picture I took on my phone of a rainbow when I was leaving the Y!

And here is a little end of the week reading for you. Check out this beautifully written post from ashtanga yoga teacher Kino Macgregor on training the mind to see the abundance of greatness in our lives.

“If you want to be a truly great person you have to master not just the attainment of material success and accomplishment, but the enlightened perspective to remain non-attached and peaceful when it is time to let it all go.”