This morning, I woke up for a training session with Joel. Per usual, he kicked my ass. We did a lot of lower body work and then he had me jump rope for a few minutes.

Jump roping is one of those things that doesn’t sound so hard until you do it for a few minutes straight. Your heart rate goes through the roof! (I wasn’t wearing my heart rate monitor, but I did feel my heart trying to jump out of my chest. So there’s that.) 

I had half a Kardea bar before my workout and half after. Kardea bars—which were sent to me by the company for review (they asked on Twitter if anyone wanted to review and I jumped at the chance…as did a bunch of other bloggers)—are pretty similar in taste and ingredients to my newfound love, Larabars, but their shtick is that they market them for cholesterol management. After doing a radio interview and  eating the second half of the bar, I jumped on my bike for a 14-mile ride. 

I love New York for a variety of reasons, but one of them is all the fun stuff there is to do—much of it for free. Today, the city closed down Park Ave. so that cyclists and runners could ride and run through the city. The path on the West Side Highway is great, but it is PACKED on the weekends, which makes biking difficult. I’m not so much a fan of the East River path. So a devoted path for runners/cyclists through the city was pretty cool.

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I rode from my apartment in the Financial District all the way up to 59th Street and back—about 14 miles! There were all kinds of rest stops along the way with bike repair services and water, etc. I stopped around 24th Street to check out some of the tents. I was a little lightheaded when I got off my bike—my breakfast wasn’t really enough fuel for two workouts, but I was afraid of my stomach bothering me. When I saw an Odwalla tent, I made a beeline for one of these Vitamin C smoothies. With 320 calories and 60g of sugar for one bottle, I wouldn’t ordinarily have one of these, but long workouts require more fuel.

When I got back, I hit up the farmer’s market and bought a bunch of food. (Finally, right?) I made a Pump-esque bowl with:

• spinach
• 1/2 sweet potato
• bok choy 
• grape tomatoes
• a chicken patty
• brown rice
• guacamole

Sort of a lot of ingredients for me, but the longest cooking time was for the sweet potato, which I microwaved while walking Bailey. The brown rice and chicken patty were also microwaved, and the spinach and bok choy took about a minute to sautee with a bit of coconut butter. An easy, healthy lunch.