Hope you all had a great 4th of July!  I had a really fantastic weekend.  Started it off by getting my long run out of the way on Saturday rather than waiting until Sunday morning.  We ran 18 miles and thanks to the incredibly cool temperatures early in the morning, we had a fantastic run.  All went really well.  although I did have stomach issues (had to stop at the bathroom twice) for the second week in a row.  I'm getting a little concerned about it.  It has to be something I'm eating.  The issues begin as soon as the run starts and doesn't go away until the next day.  Basically, the rest of the day on Saturday, I didn't stray far from home.  Fortunately, by the time we had a party to go to at 7:00, I was starting to get some relief.  Although I still couldn't eat.  Same thing happened last week.  The common denominator was that the night before both runs (poor choice of words), I had plain white pasta.  And on Friday this week, I had quite a bit of bread (small pita rounds my husband and I were dipping in hummus) which I don't normally eat.  I've no clue what is going on.  But I wont be having pasta before a run any time soon!

The party Saturday night was really great.  A neighborhood bash with about 120 people there and no less then a million kids.  They put off a great fireworks show too.  Then on Sunday, we had another BBQ to attend with more fireworks.  My boys had the best weekend ever and as a result, slept until 10:00am yesterday!  I don't think my 7-year-old has ever slept until 10:00 in his entire life!

I took Monday off because my husband was home and we all just felt like chillin' but this morning, it was back to the routine!  Got a good 5 miles in and I'll be leaving for Body Pump in about 30 minutes. 

After my run this morning, I was excited to try out a new product in my smoothie.  At Wegmans this weekend, I had about 5 different types of cacao powder in my hands stressing about which would be the best one.  I ended up purchasing the one pictured.  Then yesterday, I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Kristen's Raw, and saw that she swears by the stuff...even has it listed on her other blog, Green Mommy Blog in the store Woot! Confirmation that I made the right choice (yes, I know I shouldn't believe everything I read but I really love this woman's blogs and I choose to believe her so there.)!  The results:  the most unflavorful smoothie ever.  I bought the cacao powder so that I wouldn't have to put the dreaded chocolate syrup in my banana peanut butter chocolate smoothies that I love after a run and while I think the powder is going to be good, I can't quite figure out what went wrong.  I put a cup of almond milk, 1 banana, 2 tablespoons of cacao powder and a cup of ice in the vitamix.  After a few seconds, it kind of locked up on me (which I find odd because there wasn't peanut butter in this one) so I added a bit of water.  Then had to add more and more water just to keep it blending.  Once it was done, it was still really chunky.  I tasted it and it tasted like slushy water!  What the hell??  So maybe I need more almond milk?  Less ice?  I ended up dumping it out.  Totally annoying.   I'm not giving up though!  I know eventually, I can replicate Starbucks Vivanno drink perfectly!