Exercising and Showing off my Vegan Baking Skills

I didn't sleep well Tuesday night, and kept waking up every few hours.  No fun at all.  At some point I woke up and decided I would forgo working out to get an extra hour of sleep.  But then of course I ended up waking up again and decided I might as well just get up and work out if I wasn't going to be sleeping anyway.  Funny how your plans to be bad can get derailed so easily, isn't it? 

 

I don't really talk much about my workouts, even though they're a pretty big part of my life (at least a regular part of my life), so I thought I'd start including more discussion of them.  Especially because I'm on a constant quest to become more fit, so hopefully blogging will help me track my progress and inspire me to actually make progress rather than just sticking with the easier workouts (like my bike reading). 

 

Wednesday morning I did intervals on the treadmill for a half hour.  It wasn't a set interval plan, but went something like this: put on Macklemore's Ceiling Can't Hold Us and run at 6.0 until the song's done, then walk for a minute, then continue with this pattern with good running motivation songs until the half hour's done.  That might not sound all that impressive, but 6.0 is fast for me.  My happy jogging speed is around 5.0-5.3.  But Macklemore's a great running buddy, so it was good music to up my pace.  I think I'll keep this workout on the agenda for the future and try to keep increasing my interval speed. 

Of course exercising in the morning often means I end up running late for work, so I took the lazy route and made a chocolate banana protein shake.  Fortunately I had some leftover pasta from Tuesday's dinner to pack for lunch with no effort.  Even though it was a small portion, I knew there would be tons of baked goods to fill me up. 

 

I was so excited to share my horchata cupcakes and thin mint cookies at work because I know people are often wary of vegan desserts (or vegan anything) but they aren't likely to turn down free dessert.  It was a great opportunity to show everyone how good a vegan dessert can be! 

And these desserts didn't disappoint.  Many people commented that they wouldn't have ever known they were vegan.  I also learned that no one I work with has ever had horchata, so they're missing out on that front too ...  (It's probably my favorite drink ever.) 

 

I probably made too many of each, in fact.  But that's okay, because my boyfriend was more than happy when I came home with some leftovers!