On the home stretch

Those of you who are doing a 30 day challenge - how are things going?  What new things have you incorporated into your life and foods that you like?  Are you finding it hard to adjust or easier than you thought?  How do you look, feel, and perform?  Have you noticed any changes in your mental clarity, your athletic performance, how you feel when you wake up in the morning?


This 30 Day challenge has been the easiest its ever been for me, since now that I've consistently cleaned up what I eat I have found that when I do go super strict that the things I do miss are the occasional Paleo treat and being able to enjoy a glass of wine  - but its not so bad knowing that I can have them again soon.  I have definitely seen benefits from my clean eating so far - on Sunday Sept 12th I competed in my first Olympic Distance Triathlon (1.5K/.93m Swim, 40K/25m Bike, 10K/6.2m Run) and did great finishing with a time of 2hr 45min in the top 12% in my age group and top 12% of females in the race. The race was The Nation's Triathlon in Washington DC and we actually set a Guinness record for the most participants in an Olympic Triathlon with over 5300 athletes competing.  I felt great during the race, and was back to doing a hard crossfit workout on Tuesday.



Laura Left-Center Red Shirt, Kristin Right-Center Pink shirt



This past Sunday Sept 19th I decided to jump in and run the Philly Distance Run - Half Marathon with a friend,  Kristin, that is training for a full marathon in November.  I was taking a small leap of faith that I'd be able to run that far since the most I'd run was 8 miles 3 weeks earlier.  I had just completed the Tri and knew that I could do over 2 hours of "work" so I decided to give it a shot.  Kristin did great and turns out she would have slammed that 13.1m run on her own, I was just along for the ride :)  I was a little sore on Monday, but by Tuesday felt great again.  I really think that the combination of crossfit workouts and eating a really clean diet are the two contributing factors to helping my body repair itself so fast and push itself so often.  You don't have to do a race to notice increased recovery, anyone else noticing better recovery and performance too?  Post to comments what's going on, how you're doing, what you're having trouble with, and any new things that you want to share that others might want to try.

Keep checking out what I'm eating for ideas, the pictures have descriptions of what I'm eating:
http://picasaweb.google.com/laurapappas07/Whole30Food?authkey=Gv1sRgCM-J8P753eS34QE