What I Ate Before and After the Marathon and Low Fat Red Velvet Cupcakes

I was feeling a little guilty for not posting what I had planned yesterday. I like to see what everyone eats (I’m nosy like that) so here’s a quick peak into what I ate before and after my marathon Sunday.

Ready?

My go-to pre-race meal is always the same: whole wheat pasta with marinara sauce. This time I mixed in some broccoli, mushrooms, onion and tomatoes into the sauce and topped it with a little fat free feta. You know I love my spice, but after my little incident with America’s Finest City Half Marathon, I try to lay off the crushed red pepper the night before a big race. Ha ha.

Dessert was this. Smallest dessert I’ve ever had (yes, that’s a bite size one, not the fun size, even smaller- just silly). I was trying to play it safe and I knew I would have my fair share after the race.

Pre-race breakfast for marathons is a banana and Naturally More sandwich on my favorite bread made in my sandwich maker with a mocha. If I’m only running a half I ditch the one slice of bread or forgo the bread and just go with a banana and peanut butter. This time I added some chia sprinkles to the inside of my sandwich (because I have this newly found chia addiction thanks to GNC).

I blame Grandma D’s driving for the bad photo (or the fact that it was 5:00 am and I was not feeling well). Since my stomach was already hurting I couldn’t even finish my mocha or that banana half. I gave the banana to Grandma D as as “thank you for getting up at the crack of dawn to drive me to my race” gift.

Along the way during the race I had a packet of watermelon GU Chomps at mile 13 and then a GU gel Octane blueberry pomegranate flavor around mile 21. Sorry no pictures.That would have just been silly to stop and take a picture during the race.

At the aid stations they offer a lot of electrolyte drinks, but my stomach doesn’t really like too much of that while I’m running. When I’m doing long training runs on my own I always drink Ultima, but during races I usually go for water with my GU.

After the race the family went out to breakfast at Centre City Café here in town. I ordered egg whites and turkey sausage and I traded a sausage patty for a scoop of the boys’ hash browns. 

Oh and they just happen to come with a huge Belgian waffle.

I ate 3/4 of it with a mix of sugar free syrup and the real warm maple good stuff. Best waffle I’ve ever had. Well, you know, that wasn’t green and all.

Later in the day I snacked on a few Trader Joe’s honey wheat pretzels and had one of these protein bars.

Side note on these bars. I found them at Costco and got them because they’re around 200 calories and have very little sugar. They’re okay. Not the best. The best by far are Supreme Protein bars (I order those frequently from All Star Health for the best price), but these do the trick.

Now dinner……. you’ve seen it before since I eat it pretty much after every race. I had to snap this picture really quick because Andrew (and an episode of The Office) was waiting for me in the other room. Antipasto salad (I don’t eat any of the meat) with this dressing and two ginormous slices of vegetarian pizza from our favorite local pizza place Filippi’s.

Oh, and wine of course.

Thank you Costco for carrying this wine and selling it for $7.99 a bottle.

Dessert was this ice cream

with one of these low fat red velvet cupcakes the boys talked me into making earlier in the afternoon.

It looked a little like this.

Yep. That’s a post marathon dessert all right.

Wait, what? You want to know more about the cupcakes?

Alright.

First of all, it wasn’t my idea. I wanted to rest. These guys wanted to make another version of low fat boxed cupcakes.

And a certain someone wanted to help of course.

We used our Easiest Boxed Cake Recipe trick, but this time subbed in some pumpkin instead of the applesauce.

I have to admit I was pretty impressed with how they came out. I’ll also just go ahead and speak for Andrew and the boys also, because they way we went through those cupcakes I think they were impressed too.

Here you go:

Best Low Fat Boxed Red Velvet Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 box red velvet cake mix

1 cup egg substitute

1/2 cup pumpkin

1 cup water

Follow box directions using the cake mix and the above ingredients.

They don’t come out crumbly at all like other low fat versions. They are spongy and moist and well, just awesome.

They’re even great without the frosting, but sometimes you just have to go all out and put the jarred stuff on there.

There you go!

Now I need some Flat Kitty Friday pictures for our Flat Kitty peanut butter par-tay tomorrow. Email me or post your pictures on my Facebook page with a link or recipe or whatever you want to share!!! Anything peanut buttery. Recipe, favorite treat, favorite way to eat peanut butter, favorite brand, whatever your heart desires.

Email me if you need me to send you a Flat Kitty as well. You’ll just have to cut him out yourself! 

Have a great day!

We’re making another video today. Yippee!