Sweet tooth

I'm going to keep you (and me) up to date on my workouts and nutrition during this year of training and racing. I'd love to get any feedback you have on either topics, so please leave a note and I'll be sure to read it! My dad gave me an awesome looking food guide for marathoners (soon-to-be me - I hope!) and I'm really looking forward to reading it and learning more about fueling my body and feeding it good things that will help it move faster and better.

Run: I did five miles this morning - a tempo run of sorts, with a mile at 5.8 mph, a mile at 6.3 mph, a mile at 6.5 mph, a mile at 6.3 mph, a mile at 5.8 mph, and a cooldown. As you can see, I am not the fastest runner around. On my long runs I usually stick to a 10 min/mile pace, and I'm really looking to improve on that this year. My average was a 9:40 min/mile pace in the half-marathon (which I credit to a combination of adrenaline, Powerade gel, and general giddiness), but I'd like to break two hours on my next half-marathon in April, which would require me to run slightly faster than a 9:09 min/mile pace...clearly I have a lot of work to do!

Do you have any speed workouts that help? Leave them below! I am very intrigued by the Yasso 800s, but what do you do for your speedwork?

Nutrition: I always have a snack before I work out. On the rare occasions that I don't have a snack, or think, nah, not hungry enough, I always regret it! I usually only have half a banana, but it's enough fuel to get me through my workout.

My breakfasts don't vary very much - my staples are nonfat plain Greek yogurt (more protein than other yogurts, and less sugar than flavored yogurt!) with cereal like Kashi Go Lean, flax seed meal, and some type of berry; cream of wheat with the leftover half of banana and cinnamon; or steel cut oatmeal with half a banana and cinnamon. I like the stuff that sticks to my ribs and keeps me full till snacktime around 11 a.m. - which brings me to snacktime! Usually I have pretzels or an apple for a snack, sometimes with some peanut butter - YUM (honestly, is there a better snack than an apple with peanut butter? I THOUGHT NOT). Much like my dinners, my typical lunch is a salad with chicken, or chicken with veggies and brown rice or quinoa. I almost ALWAYS bring my lunch to work, which saves me money and guarantees I'll eat something delicious! :) I love cooking and I love leftovers, so bringing my lunch in works for me. Be on the lookout for some of my favorite recipes in the coming weeks...

Basically, I try to eat a balanced amount of carbs, protein and fat. However, I have to tell you right now that I have a SERIOUS sweet tooth. I mean, seriously. I love to cook, but what I really love to do is bake. As soon as I started bringing treats into my office, I made more friends. No lie. I eat something sweet every day, sometimes twice a day (like today - 2 little cookies after lunch and graham crackers and dark chocolate after dinner!). At the same time, it's not like I'm eating two Crumbs cupcakes a day, plus I work out and eat well otherwise, so I feel like I have a little wiggle room there...unfortunately, I also still have some jiggle, so I think I'll have to curb my sweets intake starting...now...or ya know, tomorrow. We'll see.

What are your tricks for curbing your sweet tooth? Or do you just let it run wild?