Run Before the Sun and a Vanilla & Chocolate Twist Protein Shake!

Early Friday morning, Layla and I hit the streets for a run before the sun, as I am now going to call them. It's pitch black again in the mornings which means that when we're out at 5:30am, it doesn't even start to get light until well after we're home. Even when I run 5-6 miles, it's still not light by the time I'm back. 

I don't mind it since I'm used to getting up early in the mornings and I'm not the type of person that needs it to be light out to get out of bed. So rain or shine, light or dark, Layla and I are going to get our buns moving! 

The dark actually makes it better for Layla since it stays much cooler without the sun coming up. Now that the weather is getting better, I'm slowly increasing her mileage with me because she can run a lot more without getting too hot. I've been very careful with monitoring her running over the summer because I know that if it's too hot or humid for me there's no way I'll make her go out in that weather. She's basically a miniature polar bear with all that fluffy fur although it does happen to make her extra snuggly :)

Anyway, enough about how I'm obsessed with my puppy/overprotective dog mom, the main point of this post is to tell you about the new smoothie I made! 

I eventually got bored with the plain vanilla protein powder and decided to branch out with some other flavors. I ordered chocolate, vanilla almond, and strawberry. I'm in love with all three of them! I actually have a couple other recipes that I made with them in the back log of things to post. I promise to try and get those up soon! 

So what you'll need for this protein shake: 

1 scoop chocolate protein powder

1 scoop vanilla almond protein powder (or just plain vanilla)

1 tbsp plain Jif whips

1 tbsp chocolate Jif whips

2 cups unsweetened almond milk

This is a big smoothie but I made it this way because I ended up having part of it before my run and then had the rest as my post-run snack. You can always halve it if you don't need that much or don't require as much protein. I require a pretty high protein intake so I'm used to doubling up servings! 

Again, I'm sorry for the lack of creative smoothie pictures. It's just going to be how it is for the early morning runs during the week. This way you guys will know to keep your expectations low because let's be honest, when it's 6am and I'm starving and trying to hurry up and get to work, I'm not going to be able to stop and prep my smoothie for pretty pictures! 

I did top this smoothie with some cool whip but that's more for my own benefit than anything to do with aesthetics ;)

And of course I gotta show off this little cutie patootie! Sorry I'm not sorry for being totally in love with her so I hope you're not sick of seeing pictures of her because I don't plan on stopping posting them! 

Have a great weekend everyone :)