This post was sponsored by Puritan’s Pride; all opinions expressed are my own.

 

When you are training recovery is so important. This time around I have paid more attention to proper recovery, in all areas, than every before and I believe that it really has made an incredible difference in my training.

It has been a while since I have used smoothies as a part of my recovery. While I use protein powder in some form or another almost every day, smoothies have kind of gone to the way side recently.

Over the next three months, I’ve partnered with Puritan’s Pride to experiment with my smoothies with various protein powers and super foods-based products that can add more nutrients more efficiently. Each month I’l be hearing my superfood-packed smoothie and would love to hear about your best smoothie recipes as well!

 

This month I wanted to share a recipe that I knew I had to try in honor of fall. The recipe is from Brooke Alpert, M.S., R.D, C.D.N, who is also the author of The Sugar Detox.
The ingredients are simple:

1 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup coconut milk (or milk of choice)
1 banana
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/2 scoop – 1 scoop of your favorite protein powder (option)

I ended up using a almond and coconut milk mix and Puritan’s Pride Whey Isolate Chocolate Protein.

All you need to do is blend together, and enjoy!

This morning, I had a tough tempo workout. I ended up doing it on the treadmill so I wanted to make sure that I was able to find a way to switch it up a little bit. I decided to do a progressive tempo to give me little goals throughout the workout.

1 mile warm up
3 miles at 8:06 pace
3 miles at 8:00 pace
3 miles at 7:53 pace
1 mile cool down

I also threw in some strides during the last mile of my tempo. In all honesty, for a tempo on a treadmill this went really well. Sometimes you just have to learn how to mentally get yourself through runs.

 

After I was finished with this workout and before heading to work, I headed into the kitchen to try out this delicious new smoothie.

I have to admit, while I love fall I don’t love pumpkin flavored everything. Sometimes I just feel like it becomes overkill. However, this smoothie had just the right amount of pumpkin flavor without going overboard, and then banana mixed with it was actually really delicious!

I mad sure to add in my Puritan’s Pride Whey Isolate Protein to help with my recovery after the tough workout I had completed. I prefer to use chocolate, but you could also add in vanilla!

 

Never heard of Puritan’s Pride?

As a company, they began over 40 years ago with the mission of making the finest quality nutritional supplements at the best value to their customers. Today, they still remain true to their commitments. They manufacture thousands of vitamins, minerals, herbs and other nutritional supplements in their state-of-the-art facilities located throughout the U.S. They only use ingredients that meet their Quality Assurance Stands, as well as Good Manufacturing Practices food quality standards

 

Pumpkin isn’t just a fun fall flavor, it actually has some great health benefits!

• High in vitamin A
• Supports healthy vision and immunity
• Good source of potassium
• Good source of zinc

All of these are also excellent items when looking at a good and healthy recovery drink.

 

Now the fun part! Puritan’s Pride has been awesome and offered to give away a prize pack to one of my readers. Here is what you will receive:

1. Whey Isolate Protein (Chocolate)
2. Super Greens Powder
3. Carob Powder
4. Barney Butter

Simply enter via the rafflecopter below. The giveaway will end at 11:50 PM EST on October 30th. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway