May is My Month... Indulging in a Little Self-Care

I said so long to April with a wonderful morning run.  I woke up on Sunday to a beautiful and sunny, if somewhat windy, morning and could hardly wait for an hour after drinking my protein shake to lace up my Mizunos and get outside.

This run was a bit further than the last outing... no faster certainly, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sometimes I tell myself I really ought to give up running altogether but when it goes this well, I know I am not quite ready to call it quits.

Instead of drinking water while I stretched and cooled afterward, I tried a protein recovery shake.  A while back I won this tub of Vega protein in a giveaway but had never tried it.  Every time I have gone to use it, I see that is says RECOVERY on the label and back away.

I do not usually have a protein drink after I run or workout so it has sat neglected in my pantry. Well, I am looking to new horizons at the moment so I decided to give it a try... with plain water as suggested on the label. And it was pretty tasty.  How wrong can you go with Vanilla anyway?

I realized, that with having the pre-run shake, and then the after-run recovery shake, that an actual breakfast would be out of the question, so just showered and got on with my day.  I ended up having a nice afternoon outing with The Captain and loving some more outdoor time under the warm sun and blue skies. These beautiful Spring days have been much too rare this year to not get out and enjoy them.

So, you may be wondering why May is My Month.  It happens that I have a May birthday.  It also happens to coincide with a national holiday called Victoria Day, for the birthday of a famous monarch who ruled the British Empire for many, many years. She is also the namesake of the city I where I live.  I am sure you will have heard of her.

I love to share my birthday with Queen Victoria, because the Monday on or before the actual date is a holiday so our co-birthday often falls on a long weekend.  When I was in school or working, I usually had it off.  That is not the case this year however... the actual day falls after the Monday holiday and that turns out to be a good thing, as we have planned a little birthday getaway. It will be nice to have the hustle bustle of the weekend out of the way before we start out.  Details about that little trip and planned activities will come later.  But I am pretty excited about some of it...

This is going to be a significant birthday for me number-wise so I have decided to ramp up the celebrations somewhat and indulge myself a little...  or perhaps it will turn out to be a lot!  Every day this month I am going to give myself a little birthday gift... it can be something I do for myself, or make for myself, something I feed myself, or even purchase for myself... it can be anything that I consider self-pampering or self-supportive or even self-indulgent.  It might be as simple as a cup of matcha tea outside in the sunshine with a magazine, or even 20 minutes soaking in a bubble bath... as long it is something I want or enjoy, it will count. 

Usually on my birthday, I do something nice for someone else... and I will, but this year, I am taking the month of May to celebrate me!

The whole point is to emphasize the need for self-care and self-love... both of which I know I often tend to ignore or put off, and I am sure many others do as well.   I will be using the hashtag #MyIsMyMonth on IG and Twitter to promote my self-indulgence.

Today is the first of May.  My first gift to myself was a delicious and nutritious spinach and blueberry chocolate protein shake before I headed to the fitness room to do my kettlebell workout this morning. 

I am not sure what the rest of the day holds... but I do know there will be cake!  This Simple Chocolate Mug Cake with Greek yogurt and minty chocolate sugar free syrup is on the list for my first day of celebrations!

Do join me if you like.  You can find the recipe here.  

Do you celebrate your birthday month too?  What is your favorite way to indulge yourself?  Do you use a particular recovery shake after your workouts/runs?