Got Chocolate Milk?

            As a born and raised Wisconsin dairy farm girl, I have a love and appreciation of milk, dairy, and farming.  I did farm chores from as young as I can remember: feeding calves, picking rock, and driving tractor while baling hay.  Of course I also had endless hours of fun building forts with bales in the haymow, or out in the woods, playing with kitties, and swimming in our river.  I worked full-time for my Dad on the farm during the summers of my college years before I got married (Grandpa and I unloaded the last wagon of haylage just three days before I got married – had to get the hay off in time!).  I guess you can say that I’ll always be a farm girl at heart.

            If you look in our fridge, you may find a very large dairy supply in there.  We absolutely love cheese, yogurt, ice cream (which was possibly also the first “solid” food I ever had as a baby), and milk (specifically chocolate milk, which we need to load up on whenever there is a sale).  Since we’ve added a third milk drinker to the family, we now are usually well stocked in both white and chocolate milk, and have even had as much as nine gallons of milk in our fridge at one time!

            Chocolate milk is also great for an athlete to have on hand for refueling purposes.  Without proper recovery, the body cannot fully reap the benefits from a hard workout.  Recovery starts with post-workout nutrition.  Lucky for me, low fat chocolate milk is actually one of the best sports recovery beverages available.  After a hard workout, you should eat within 30 minutes a mixture of carbohydrates and proteins.  Chocolate milk does just that: it helps you refuel with the ideal combination of carbohydrates and proteins that will help muscles repair and rebuild.  It also helps the body rehydrate, as it replaces electrolytes with nutrients that are naturally available in chocolate milk: potassium, sodium, and magnesium.  The body is also able to absorb all those nutrients the easiest via liquid fuel like low fat chocolate milk.  For a family who loves their chocolate milk, this is great news!

            I’m excited to announce that the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board has officially become my new race sponsor!  As a farm girl and avid milk drinker, it is an enormous honor for me to establish this relationship with them.  I am looking forward to a season of racing with their slogan printed on my race kits; I couldn’t have more pride of the Wisconsin Dairy Industry!  www.winwithchocolatemilk.com