FitFeat

Posts Tagged post-run fuel

New and Improved Pineapple Projito

Feb 26

Posted by Shari B. in Cooking, Vegetarian | 2 Comments

Hi blog buds!

Here is the newly updated projito recipe that I presented as one of my final recipes at school (the stuffed tomato recipe will post tomorrow).

If you are a new reader to FitFeat, a PROJITO is a basically a Protein [and Probiotic] fortified mojito-style smoothie, non-alcoholic of course!

I’m posting this one on a Saturday so you have time to run out and get your ingredients tonight – who needs to serve their friends alcoholic cocktails when you can sip on this?  It’s FAB!  Highly alkalizing, anti-inflammatory, good for digestion.

You can tell your dinner guests you are serving them mint in honor of the tradition of rubbing mint leaves on the tables in ancient Greece as they used to do as a gesture of welcome and hospitality.  ;)

Allergy note:  this revised recipe does contain dairy.

Pineapple Projito Smoothie

Serves 1 for a meal or 2 for a snack

Ingredients

  • 8 ounces Greek yogurt
  • 1 cup frozen pineapple
  • 11 ounces coconut water
  • 1 small lime
  • 24 mint leaves, plus a few extra for garnish
  • 2 teaspoons maple syrup
  • 8 drops liquid stevia

Procedure

Slice the lime in half, cutting a round from the middle and setting aside for garnish.  Juice the rest and add to blender with remaining ingredients. Blend until smooth.  Serve with slice of lime and mint leaves.

This is a good chunk of calories, so if you aren’t drinking this right after a workout, split it with a friend!  ;)   If you drank the whole thing yourself (which I do, because it’s THAT yummy), here are the numbers:

Tags: , , , , ,

Ginger Pineapple Acai Smoothie

Feb 26

Posted by Shari B. in Recipes, vegan | 7 Comments

Hey friends!  Happy Saturday!

The sun is shining here which always energizes me!  I got up early, got in a quick but effective strength workout and then played around with a new green smoothie.  It was so refreshing I had to share it with you.  (And yes I promise my two recipes from my final will still be posted this weekend!)

Ginger Pineapple Acai Smoothie

Ingredients:

  • 10-12 oz water
  • 1 Sambazon Açai (pure unsweeened) frozen smoothie pack
  • 1 rounded tsp minced ginger (I love the pre-minced jarred one from The Ginger People)
  • 1/2 peeled cucumber, chunked
  • 1 cup frozen pineapple
  • 1 scoop raw sprouted grain protein powder
  • 1 cup frozen spinach
  • juice of 1/4 lemon (optional)

Place all of your ingredients in your blender (my Blendtec is well worn!):

Blend until everything is smooth!

Pour, garnish and enjoy!

It may not be the most beautiful color, but the flavor was wonderful!

Here are some of the health benefits of this smoothie:

  • GINGER is a warming food, which is handy to add to a very cooling drink like this, especially in winter months.  It is beneficial for good digestion and has strong anti-inflammatory properties.
  • PINEAPPLE is a great food to add to your post-workout smoothies.  One, because it is a high-glycemic fruit which is helpful in getting fuel quickly to your muscles to replenish glycogen stores after a workout but also because it contains BROMELAIN, which is a natural anti-inflammatory to help speed recovery and reduce soreness.
  • The SPINACH and CUCUMBER are green foods which are highly alkalizing and assist in maintaining alkalinity in the blood.  CUCUMBER promotes healthy connective tissue (and isn’t that part of why we exercise our bodies?) and is extremely hydrating.

And for those of you who like to know the calorie/macronutrient breakdown, it’s really balanced:

Are you guys still drinking your green smoothies?  What fun things have you been adding to yours?

***

As I was taking pictures for this post, I also figured this would be a great time to mention that I am a Blendtec affiliate now!  I absolutely LOVE my Blendtec and when I saw that I could apply to become an affiliate, I was psyched because I think they have the best blender.  (For some reason that *other* blender company that starts with a “V” and ends with “MIX” seems to get so much of the publicity.)  I’ve used the other brand in school, and I still far prefer my Blendtec.  They have a new WildSide jar (a five sided blender!) that I’ve had my eye on.  Maybe someday soon I’ll get one.  My smoothies are LARGE and the WildSide holds 3 quarts!  (I could make green smoothies for my whole neighborhood!  :) )  So if you ever decide to check out blenders in the future, I’d be super grateful if you check them out through my link (there’s a banner on the right side of the screen) – this girl’s gotta pay back her culinary school loan somehow and every penny helps, right?  ;)

Have a GREAT day and I’ll be back again soon with my recipes from class.

– Shari B. =)

Tags: , , , ,

11 Weeks Till 26.2

Mar 1

Posted by Shari B. in Marathon Training | 20 Comments

Happy Monday friends!  (Is it really here already?)

Which means another installment of MARATHON MONDAY!

When I was growing up, a phrase my mom often used was, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”  Try as I might, I seem to break this rule more often than not.  I’ll definitely be breaking it today as I recap my 14 miler from this weekend.

To sum up this run in one word:  DISCOURAGING.

To start with, I had a pretty rough night of sleep leading into which doesn’t make for an energetic start to a long run right off the bat.

Since our meet up time was planned for 7:45 this week, I ate my pre-run meal at 6:00 am.  Two slices of Ezekial cinnamon raisin toast with almond butter on one and coconut butter on the other.

I made my date snack to take along during the run, this time using coconut butter in the pit ‘void’ rather than coconut oil.  I also crumbled half of a Coconut Cream Pie Larabar into a baggie to bring in my Camelbak.


It was 26 degrees at the start of the run and a little breezy so I took a fleece and a light windbreaker plus a scarf with mittens since we’d be running directly into the wind during the first half.  My calves were still sore from the Thursday run in my VFFs and for some reason my low back was stiff, so I arrived about 15 minutes early to get in a good warm-up and do some stretching before we took off.

At about the 5 mile mark, I was really feeling blah.  Just wasn’t feeling the run this time.  The spotty night of sleep wasn’t helping the situation.  My heart rate was running high, staying between 175 and 180 bpm so I kept trying to run a bit slower to bring it down.  I really prefer to keep it under 170 on the flats.  I had my fuel at this point because I was hoping for a little energy boost.

Finally we reached the 7 mile mark and turnaround point. As soon as we headed back the other direction, it became very clear that we’d been running a pretty good incline during that first half.  I knew we were running “upstream” along the creek, but didn’t realize how “UP” it was.  This is the elevation graph from my Garmin:

From there until mile 9,  I felt so much better.  My HR was back down to 164.  My knees weren’t screaming as badly.

We used the ‘walk one minute at every mile’ strategy again this time, which my heart rate was thankful for:

But unfortunately it didn’t seem to offer the same relief to my knees.

The run just seemed to drag on forever.  I felt cranky the last few miles and spent a lot of time ‘in my head’, questioning my desire to run a marathon.

I already knew I was going to be miserable the rest of that day.  Bags of frozen edamame weren’t going to cut it this week.

Gonna have to bring out the big guns:

I picked up 20 lbs of ice on the way home and built a torture chamber ran an ice bath in the spare bathroom.

I did two rounds of immersion of my knees and lower legs in the ice bath.  I had a hot bath (with Epsom salt) waiting in the other tub as soon as I got out of this one.  I’m not kidding you, my lips were BLUE!

Throughout the rest of the day I iced my knees three more times with bagged ice.

From a “FUEL” standpoint, since I was in such a hurry to get home and finish stretching, I scrapped the planned banana and glutamine drink.  While buying ice at the gas station, I got a GREEN MACHINE  by Naked Juice to chug in the car.  This juice is so high in sugar that I would rarely choose to drink this any other time – but is why it was perfect for replenishment directly following a workout where I’d burned 1,237 calories.

I drank the whole bottle.  66 grams of carbs (56 of which are sugars) and 800 mg of potassium.  After I was home for a while I had a hard-boiled egg for a shot of protein and two Umeboshi plums for a sodium boost.  I also took ginger root capsules AND bromelain for inflammation.

Then to top the day off, while I was in the car driving back from the run, I got a weird tickle in my right nostril like I inhaled something funny.  And I had one of those sneezing fits where I thought I was going to run my car off the road!  It was about 10 huge sneezes in a row and then my right eye got really squinty and watery.  It was BIZARRE to say the least.  I don’t know WHAT it was, but I felt like I had a cold the rest of the day:  I sounded congested and my nose ran nonstop.

I’m thinking I’m developing an allergy to distance running.  ;)

The best part of the whole run?  The SUN was shining and it was 50 degrees by the time we’d finished.  (I have to find a silver lining somewhere, right?  :) )

I didn’t have a stellar day and I had a lot of “pros and cons” running through my head the rest of the weekend (cons are currently winning) and questioning whether the knee pain is worth it.  The thought of having to add 12 more miles onto the distance I just completed almost brings tears to my eyes.   We’ve adjusted our training schedule to accommodate some out of town trips for each of us in the upcoming weeks, so from here on out we’ve planned the long runs for every other weekend.  So I’m hoping that putting some distance (no pun intended!) between this long run and the next will give me some time to regenerate some excitement. I know not all runs are great runs.  I certainly don’t expect that.  I’m okay with having runs where I’m just not ‘feeling the groove’.   It seems that every other run so far has been one without pain (meaning one is good, one is bad, next is good, etc.), so maybe when it’s time for the 16 miler, that will be the day my knees decide to be happy.  Time will tell!

Did I mention the sun was shining that day?  ;)   Ha ha!

Have a marvelous Monday blog buds!

– Shari B. =)

PS:  If you didn’t get a chance to see it, you have to check out yesterday’s Sunday Comedy post.  It’s short and it will bring a smile to your morning!

Tags: , , , , , , ,