All posts by Brian

Food, Health, Hydration, Smoothies

Smoothies without Recipes

I eat food mostly for fuel. Of course I prefer things that taste good. I like foods that are easy to prepare and eat. Smoothies are great. Wash, maybe peel, blend and drink. Salads are great too, but you can’t really chug 64 ounces of salad in a minute or two. And I almost always hit the 64 ounce max line on my Vitamix carafe.

I don’t use recipes. I use what I have on hand at the time. My regular smoothies are not desserts. I want to get a bunch of vegetables and some fruits to my stomach quickly. It’s a big carafe of vitamins, minerals, micronutrients, fiber and water.

There are generally three parts to my smoothies: vegetables, fruit and water. I think of vegetables in two groups: greens and other. Fruit is for calories and flavor. Water is for hydration, texture and ease of blending.

Vegetables
I put greens in just about every smoothie I make. I use at least half a bunch, which comes out to 5-8 ounces by weight. I’ll use more if there’s room. I also add wild greens occasionally.

My favorite greens for smoothies:
*Collards
*Chard
*Kale – all types
*Beet Greens
*Bok Choy
*Nettles
*Spinach
*Cabbage
*Brussels Sprouts
*Plantain (the weed not the fruit)
*Sheep Sorrel
*Wood Sorrel
*Dandelion

I started adding other vegetables as well earlier this year. I think it was after seeing a video of Rich Roll adding broccoli to his smoothie. I love broccoli, so I gave it a try. I’m going to go by the culinary definition of vegetables, rather than botanical.

Some other vegetables I add to smoothies:
*Beets – I love beets. I add them to almost all my smoothies.
*Broccoli – florets and stems
*Cucumber
*Zucchini
*Carrots
*Cauliflower
*Radishes
*Celery – use sparingly, it gives a salty taste
*Kohlrabi

Fruit
I like fruit, but I don’t normally add much more than 16 ounces of fruit to a 64 ounce smoothie. I often use less, just enough fruit for flavor. However, if I’m looking for more calories, I’ll add more fruit. My choice of fruit often goes by what’s in season, and hence cheap.

Some favorite fruits for smoothies:
*Bananas – At least 1 in nearly every smoothie. Good soluble fiber. Can reduce nasty froth on top.
*Strawberries – I don’t cut off the leaves. They’re greens, and I make green smoothies.
*Blueberries
*Mangos
*Watermelon
*Peaches
*Blackberries
*Huckleberries
*Papaya
*Oranges
*Lemon – with or without peel.
*Pineapple

Water
I add enough water so everything blends well and get the texture I want. I know some people use juice or coconut water instead of water. I prefer straight water. I rarely drink juice and prefer to consume my food whole. Fiber is important.

Other
I used to add other things more often. Now, occasionally, I may add some rosehips powder for vitamin C, vegan protein powder, reishi or chaga mushrooms.

Blenders
A good blender makes a huge difference, but I got by with a $5 thrift shop model for a couple years. I love my Vitamix, though.

Make the Smoothie
1. Wash ALL produce. Unless you picked it from your own garden, you don’t know how it’s been handled. In the last few years, there have been E-coli outbreaks from spinach and cantaloupe, probably others too.
2. Peel, core, removed seeds and de-stem. Sometimes I don’t peel lemons, but always remove the seeds. I never skin beets. I know some people eat mangos with the peel, but I always peel them. I’ve occasionally added watermelon rind. I always peel kohlrabi.
3. Cut up produce. I cut things up into chunks small enough so they don’t get stuck in the carafe, wedged against the sides. Sometimes I cut greens. Other times I add them whole at the end.
4. Add produce to blender. Depending on your blender, you may need to add things in a certain order. When I had a cheap blender, greens took the most time to break down to my desired consistency, so I added them first. With a powerful blender, it may not matter.
5. Add water. I start with a couple cups of water, less if I’m using something like watermelon with a lot of retained water.
6. Blend. Start on low. Increase speed slowly to get everything moving. If needed, use a plunger to dislodge any stuck produce. Increase speed to high and blend until it’s as smooth as you’d like.
Optional: Add more water. If it’s not circulating well or too thick, slowly add more water until it reaches your desired consistency.
7. Enjoy!

It’ll take some experimenting to get the greens, vegetables and fruits ratios you like, and to make the right volume for you. Cleanup is a lot easier the sooner you get to it. I drink a whole 64 ounce smoothie, 32 ounces at a time, in one sitting. If you’re going to save some for later, it’s best to pour the remainder into another container and store in the fridge.

Finally, definitely experiment with other greens, vegetables and fruits. The only precautions I’d urge are to make sure the produce is ok to eat raw, whether they need to be peeled, have the seeds removed, or something else.

Uncategorized

July 14-20 Practice Running

I didn’t run much this week. I was hoping to rest up my ankle so I could still run White River 50. While my ankle is quite a bit better, it’s not healed enough yet. I have a bunch of running adventures I’d still like to do this year. I don’t want to chance a prolonged injury and miss out on more.

Thursday, July 17, 2014, 8:00 pm
2.8 mi, unk ft gain, unk. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm Gate #2. With dogs. Altra Superior 1.5
I wanted to get out and stretch out my legs. Just went out to Olney Creek and back. I left my garmin at home in pieces trying to fix the intermittent shutting off and decided to swap batteries too. New battery hadn’t arrived yet.

Sunday, July 20, 2014, 8:02 pm
6.8 mi, 305 ft gain, 1:00:17. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm Gate #2. With dogs. Altra Superior 1.5
Need to get out and move. 10 mi planned, but cut it shorter and pushed the tempo a bit. Warmed up for a couple miles. Stopped a couple minutes at Olney Creek for the dogs. Ankle a little tight. According to Strava, I had my 3rd best estimated 5k and 10k efforts. Someday I’ll actually do some speed work.

Thoughts:
I’m not sure which is working better, still running just as often but shorter, like the prior week, or running less often. Last week (July 7-13), my ankle didn’t get any worse running nearly the same mileage I had planned, and I think the running helped keep flexibility. This week, my ankle was a little better having not run much, but it also tightened up a bit. It was also a little more sore the morning after a run, unlike last week. Now that I’m not running WR50, I’m cooking up a self-supported 50 miler later in the year. I set a goal of a 50 miler this year, and I intend to complete it.

Uncategorized

July 7-13 Practice Running

Tuesday, July 8, 2014, 8:32 pm
6.6 mi, 594 ft gain, 1:10:45. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm Gate #1. With dogs. Altra Superior 1.5
Ankle still a little sore from rolling it on Sunday. So I stuck to the more even surface of the logging roads. Let the dogs splash in Olney Creek. Took a different spur off the main road. Heard a bear crash off into the woods from the clearcut below the road we were on.

Wednesday, July 9, 2014, 8:03 pm
8 mi, 1327 ft gain, 1:36:47. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm Gate #1. With dogs. Altra Superior 1.5
Had 10 miles planned. Ankle started loosening up after a few miles. Saw the same chocolate color phase black bear that I saw a few weeks ago in the same clear cut, on the uphill side of the road this time. It scampered up a downed tree and off up the hill. Cut the run short due to the dogs not behaving very well, not wanting to push my ankle too much, and I didn’t want to push the ankle as it got darker.

Saturday, July 12, 2014, 5:09 pm
15 mi, 3548 ft gain, 3:48:12. East Fork Foss River to Jade Lake in Necklace Valley. Solo. Altra Superior 1.5
I had planned 20+ mi. I wasn’t sure if I was going to just rest up or go for a run. My ankle was still sore, but wasn’t worse after either of the runs earlier in the week. I decided to go for at least 10 miles, and see how it went from there.

It’s the Necklace Valley trailhead on Foss River Rd off US 2 just east of Skykomish. The first 5 miles have some rolling hills, several small creek crossings, and an older log bridge over a larger creek. The trail is pretty well maintained, with some sections having recent brush work. However, a couple other sections have some foliage closing in, sometimes obscuring view of where I was stepping. I took those parts slow, still babying my ankle a little.

There are a couple camp sites at about 5 miles, just before crossing the east fork Foss River. The old single log bridge across the river has a short stretch of missing hand rail, not that I used the rest of it. I ran across on the way out, but the log started bouncing and I nearly fell into the water. Another bigger fallen log crosses a smaller branch of the river.

Bridge over east fork Foss River
Bridge over east fork Foss River

The trail immediately starts to climb. Most of the elevation gain starts at this point. My legs felt good and I ended up running more of the steep sections than I expected. The trail was fairly technical with roots and rocks. More technical than Wallace Falls, but less technical than the upper part of Lake Serene.

Jade Lake was beautiful. The water was high, covering portions of the trail that usually skirt the east side of the lake. The lake is in a narrow valley with rock coming down to the water on both sides for much of the length. I only went about halfway up the lake before I couldn’t go around the water covered trail. It was a good time to turn around anyway, so I’d make it back before dark.

Jade Lake Panorama. Unfortunately, the mountains in the distance are washed out.
Jade Lake Panorama. Unfortunately, the mountains in the distance are washed out.

My trusty Garmin Forerunner 305 may finally be on it’s way out after 6 years. It turned itself off three times, and lost satellite reception on the way back a little before making it back to the river crossing. Losing reception here and there wouldn’t have been that surprising with all the tree cover in places and being a narrow valley with mountains rising 2000-3000 ft on either side, but it didn’t have any reception problems on the way up. I tried sitting and waiting for a little while, but it just wouldn’t connect. About 4 miles later, it finally picked up reception again, just over a mile from the end. Fortunately, the straight line distance that it plotted wasn’t much shorter than the trail.

The trail wasn’t that busy. The parking lot was full when I arrived. I passed a father and son backpacking a couple miles in. I passed a couple guys with three puppies who were on their way out just before the river crossing. I passed a couple backpacking up to the lakes less than half a mile after the river. Lastly, I passed a group of three backpackers about another quarter mile later. I passed the two groups heading up to the lakes at about .75 mi and 1 mi from Jade Lake. The father and son backpackers had setup camp at one of the sites near the river.

I went with 2 handheld bottles and some iodine tabs to refill along the way. I drank from one at a time, so I could give the iodine time to work in the other after refilling. I had 80 oz water and 2 salt caps. I ate 5 medjool dates and 1.5 dehydrated bananas. After I got back to the car, I had 1 quart water, 1 salt cap and the other half of a dehydrated banana.

Thoughts:
Due to my ankle, I skipped a shorter run on Thursday and a 10-15 mi run on Sunday. Sunday was a little strange. I woke up early to let the dogs outside. As I walked out with them, not only was my left ankle still sore, though not anymore than before, but my right ankle sort of felt like it was cramping. It was super tight across the front, and felt like a muscle cramp. It hurt to move it. I went back to bed and when I finally got up, my right ankle was completely fine.

My left ankle rolled laterally, but it’s sore going the other way. Compared to my right, I haven’t lost any range of motion, and there’s no swelling, but it’s still sore. It hasn’t gotten any worse after running, so that’s promising. The next two weeks I planned to taper leading up to White River 50. I’m sure it’ll be fine by then, but I still worry a little.

Food, Health, Running

3 Months as a Vegan

I decided to go vegan almost 3 months ago. Something that my past self couldn’t have conceived. That version of myself also wouldn’t have considered giving up bread or cheese, and I gave up both well before giving up meat. My sugar addiction was much more difficult to break than giving up any of the other things, though.

The last 3 months have been great. I felt better going gluten free. I felt better giving up dairy. And now I feel even better. I’ve noticed a few things, good and not so good. I’ll start with the not so good.

I used to feel bloated fairly often when my colitis was active. I haven’t had that feeling in a long time. However, I sometimes look like I did back then. Because I’m running more, I’m also eating more. Some days I eat 4000-4500 or more Calories. That’s a large volume of food when all you eat are fruits, vegetables and very occasionally some nuts. When I eat a mixing bowl sized salad, a whole watermelon, a 64 ounce smoothie or some combination, it has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is an expanding stomach. I sometimes feel like the pictures I’ve seen of eating contests winners, belly bulging.

It’s a little funny since one of the reasons I got into running after the Army was because I thought I was getting a bit of a skinny guy gut. It doesn’t bother me so much now, because I know it’s all food, and it’ll pass. The part that I really don’t like is that after a huge meal, usually dinner, I’ve stuffed myself so full that it’s harder to breathe deeply, there’s just not room for my diaphragm to expand all the way. It’s also a little tough to bend over with such a full belly. But it usually doesn’t last too long. Maybe I should try to more evenly space my consumption throughout the day. If I’m going to have such a full gut, I’d rather it be later in the day, after going running.

Related to the large volumes of food I consume, my weight tends to fluctuate a lot more in a single day than previously. This doesn’t really bother me. It’s just interesting. When I wake up, before I eat or drink anything and after my morning constitutional, I’ve been as low as 153 lbs on two occasions the day after long runs. The most recent was Sunday, July 6, the day after running 21 mi with 4500 ft gain. After my last meal on Sunday night, I weighed 165 lbs. Over the whole 3 months, my highest weight was 168 lbs.

I’ve always been skinny, so 12 lbs certainly seems like a lot. At a bit over 7% of my body weight (calculated at either end of the spectrum), that weight loss would be enough for me to be medically pulled from some ultra’s that I’d like to do eventually.

It’s not that drastic, however, when I think about what actually makes up most of the weight. While I am eating a large volume of food, being fruits and vegetables, much of that weight is water and fiber. The fiber does it’s job and flushes waste out of my system. I rehydrate after running, but I wake up once or twice in the night to pee, and sweat some amount overnight, so there’s some lost water weight as well. I haven’t weighed all the food I eat in a day, but the daily effects on my weight don’t surprise me.

Moving on to the good stuff. I seem to recover faster. This is entirely subjective and anecdotal, but I’m convinced, and that’s all that matters. I can’t really compare to my first two 50k races, because I’ve trained much better this year.

I started eating this way about 2 weeks before my April 50k, which had 1000 ft gain. I ran another 4 weeks later with 2000 ft gain. I ran a third 4 weeks after that with 6500 ft gain. I started running again 2 days after each race. My first run after the April race was rough. For about the first mile, my glutes and calves felt like I was getting punched with every step, and felt like I was wearing lead soled shoes. My legs were better for the first run after the second race, just a little sore and heavy. After my third race, I was a little sore for a day. While my legs were kind of heavy for the first post-race run, I felt fine. By the weekend after each race, I was raring to go for a long run. I held myself back from a full distance long run to make sure I recovered, but I went longer than I had written on my training plan several months ago.

I also feel better when I wake up. For the last year or so, prior to going vegan, I regularly woke up with red, sore eyes. I’m not sure the last time it happened, but it was at least a couple months ago. Also, most of my life I’ve woken up with a generally unwell feeling. I imagine it’s not that uncommon, but it sucks and I won’t accept it as normal.

I can’t say that I’ll never eat meat again. I gave up eating animal products strictly for health reasons. The same sort of reasons I gave up gluten, followed by all grains, sugar and processed foods (there are many vegan processed foods too). Someday I may give it a try again to see if I notice any change. For now, I’m sticking with what’s working, fresh fruits and vegetables.

Health, Sleep

I Love Sleep

I’ve had an on again off again love and hate relationship with sleep. I’ve had several bouts of insomnia, lasting from days to over a year. Much like many other things, my outlook on sleep has changed a bit as I’ve grown a little older.

I’ve always liked sleeping, but until fairly recently I hated the necessity of sleep. I wished that I could find a way to sleep less without being tired. I thought I was wasting time by sleeping. Time that I could spend doing other things, not that I was being especially productive anyway, but that’s beside the point.

My ambition for running longer distances was actually a catalyst for me to change my thoughts on sleep. Several months ago, I came across Michael Arnstein, the Frutarian. I watched a number of YouTube videos of him speaking. One thing that he emphasized helped him with recovery was getting enough sleep. “Enough” for him was 8-10 hours of sleep a night, possibly up to 12 after a 100 mi race. I already knew that sleep is when our bodies do much of the repair processes. But it gave me something specific to think about in that context, rather than some nebulous idea of repair or regeneration. It’s pretty amazing to feel the difference between the evening after a long or otherwise hard run and in the morning following a full night of sleep.

I’ve been a night owl as long as I can remember. I’ve tried to fight it on a number of occasions, but I end up just cutting back on sleep to get up earlier, rather than going to bed earlier. Since making the connection between my body’s regeneration during sleep and run recovery, I’ve given up the fight. I go to bed when I’m tired and get up when I feel I’m well rested. It’s usually 8-10 hours. Occasionally, it’ll dip to 7 hours or go up to 11. It helps that I work from home and make my own schedule.

You might think, “well that’s great, Brian, but I don’t work from home, nor do I have a flexible schedule.” When I do have something that I have to get up for, I occasionally cut my sleep short, depending on the situation. I’ve also tried another of Arnstein’s suggestions a few times, taking melatonin about an hour before I want to sleep. It works OK, but not great. I count back 9 hours from when I need to get up and take .5-1 mg of melatonin. One thing about melatonin: I’ve had some crazy dreams after taking it. Apparently, people into lucid dreaming like to use melatonin to try inducing lucidity.

If I need to make a pretty drastic sleep schedule change, I sometimes take a few days to adjust. I might sacrifice an hour or two of sleep the first day. Then I’ll adjust my my schedule in stages. The Rattlesnake Ridge 50k I did last month started at 7:30 am. Accounting for getting ready, drive time and check-in, I had to get up no later than 4:45 am. Around then went to bed about 3-4 am on average and woke up around noon, give or take. Two days prior, I set an alarm for 10:30 am, and got about 7 hours. That night, I got to sleep between 1-2 am and set an alarm for 8:30 am. I took some melatonin the night before the race and got to sleep around around 10 pm. While not ideal, it worked. Next time around, I’ll give it a couple more days.

For those of you that have to be to work or school on time at the same time every day, or get your kids and family ready for their day, you can create a flexible sleep schedule enabling you to sleep until you’re well rested. Figure out your range of needed sleep. It might take a little experimentation, probably best to do on a weekend or otherwise when you don’t have to be up at a specific time. Results might be skewed if you’re going from sleep deprivation directly to sleeping to well rested. Until you narrow it down, start with 8-10 hours. Count back 10 hours from when you need to get up. That’s your bedtime. Then sleep until you’re well rested. If it’s only 8 hours, you now have 2 hours extra in the morning for whatever you want — exercise, read, have an awesome breakfast, meditate, or whatever.

I love sleep, and sleep loves me. Even though I used to think I could accomplish more by sleeping less, I’m happier getting enough sleep than having that extra time awake each day but being tired all the time. I’m not convinced I got more done over the long run anyway. Not only am I happier, I also feel a lot better throughout the day. Not being tired all the time is awesome.