Had a wonderful pre-ride meal. 4 really ripe bananas with mac-nut butter on them. Followed by an Oat Cake. During the ride, had a pretty good combination of LaraBars. I consumed the cherry pie plus the banana bread. Tasty as all hell! That, mixed in with some Ultima electrolyte drink make for a wonderful taste. And to think, my breakfast tomorrow will be more of the same alternating peanut butter or some mac nut butter with a date-raspberry smoothie. And then, it's off for a nice bike ride. God damn, I love it.
And on that note, a lot of people have been asking about how this all started. How 7 months ago, I went from basically nothing to where I'm at today. Indeed, it's quite a transformation. So let's start at the beginning. Rewind back to January 2009. I weighed 185 lbs and I was basically tired of being tired of being tired. I got sick a lot in 2008 and had digestive problems that required 'back work'. I'll spare you the details suffice it to say that I'm glad I'll never EVEr deal with that again. I knew there had to be a better way and armed with desperation and a desire to be a pro endurance athlete, I set out on my journey to take responsibility of my health. I wasn't married to any product, I was ready to do whatever it took to right the ship. As such, I read about the power of green smoothies which is basically a fruit and water blended drink. So, I began making these smoothies for 2/3 of my meals at first, keeping lunch open to a salad with some animal protein. Still not vegan yet. Then, I read more and more about digestion and realized how hard animal protein is to digest especially for the athlete. At which point, it was early March and I dropped like 20 lbs in the first month. I was slowly getting the body of my dreams and since everyone told me I was crazy, I knew I was on the right track!
And so, sometime around March, I cut all meat and animal products, cheese, dairy, etc from my diet and wow, things were incredible. I'm talking mental clarity to no end. Ridiculous energy...even today! I mean, how many people can be like 'I just climbed the steepest pitches Oahu has to offer AT THE END of my ride, I'm going to rest up then run 9 miles straight uphill, no flats whatsoever. Go home and repeat." Few. In march, I dropped another 30 lbs to make it 50 and that's when I realized what happened: total transformation occurred. I didn't look the same, I didn't feel the same...in short, I changed my life completely. I'm talking a 1080. With all of this energy, I started running in February for 20 minutes a day to get in shape. I ran my first race, the Great Aloha Run and placed a 6:24 time for the course...I giggle at this time now. This was good enough for 52nd place out of however many thousands ran that course. I think it was like 17,000 or something like that.
What's my favorite smoothie? Well, in no particular order (because I just add in what feels and tastes right), here's what i've been using:
Flax seed, cinnamon, vanilla, cacao, dulse, kale or collard greens (a LOT), 2 bananas, mango, strawberry, blueberries and dates. Yum. Throw in a LaraBar for a crumble and you've got a wonderful, wonderful meal.
Training Log:
AM - Stupid long cycle. Halekoa Drive to finish. After this hill, NO HILL looks that steep or that long. I mean, it's so long and ridiculous it's no wonder people don't bother with it.
PM - 9 miles, of which I averaged a pace of 6.34 / mile at a 3% grade for the whole run. Didn't change grades whatsoever and kept driving at a harder rate than what Kauai calls for. My goal is to hit 6 minute miles going up hills. I can probably do 3 miles at 6 minute pace before pushing the heart rate to 180 or thereabouts.
Diet: I love saturdays because I get to chow down like it's no ones business =)
All over the place!
Pre-bike: Electrolyte drink, Oatcake, 4 bananas plus mac-nut butter.
During bike: 2 larabars, electrolyte drink and 1 banana.
Post-bike - 4 banana smoothie with cacao, romaine and raw granola. INCREDIBLE!!!!
Snack - LaraBar.
Lunch - 2 more LaraBars, 2 bananas, 1 peach, soy protein drink
Dinner - 1 bowl of homemade vegan chili, raw flax chips, huge salad with avocado and braggs liquid amino's, amy's all vegan, no soy or dairy veggie pizza.
And I still think I under-ate today! Tomorrow, I'm going to go for a long bike ride, probably put in close to 80 miles or so. Will let you know how that goes.
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