Green Smoothie (recipe)

Since my last post was all about eating your vegetables, what better way to celebrate than with a green smoothie?  Green smoothies are a great way to get some serious raw veggies in your diet, and it's easier on your digestive system than straight up raw veg.  You're kind of 'hacking the digestion' as a friend of mine described it.

peaches & blueberries

All you need is fruits, vegetables, water and a blender.

I like to use some frozen fruits, as I enjoy my smoothies year-round, and fresh peaches are hard to come by in February.  There's pretty much no wrong way to make a green smoothie, but this is my favorite super-simple combo:

Some frozen peaches and blueberries (About 1-2 cups total.  Peaches are my favorite base--sweet, but not as cloying as bananas.)







GREENS--I like baby spinach, kale, and swiss chard.  Sometimes in a pinch I'll use frozen kale and spinach, but the fresh baby stuff blends up real smooth.  I put in about 3 cups, give or take.

For me, the most vital ingredient is 1/4 of an avocado.  It gives the whole thing a little bit of slip and creaminess (you can also use some kind of milk, like coconut milk, but nothing beats the avocado for my taste.

The majestic avocado

Add about 2 cups of water, and blend!

ready for action!

Cheers!

26.2

Yep, it’s another post about running.  Full disclosure, the last one was just a primer for this one.  But it’s also about a cause, so please bear with me.

Last spring, when I was getting ready to complete my first open-water sprint triathlon, my only running distance goal was 5 kilometers, as the race ended in a 5K.  I remember telling my husband (who is a long-distance runner from his high school days), “I think a 5K is as far as I ever want to run.” 

And so, in May, we joined some friends at the Long Island Color Vibe 5K and jogged it together, playing in powdered paint, taking silly selfies, and sampling the frozen ice truck’s wares.

That day, when I got to the end of the run, I turned to the aforementioned husband and said “maybe a 10K. I feel like I could run that again.” (I think you see where we’re going here.)

So when my CrossFit coach urged the members of our gym to sign up for a local 10K, I saw my chance to give it a stab, and I started going longer distances on my training runs.

Up until this point, I wasn’t really ‘enjoying’ running, but I was determined to do it, because it was part of triathlon and some doctor once told me I shouldn’t (and therefore, I believed, I couldn’t) do it, and nothing makes me want to do something more than an ‘authority figure’ telling me not to. 

When I surpassed the 5-mile mark, I finally felt that thing that runners keep talking about feeling (and that for years I believed didn’t really exist), that zone of calm euphoria that comes from placing one foot in front of the other over and over and over again. 

I still love climbing and surfing and skiing and hiking, but there’s something about just strapping on your shoes and hitting the road all by yourself for an hour (or two or three) that is so accessibly blissful…it’s the ‘runner’s high’ and it’s real.  I remember the first time I felt it, and I thought to myself, “I’m gonna run a marathon!”  (pause) “Next year!”  (pause)  “Maybe!”

So, I did a 10K in September of 2017.  And then there was the half marathon in November (because doubling distances was now becoming a pattern).  Adam and I decided that this occasion was momentous enough to warrant a fundraiser, and in a pretty short time, we were able to raise about $600 for Disabled American Veterans in honor of our favorite Vietnam Vet, Mike Baritot.  

When I completed the Queens Half, I knew for sure I wanted to do a marathon the following year—it’s my white whale, the thing that PT told me I would need to do ‘a LOT of strength training’ to be able to accomplish.

When I didn’t get picked for the NYC Marathon lotto, I started thinking of alternatives (including looking at different marathons around the tri-state area)—a friend assured me that he could get me in to the NYC Marathon through some connections, and I considered this option, though I felt a little uncomfortable ‘sneaking’ my way in.  I also considered running for a charity team, though I was daunted by the amount of dollars I would be required to raise.

And then.  And then.  A really close friend and colleague of my husband, a vibrant and lovely young woman in her 30s, so full of life it’s almost hard to feel anything other than comatose by comparison, was diagnosed with breast cancer.   She’s been writing her own blog, chronicling her journey here:  https://sheisfiercecancerblog.wordpress.com/

She’s not the first friend or family member of mine to battle this ugly disease, but she is one of the youngest, and she had already lost her mother at a young age to the same disease. 

so much money to raise.

The announcement of her diagnosis was the moment when I knew what I wanted to do.  I wanted to run the NYC marathon and raise money for breast cancer research and screening. 

So nauseous.  So cramped.

I’m still daunted by the amount of dollars I need to raise, as I am daunted by the number of  miles I need to run, as I am daunted by the pressure I have put on my self by making this goal so public.I wake at night in terror from the decisions I have made.  I think of the hyponatremia I gave myself during the last race (by drinking too much water and not taking enough sodium) and the barfing I did after that race, and I wonder if I’ll be able to calibrate properly for double the distance.  

I think of my history of back problems and the recurring sciatica that troubles my right leg.   I think of my tendency toward patellar tendonitis, and my difficulties nourishing myself properly with food allergies.  I worry that the autoimmunity will get in the way; I’ll get too tired, or fall sick.  I think maybe I’ve made a horrible mistake.  There’s no way I can do this.

And then I think of her.  And I think of the others.  I think of the terror they face when they get called into the office after a routine mammogram.  I think of the shudder down the spine upon hearing the word ‘malignant’.  I think of the dread they feel when they prepare for the surgery to remove what they hope is all of the cancer.  I think of the daunting task of going to chemo “therapy” (torture, more like) every other week, of the weight and hair lost.  I think of the barfing and nutritional challenges, the physical pain and all the awful side effects that come from ridding one’s body of a deadly disease by using an ostensibly non-deadly poison.

I have a choice.  I could back out, give up, decide it’s not worth the trouble.  They cannot.  They have been handed their lot, and must suffer the consequences of cruel happenstance, and they must battle, or lose.

And so I have chosen to run. 

During every training run, I will think of them.  Every time I feel weak and tired, when my hamstrings are screaming and my organs are protesting, I will remember that I am making a choice to run, and my ability to do so is nothing short of a divine gift, one that not everybody has the luxury of experiencing. 

For too long, my friends and family have been hijacked by their bodies and drafted into a personal war against cancer against their wills.

This November, my husband and I are running the New York City Marathon with Team Think Pink Rocks to raise a combined total of $6,000 to fund Breast Cancer research and screening. 

Please consider helping with our cause—A little gift can go a very long way to helping all of us get a little closer to a cure.  To donate, simply click the link below:

https://www.crowdrise.com/o/en/campaign/think-pink-rocks-2018-tcs-nyc-marathon/adamdiannabaritot

"It's Because You Ran"

I’m not a runner.  I’ve never been a runner.  As a kid, I was the one who got picked last for every game in gym class (not only am I slow, but I’m the pits at throwing, catching, dribbling, kicking…basically I’m not good at sportsball).  I was the last one walking the final lap on the track during the mile run.  In high school and college, I did a little jogging for fitness, but when my knees started complaining (apparently, I’ve got a thing called ‘chrondomalacia of the patella’, which is fancy talk for ‘irritable kneecaps’) I decided that running was for chumps.

So I stuck with my bicycle.  I kept fit doing all the things that people who hate running do to keep fit.  And I was in better shape than your average couch potato, so that was good enough for me.

And then there was the herniated disc flare-up.  When I went to my chiropractor, his first question was “did you run?”  Me?  Run?  I thought back to the days leading up to this unspeakable pain, and I did recall how I was late for a rehearsal, so I ran a few blocks to make up time getting to the theatre.

“It’s because you ran,” he told me.  That’s what caused this pain.  It’s because I ran.  A few blocks of hustle to the theatre and now I can’t walk or sit or stand or sleep.  Because I ran.

For years, I believed him.  After my surgery, both my GP and my surgeon urged me to get moving as soon as possible, and to make fitness a priority in my life.  They cautioned me against any heavy weight lifting, at least for a while.  I was encouraged to do low-impact activities, like swimming and yoga.

So for a few years, I added new and fun ways to stay fit.  I started with climbing (slow, fun, natural traction).  

I swam, rode my bike (as long as you stay hunched over and loose, it’s pretty chill on the spine), tried aerial silks, and started hiking.  

As I got stronger and more confident, I added more adventurous activities, namely skiing and surfing.

When I visited my surgeon years later for a consultation to see if pregnancy would be dangerous to my back health (before we knew how messed up my fertility situation was) he asked me what kind of activities I was doing.  His eyes grew wide and he asked “do you ever fall down while doing these adventure sports?”

“All the time.”  I replied.  When he asked if it hurt to fall, I said “only the normal amount.”  He shrugged and said to me:  “Go on.  Do whatever you want.  No limits.” 

No limits.

Well, that’s intimidating.

We didn’t get pregnant anyway, so when a friend asked me if I might want to join him in a sprint triathlon, I decided that my old chiropractor was full of baloney and I was going to run, darn it.

I got myself a pair of $35 dollar running shoes and started running, working my way up to a 5k. 

Except that after a month, my knee started to hurt.  I kept running (it’ll get better on its own!).  The knee got worse.  I kept running.  The limping started to cause more problems—my other knee started to hurt, and now my back was throbbing.

I withdrew from the race and sought medical attention.  The Physical Therapist I worked with did a great job helping me recover—she mentioned that my quads were highly developed from cycling, but the rest of my leg muscles were less so, creating an imbalance which exacerbated my pre-existing knee issues, which then led to the back pain.

I asked her point-blank “is my body just not made for running?  Is this a dream I need to give up?”  She sighed and said “you can—you just need to address this muscle imbalance and be careful.”

“So, could I ever, say, run a marathon?” 

“Well,” she said, “you would need to do a LOT of strength training.”

Once I was established in Strong Island, I found the nearest CrossFit Location to my home—CrossFit 516 in Williston Park, Long Island. 

I am aware of how polarizing and controversial CrossFit is—I had read every horror story about injuries and rhabdo and the like, but I also know that there are horror stories about pretty much every activity (including and especially inactivity) and I decided I wanted to give it a try.  I was ready to lift big weights and get strong so that I could maybe ever run one day.

I’m not going to launch into a massive love letter to CF516, but let’s just say that joining this gym is pretty much one of the greatest life decisions I’ve ever made.

The cruel irony of the timing is that I joined right as the gym was starting a sprint cycle.  This is to say, the whole gym was pretty much just running.  No kettlebells, no weights, no bear crawls—running. 

Not only was I slow, I was terrified.  Even though this is exactly the sport I was determined to conquer, it was the one I was most afraid of, and I wasn’t expecting to get right into it right away. 

I dissolved into tears on the walk back from a ‘sprint,’ and my coach pulled me aside. I told him about the herniated disc, the surgery, the pain, the fear, and that one time a doctor told me that my pain was “because you ran”. 

He hugged me (sweatily) and said “thank you for telling me.”  He then told me that he also has herniated discs. This is a guy who ran a 100 mile race last April.

I’ve only cried twice at CrossFit, and both times it was because of the kindness I was shown by the coaches. Kindness always gets me in the feels.

Soon enough, we moved on to a new cycle, and I was swinging kettlebells and picking up weights and putting them down. 

Then one day, the workout on the board was “run a 5K”.  There was a hand-drawn map on the board of a 5K loop around the neighborhood.

I was for sure the last person in the gym to finish, but I ran every single step.  That was my first time ever running 3.1 miles nonstop, no walking.  That’s when I knew I could run.  I could really run now (albeit slowly).

So here I am (with my husband) at the ColorVibe 5K.

And here I am finishing the Panatella Sprint Triathlon 5K.

And here I am finishing the Tobay Sprint Triathlon 5K.

And here I am at the Cow Harbor 10K.

And here I am at the Queens Half Marathon.

See that big, dumb smile on my face?

It’s because I ran.

image sources:
http://jakelikesonions.com/post/166538472359/maybe-hes-running-from-the-truth
http://www.uopc.org/sports-medicine/chondromalacia-patellae/
http://crossfit516.com/