Tropical Smoothie

I love smoothies. They're quick, easy to make, good for you, and the combinations of flavors are endless. Smoothies are pretty popular - you can find them on the menu at many restaurants and ice cream shops, and some fast food chains are even offering them now. There are also establishments that only offer smoothies - Jamba Juice is my favorite (although its sadly not on the East coast). I'd bet that anyone reading this has had at least one smoothie in their life, perhaps many. I'd say that I pretty much grew up on smoothies. Before they were available from restaurants and specialty food stores, my mom was making smoothies at home. Now I'm not going to get all I'm-Al-Gore-and-I-invented-the-Internet on you, I'm not claiming that my mom invented smoothies. I'm just saying that she was ahead of the trend and we enjoyed quite a few smoothies growing up. Smoothies were especially important when you were sick, since it was a great way of getting lots of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants at once. One of my best friends, Katie, got mono and strep throat at the same time (I think we were in the 5th grade) and she was in the hospital for five days. She was living on ice chips and fluids from her IV, but my mom made her two large smoothies and we brought them when we visited her. Katie drank them both - I remember being happy that she had something other than ice.

I make protein smoothies pretty regularly to have as recovery drinks after long runs. When its hot in the summer I make a big blender of smoothie and Pat and I have that for breakfast. And when I'm sick, I make smoothies. There's something comforting about a cold smoothie that makes me feel better. Last week I talked about my transformation into a sloth - well it turns out that my lack of motivation and constant tiredness was due to a viral infection, which was also causing me constant headaches and a sore throat. I needed a smoothie - stat!

I made this smoothie on Thursday, and have had several since.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Silk Pure Coconut
• 2 handfuls organic frozen strawberries
• 2 handfuls frozen mango
• 1/3 banana, sliced

I just tried Silk Pure Coconut Milk (original flavor) for the first time. I am in love. I've been really obsessed with coconut lately - I can't get enough. The downside to this is that coconut is pretty calorie-dense and usually comes with a lot of artificial sugar. I came across this coconut milk at the store and had to try it. Cup for cup, it has the same amount of calories as a glass of skim milk and has 50% more calcium! It tastes so thick and creamy and satisfies a craving for something sweet. I couldn't wait to use this in different recipes.

*Note that the coconut milk only has 1 gram of protein, as compared with 8 grams of protein in skim milk. If you use milk as a protein source, be sure to add some alternative protein to your diet (like protein powder to a smoothie or oatmeal).

This smoothie came out so well! It literally tasted like a cross between a daiquiri and a colada...just a lot less fat, and no booze, so no buzz! I felt like I should be sitting on a white sand beach, staring out at the turquoise sea while drinking it. Or at least somewhere hot in a bathing suit.

Last week I took it pretty easy - just went for a couple easy runs and tried to rest as much as possible. I missed my speed workout completely, which bothered me, but felt good enough to do my long run on Saturday morning, which I think is the most important part of training. I decided that I would just do as much as I could, focus on getting the mileage in, and not worry about my speed. I looked down at my watch halfway through the run and saw that I'd run 5.51 miles in 51:51 (minutes:seconds). That was a 9:24 pace. I finished the 11 miles in 1:40:50 - my overall pace was 9:09. Not very fast, but I did achieve negative splits (my pace for the second half of the run was 8:55) so I'm happy with that.

And you can bet that I followed up my long run with a nice big smoothie!

On a side note, you know that wedding season is approaching when you get three bridal shower invitations in the mail in the same day:

Here we go! :)