Fun with Video and Plantains

By: Matt Frazier

Arg! More Running Frustrations

I gave myself the day off after that miserable 18-mile run on Monday, and by the time Wednesday evening rolled around, I figured everything would be good to go for my track workout.  I was right—almost.  No GI distress or fatigue spells, no pain left over from the chafing (or bleeding).  The one artifact that remained, however, was the blister on the ball of my left foot.  Doesn’t seem like much compared to crippling fatigue, but as I discovered, it’s enough to ruin a workout.

I ran a warmup mile, followed by two 1200’s in 4:26 each.  By the end of the second, the blister was really starting to give me trouble, but that “just-tough-it-out” part of me wanted to keep going, to do the planned four 800’s through the pain.  I started the first one, and after half a lap or so, I realized that I was strongly favoring my left side and running on the outside of my foot, so much so that muscles in my lower leg, which evidently never get used, were burning.

I could have gritted my teeth and kept going.  But thankfully, perhaps because of the lessons learned from the nightmarish 18-miler, I decided to stop.  If I hadn’t, who knows what crazy stuff I would have done to my lower leg and ankle, not to mention the blister, which is already in the process of applying for its own zip code.  Missing a workout or two won’t prevent me from qualifying for Boston; getting injured will.

So where do things stand?  I’ll see how it feels tonight; if it still hurts I’ll try something else.  If I need to miss my tempo run tomorrow, so be it—to be honest, an easy week might be a great thing for me right now.  I have a 20-miler coming up next week, so I’ve got to get this thing healed by then.

Plantains and Tropical Salad

After my aborted workout, I limped around the grocery store—to my fellow shoppers with working olfactory receptors, I apologize—to pick up a few ingredients for dinner.  On the menu: plantain tostones and avocado salad with mango-lime dressing, from Thrive.

Just for fun, I put together this little video of me frying (and smashing) the plantains!  Trust me, it’s not a professional cooking demonstration.  But then again, this isn’t some stuffy professional cooking blog.  If I start editing videos and doing multiple takes to pretend there are no mess-ups in my kitchen, do me a favor and start f-bombing the comments section and never reading my blog again!

Good times.

I should clarify one thing.  When I say “this is supposed to be a deep-fried recipe,” I’m talking about the traditional way of making the smashed plantains, not the Thrive recipe.   Nothing is deep-fried in Thrive!

Because they weren’t deep-fried and I only used medium heat so as not to destroy all the digestive enzymes, I couldn’t get the plaintains as crispy as I would have liked.  Even so, the coconut oil made them some of the most flavorful plantains I’ve ever had!  A lot of times plantains come out pretty bland, but the coconut and lemon worked wonders together.

We ate these plantains alongside a salad and a mango-lime dressing from Thrive.  For the salad, I just threw together some black beans, mixed greens, nutritional yeast, and avocado, and sprinkled some nori (that seaweed stuff that they wrap sushi in) on top.  I got this idea from (where else?) Thrive.

The salad dressing was tasty, though it was a little too spicy for Erin.  And the taste of the seaweed is going to take some getting used to.  I wasn’t a big fan of the black beans in the salad either (my idea); maybe they could have been better if they were warm.

The verdict—the plantains were great, but I think they’d be better as an appetizer all to themselves than as an accompaniment to my half-ass salad.  Even with the good dressing.

So here are the actual Thrive recipes; keep in mind that I used these same ingredients for the plantains but prepared them differently, as in the video.

Lemon Plantains Recipe (from Thrive)

Ingredients (serves one):

• 1 plantain
• 4 strips dulse (I don’t have this yet; I just sprinkled some sea salt)
• 1 Tbsp coconut oil
• 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

Peel and thinly slice the plantain on an angle.  Heat coconut oil in a frying pan over medium heat.  Lightly stir-fry plantains slices until slightly brown.  Stir in lemon juice and dulse strips.  Stir-fry until juice has evaporated and dulse is crispy.

Mango Lime Dressing Recipe (from Thrive)

Ingredients (makes enough dressing for lots of salads):

• 1 mango, peeled and pitted
• 1/4 jalapeno
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 1 Tbsp hemp oil or EFA blend
• 1 Tbsp lime zest
• 1 tsp agave nectar

Combine ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Enjoy your Sweet Tooth Friday-eve everyone.  If you don’t have a killer blister, get out there for a run tonight!