I am trying so hard to like vegetables.

I've started training for the Philadelphia Marathon. Yay!  And it's still fun, since I'm only in the first few weeks, except for one thing that became glaringly apparent, which, is that like most American's my diet sucks.  And you can't train with a lousy diet. Your body won't have it.

I'm not hopeless. I stay away from fast food and pop soda, and have even started to cut my meat eating down to a couple of times a week.  But, I still love me some icecream, and wine, and oh my god cheese! And these things do not a marathon diet make.

I've written before about my hatred of salad.  And it's time for me to just be honest with myself and admit the fact that I don't like raw vegetables.  So, I need to do the adult thing, and start finding ways to sneak raw veggies into my diet.

I decided to start this initiative this week with green smoothies.  I mean, it's easy. You throw some fruit and some veggies in a blender with some ice and orange juice, and a minute of blending later, you have breakfast! Also, you knock out 4-5 servings of fruits/veggies in one meal first thing in the morning! And you can drink it while you get ready... Multi-tasking!!

Yesterday I had strawberries, banana, spinach, and pea shoots.  Today it was strawberries, bananas, and kale.  I read a lot of things on the internet that told you the fruit covers the taste of the greens, and you wouldn't notice them, but they are liars.  You can totally taste it.  And, no, I don't think it tastes good.   So far, my strategy has been holding the smoothie in one hand, and a mug of black coffee in the other, to immediately chase the smoothie and get rid of the taste of healthy.

The kicker though, is that I feel great.

Like, full of energy, practically skipping to work in the morning great.

Sigh.

Raw vegetables are so good for us.  And you know what? 10 mins of discomfort in the morning, is totally worth feeling good for hours.  And hopefully this will eventually translate into running farther, faster, better, stronger.

I'm trying really hard here. That's gotta count for something, right?