Melbourne Marathon Festival - October 14 2012

 “The miracle isn’t that I finished. 

The Miracle is that I had the courage to start”

I start this post with a philosophical quote from John Bingham and it makes me smile.  Because it makes me think about the amount of good wishes and support I received once I realised my goal of running the Melbourne Marathon wasn’t going to be achieved this year.  A friend of mine found this quote and inspired me to challenge myself and look beyond my comfort zone, and then a few days after I found out I had a small stress fracture in my foot I received a text message from my husband with a photo of this quote - and I knew exactly the meaning behind it.  He was telling me that it wasn’t about doing the marathon, it was about having the courage to believe I could do it, to enter, to train and push myself beyond what I thought were my limits.  I pushed through my limits surpassing my previous longest run (half marathon in April) with training runs of 24km and 28km. 

Make your own almond milk - you're already sweet enough!

There are a lot of different almond milk brands on the market and you will see that there's a whole lot of sugar that goes into most of them.  If you're in Australia, then you'll know that the sugar-free almond milk is much more expensive and can retail from $4-8  per litre!  Making almond milk yourself will cost you approximately $2-3 per litre (depending on where you live and the quality you are buying) and you know that it is sugar free.  It's so easy to make your own even my husband has mastered this!  So what are the health benefits of almond milk? It has a high nutritional content, but low in calories and provides a great alternative to people that are either lactose intolerant or are looking for a cow's milk alternative.  So make it yourself - you don't need the added sugar, you're sweet enough!  

If you're not convinced already, I've found this great poster that was presented at the Academic Excellence Showcase, Western Oregon University by Megan Stinson.  It examines and compares what people think is the healthiest milk are with the facts in an easy to read format.  
http://digitalcommons.wou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=aes
Stinson, Megan. "Dairy and Dairy Alternatives: Media Portrayal vs. Nutritional Facts." Poster presented at the Academic Excellence Showcase, Western Oregon University, May 31, 2012.

Banana and Coconut Bread

Just for the loyal readership of Grow Eat Run I have baked and taste tested a largish quantity of different banana bread recipes (yes, it was all for you!) And, I love this one.  A delictable combination of banana to keep it moist and the crunchiness of the walnuts and coconut makes this a perfect little treat.  A few other flavours to add to the mix are cinnamon and vanilla - yum!  Feel free to replace the maple syrup with honey if that's all you have in the cupboard, or use a little stevia (equal to 2 tsp) if you want to keep the glycemic index down.