Iskiate - Chia Fresca

I have been eating chia seeds in my morning concoction for almost a couple of years now. Chia seed is extremely good for you - it contains a bunch of nutrients and is a complete protein and contains omega-3 fatty acids. On a calorie for calorie basis it is hard to find a food as potent as chia seed. Just recently while reading Born To Run by Chris McDougall, he mentions iskiate (also called Chia Fresca) which consists of chia seeds, water, sugar/honey and lime juice. I filled up a 16oz jar about half way with filtered water and then added a few squirts of lime juice and about the equivalent of maybe 2 teaspoons or so of organic brown sugar and kept adding chia and waited until there was enough in there to form a gel. Chia gels up if you let it sit in water - it takes about 10 minutes or so to get a real good gel. It looks like slime with seeds it in once it sits for awhile. Chia has no taste so it will taste like anything you soak it in.

Throughout the day yesterday and today instead of getting my usual lunch I took regular doses of my iskiate gel. I took it once before my lunchtime run and 2-3 times in the afternoon. My usual serving size is about 5-8 tablespoons of the gel. The jar I make lasts about 2 days. I have not been hungry during the day and have lots of energy. I have to add that I felt really good on my run today. I may just keep this up!

Here is a good article all about Chia

Here is another blog post about iskiate - in the post the author uses a measured recipe while I just add the ingredients until I get a good tasting gel. By my estimation, the recipe in the article would leave you with mostly water and some gooey gel. Mine is like a consistent gooey limeade as I add enough chia seeds to get that consistency.

Lows in Teens - Highs in the 40s - Snow forecasted for tonight - time for a trail run!

I did my first trail run of the New Year with two of my buddies from work over at Renaissance Park today. We did the usual short loop just shy of 3 miles. It was chilly out in the low to mid-40s but it felt great. I do not run often in the cold weather but I have to say I find it quite exhilarating. Two miles into the run I felt very warm and I was not cold at all. I recorded a time of 23:34 which is not my slowest time but way off my best of 22:19. I thought I was running at a good clip but I was extra cautious on the downhills and big dips. It was very difficult decipher between soft mud and frozen mud and between water and ice. One spot early on in the run was a huge muddy icy puddle that we had to walk around as running through it looked way too treacherous. So the bottom line, I got through without incident and felt like I could have gone much further but had to get back to work.