Watercress challenge, week 1

Well I'm coming up to the end of my first week of Watercress consumption, I've included it everyday this week in one meal a day, and even stuffed a handful before heading out for a lunchtime run.

Everyday this week at work, I've had it in my lunch. I came up with a super healthy lunch that costs about the same as a supermarket sandwich, half the price of any fast food lunch and and 100% more healthier than either of the last two options. The answer: a tin of mackerel in a spicy tomato sauce (Sainsbury's version has the 'cleanest' ingredients out of all the supermarket brands I've tried) 90 pence; 1/2 a tin of mixed bean salad, 50 pence; and half a bag of Watercress 50 pence. Under £2, filling and super healthy!

When I've been buying my Watercress, I've been trying to support British products, I live on the Hampshire border and I know it grows in abundance in this county. But even in the local supermarkets it's coming all the way from Spain and Florida! Fear not though, I have since been informed that the British season runs from May through to October. The watercress available at the moment is from Portugal, Spain and Florida, and is grown on farms which are actually owned by the British watercress farmers cooperative – The Watercress Alliance. Phew!

OK so this is a running blog, so how does all this fit into running you may ask, well if you read my first Watercress post this week you'll know that It can help prevent the damage caused to DNA cells during high intensity exercise.

Check out this interesting video on the subject, 5 minutes of your time and you'll be dashing off to buy a bag of green stuff!

 

I took on quite a tough 11 mile trail training run last Sunday, plenty of elevation and then a shortened version (7 miles) of the same run on Tuesday night. Now whether it was due to the Sun shining brightly on Sunday (the first time in ages in the UK!) or is it down to including the Watercress daily but I felt really good and strong on those two runs which are normally tough and tiring. I've also found that I'm sleeping a lot deeper this last week, I've not read anywhere that this is a benefit from the Watercress so maybe just down to some tough running, but the running is similar to what I do each week anyway, but I'm no Doctor so I'm not prescribing Watercress to everyone to solve Insomnia!

This morning (Friday) I ran my usual weekly 13.1 miles into work along the canal path. Pre run I fuelled myself with a nice wholemeal Watercress roll. Surprisingly refreshing at 5:30am!

This weekend I'm going to try some of the recipes from the Watercress website http://watercress.co.uk/ as I head into another weeks training fuelled by Watercress.