spicy thai beef salad

My run yesterday morning was fueled by the spicy thai beef salad I had for dinner the night before. I'm not an early morning eater. In order to run before the heat of the day sets in, I wake up at 5:30 to be out the door before 6:00. I'm awake long before my stomach is. Regardless of the length of my run, the most I can eat that early is about half a Lara bar, and most days I don't even eat that, I just drink a little water. I must rely on my dinner the night before to get me through the run.

I've become very particular of those pre-running dinners. In the old days, when I was in college and high school, I could pretty much eat anything and go running at any time. Not anymore.

That's where beef salad comes in. I can't go wrong with high protein and tons of veggies. We have a fresh pineapple juice here--simply juice, no sugar or anything else added--which is a nice, sweet complement to a healthy meal.

I wish I could take credit for this salad. While in Europe a few months ago we bought some French-language cookbooks for our cook. He actually doesn't read very well, but he can take a list of ingredients and turn it into something yummy like nobody's business. The salad is courtesy of him and a French-language Thai food cookbook. The ingredients are strips of beef, tender and rare, tomatoes, cucumbers, mint, sometimes basil, crushed red pepper, garlic and a soy sauce dressing. (I brought tons of the San-J wheat-free soy sauce with us.) It's served cold.