PH

Everything I will talk about here today is based on my experience. A few months ago I started to use PH testing to control my training and this experience has been amazing. It is true and proven that a alkaline body is a healthy body. Also it is proven that animal products, and processed foods make your body acid. So when I first started studying about vegan and raw foods, first thing I learned is that a vegan diet specially a RAW diet make your body more alkaline.
Since I don't believe in "no pain no gain" (I think you have to push but not go over, specially in training), and I focus a lot on recovery I started to test my PH pretty much everyday. The reason I started doing that is because when we exercise we make our body acid, so that is when nutrition comes into play! It is really important after training make your body alkaline, therefor the body can recover faster. The faster is your recovery is the closer you can schedule hard workouts. The closer hard workouts are the faster you will improve. Simple isn't it?
What I did was every time my PH was a little bit acid I will drop the intensity of that workout a little bit, if I was more alkaline I could push a little bit harder. Remember, alkaline means healthy body and with a healthy body you can push more the limits. Of course I still follow training plans and periodization, with weeks focus on recovery but with the PH test as a plus.
The result has been amazing, to have an idea, every year I do the race for the faith here is west palm beach, since I do my first Ironman of the year around may, I am always at the same period of training. So this year I drop 2 min form my previous year, and not only that, the week before I raced a half marathon and I did 10k a week after and still drop 2 min. Also the day before the race, I did 10 miles of speed interval. The other years I was doing an easy run the day before. Technically I should be tired, but I improved 2 min. So I extremely suggest in taking a closer look on your PH. It is really easy to test, you can buy PH straps at your local pharmacy and test on your urine.
The best thing you can do is focus on your food intake, SPECIALLY your recovery drink! This is one of my biggest fight, most recovery drinks on the market are not good because they have whey protein. Whey protein is extremely processed, is from milk therefor is ACID forming. The other bad thing about is MALTODEXTRIN!!! Malto is extremely processed, but is a cheap carbohydrate that is why the companies use, but it is ACID forming. Also Maltodextrin is not well absorb but the body and it contain is most of the sport drinks out there.
Lucky you there are brands out there they are natural or you can make your own recovery drink (RAW). Vega is a really company with lots of good products including recovery drinks.
Here is my recipe:
Chocolate "Milk" recovery drink
1/4 cup of Nutiva Hemp seeds
1 scoop of Garden of Life Raw protein
10oz of water or  Zico coconut water
2 dates
3/4 of an apple (you can juice the apple if you prefer) or 1 banana
1 tbs of Raw cocoa
Put all in the blender and blend well! Note, you don't need a vitamix neither a powerful blender, just a regular blender will be fine.
Feel good and go RAW!
RW