I Like To Eat Food/Race Nutrition

Food is something I enjoy eating very much. While I consider myself an atypical American when it comes to the food choices I make, I am certainly susceptible to the siren song of a very greasy, very meaty meal.

Part of the allure of triathlon training is it allows me to eat nearly anything I want and still keep weight off. I generally peak into the 220 lb range every year and then slowly burn it off to about 200 lbs at optimal fighting weight. The government claims that 190 lbs is my optimum, but come on, what is this, 1950? The weight doesn’t really start coming off until I’m up to about 13 hours per week in training.

I would say I’m a conscious eater, choking down a couple of pieces of fruit a day, a few vegetables, dairy, nuts, legumes, all the usual suspects when it comes to healthy eating. I used to diligently eat meat every day, but that has faded a bit and I find I feel just as good, if not better, by cutting my meat intake at least by half of what it used to be. And after decades of hippie militancy, eating meat is slowly going beyond politically incorrect, to almost mainstream.

Race nutrition is a continuing conundrum to me. When your body is moving at an aerobic pace for an extended period, the appetite just isn’t present. You know you need to eat, but your body is telling you not to. The biggest mistake, the experts tell us over and over, is poor nutrition during the race. Eventually you just hope you can get to the finish without having to eat the only flavor left at the comfort station, apricot-peach-anus. After ten hours of gels and sugar drinks, the choice between that anus flavored gel and the royal bonk is a tough one. Traditionally, I’ve chosen the bonk.

I’ve tried to mix up the sugar with some solids like cookies, potato chips, pretzels and chicken noodle soup. I almost think just stopping for about fifteen minutes for a sensible meal might be the solution. Why doesn’t McDonald’s sponsor a booth (not that this is somehow a sensible meal)? That’s about the only thing that sounds good at the 10 hour mark. Two cheeseburgers and a small fry. Perfect.

The biggest obstacle is just willing myself to eat the food I’ve packed. After spending hours diligently packing various foods that I think I will be amenable to eating during a race into convenient 200 calorie packets, come race time, I’ve thrown away far more than I’ve eaten. The one thing that always goes down well is chicken stock. Unfortunately, the carb content isn’t really there.

Conventional wisdom says that when you’re aerobically active, the body can absorb between 200-300 calories per hour, whether that’s gel, sports drink or food. Some foods are going to digest easily, like sugar-although it’s cloying after the thousandth sugar calorie. Some foods, like potato chips with the fat and solid, theoretically won’t digest so well. About 15 pringles, my chip of choice, is equal to about 200 calories. I can’t imagine my body would have that much trouble digesting so few chips when I can eat two cans sitting on the couch watching television. But that fifteen chips seem insurmountable during a race.

Part of the solution would be to cut my time down to around 9 hours so I had less time that I needed to stay fueled. So far this solution has proven elusive.

Another solution might be chicken, beef or pork flavored gels with carb content equivalent to the anus gel.