Friends Help Friends Eat

One Friday evening Julia and I were texting back and forth about trail conditions, run start times and so on for a shared run on Saturday morning. I confessed to her that I discovered I don’t like cooking on Friday nights. Fridays are my off day from running right now and I usually fill the day with errands and so on but by the time Friday evening comes around, I’m tired and just done with the week. The problem isn’t that I can’t scrape something together and call it good. The problem is that the weekends are my big long run days and I need to eat well before I go out. As my 50 mile training increases, my weekend runs get longer and longer. This weekend for instance was a three hour run on Saturday and then twenty miles on Sunday. My total mileage for the weekend was 35 miles! That is collectively longer than I’ve ever strung together for a weekend. I'm hungry all the time.

I ate some grilled chicken and applesauce for my Friday night supper, aka not enough, then got up super early, 4:30 am, ate a banana and headed out the door. Julia met me an hour later and as we clicked off miles together she told me she always ate the same thing the night before her 50 mile long run training. This isn't rocket science but as I nibbled on fig newtons and sipped on Tailwind, this blew my mind. Eat the same thing before every long run! Do you know Kaci Lickteig eats the same thing the night before every race? She eats a Subway sandwich. Both Julia and Kaci are brilliant!

What 4:30 am looks like

What a best running friend who helps you eat looks like

I sometimes get in this funky cycle of knowing I’m hungry and knowing I should eat but then I put it off and the more I put it off the more picky I get and the less food sounds appealing and before I know it I’m crying and having a meltdown because I’m hungry. I putz around in the kitchen, not deciding on what to eat then suddenly realizing I need food RIGHT NOW! This qualifies as an emergency and I holler to the family that we are going to pick up Hickory Park so I can get a burger STAT!! Sometimes I don't do things very calmly but in this case the family has learned to rattle off their order as quick as possible lest they have to pick me up off the floor and spoon feed me. 

I think there was a steak to go with but I couldn't wait

A similar situation was developing Saturday night but I happened to be at home alone for the evening. I texted my friend Jenn and told her my predicament. She suggested I just go ahead and order something. Yes, yes, I thought, I can do this! Forty-five minutes later, I stood at my kitchen counter inhaling slices of thai chicken pizza. It wasn’t pretty but nobody was there to see. That is, until Jenn came over later and she witnessed me downing a slice of cheesecake in about four bites.

Sunday was the second leg of my back to back long run weekend. I had my pack full of water, Tailwind, GU energy gels and fig newtons and I had Kristy along with me for a handful of miles. I told her Julia's great idea of eating the same thing before her long runs and how I needed to adopt her habit. Kristy mentioned she meal plans on Sundays and that seems to help her. I already meal plan but realized I could start my planning with the weekend in mind and then work back to the beginning of the week. Then I mentioned how I was stubbornly wandering around Target, hungry and yet refusing to buy anything because of budgets and already having almonds at home and other irrational thought processes (this is the same night I had the chicken and applesauce), when I should have just bought something and got it over with. Kristy- smart Kristy, resourceful Kristy, said she usually keeps some almonds or other snacks in her purse. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather at this revelation (also, I was over 20 miles for the weekend already and we were heading into the wind). I have snacks! I have a stash of Picky Bars and Bearded Brother bars that I bought with this training cycle in mind! I could keep them in my purse!!

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Moral to this story: I need my friends to help me eat.