Nutrition 101 – FAIL!

There are two types of runners – those who “eat to run” and those who “run to eat”.  I’m definitely one of the latter.  Actually, I may their leader. Mind you, I’ve loved running since I started over ten years ago, but I love eating a lot more.  I wish I just loved clean, fuel-your-workouts, help-you-recover types of food (and I do love these), but I also love deep-fried, clog-your-arteries, make-you-feel-hung-over foods too. 

What’s really strange about the whole thing is that I am a type-A personality.  When I train for a race I need a training plan and I follow it carefully (these days as carefully as a full-time job and a 3 year old will allow). When it comes to the nutrition part though, I fall down.  I don’t mean stumble a bit, I mean trip over my own feet and fall flat on my face.  For example… last week was the Noggin’s birthday and we had a small family get together over the weekend.  There were maybe ten people expected to attend.  I bought a chocolate whipped cream cake with strawberries that is supposed to serve 15-20 people.  Part of the reason for this was that this was the smallest size that they would do the Cars (the movie) design on and the other (somewhat secret) part was that I was excited about the leftovers.  If I had listened to the Russian I would have bought a non-theme cake that serves 8-10 and we would have maybe a piece left over.  Instead, we have this…

Now, the cake wasn’t that good, so I haven’t been eating that much of it, but I am still eating it (it was pre-eating for my long bike ride). 

I know I need to figure out how to get myself to commit to eating well for training (and for life).  I want to be one of those people who eats purposefully, I really do. I’m jealous of those people. I try to train purposefully and I feel that it’s a shame I can’t put the same sort of discipline into a part of the equation that is as important, if not more so, than the type of workouts I do. (the Russian would also be happy if I could do this since he thinks I set a ridiculously bad example for the Noggin, which I do, but I try to do my worst eating when the Noggin is not around). With the half-iron training, and getting older, it is becoming more clear to me that I need to get serious about nutrition – for real, like now! The hard part is figuring out how to do it. 

Of course, the question from this article in the magazine Swimmer is never one that I’m really going to ask myself with a straight face.