Food Stories

Endurance athletes LOVE food. There's no doubt about it. Talk to any athlete and they will have a food story. We love to eat. It's the nature of spending a ridiculous amount of time and energy outside, in motion, for hours on end.

The best potato chip ever - Corey Pass, Summer '08

A few years back, in a past life, I was once an adventure racer. Adventure racers in particular are food obsessed. You spend hours on end, running around in the woods, frequently delirious, exhausted and hungry. The very nature of this sport, inspires frequent conversations and fantasies involving food. Eventually, when you are adventure racing or running for hours on end the trail chatter ALWAYS end up coming back to the subject of food. The dialogue often starts with the phrase:

"You know what would taste good right now?"

And digress quickly into fantasy:

"I want bacon. Yeah. Bacon and beer. Wait. I want chocolate. Yeah. Oh. How about chocolate covered bacon with a beer?!?"

Those discussions would be followed up with:

"When this is over, I am going to eat a......*insert food fantasy here*"

Yes, whether you are an adventure racer, a trail runner, a triathlete or a mountain biker, we love food.

Halloween Run '08: The Coffee Crisp Experiment

During Friday's long run, I had a funny little thing occur which involved a Cliff Bar and My Bra. This got me thinking about "food stories". I have so many fantastic memories and stories involving friends, food and adventures be it on the trail, on the ski slopes, on a bike or in a canoe. In fact, one of the many multitudes of super incredible reasons my husband fell in love with me was because of a food story. But I digress.

Friday's run was a long one. Running in cold weather is always challenging and it's especially challenging to eat and drink properly. Not only do you not feel as thirsty as you would on a hot day, but crazy things happen to impede you from drinking and eating like you should. For example, my water system frequently freezes up. On Friday, my Cliff Bar was so solid I thought I was going to lose my front teeth eating the thing, so I put it in my bra to warm it up. It worked like a charm and in minutes I had a soft bar to enjoy, so I ate half a bar and put the other half back in my bra...unwrapped.

Boulder Pass, Peanut butter and Jam, today at about 2:00PM.

I kept running for about half an hour before I remember the Bar, nestled in between the Girls all cozy and warm. When I reached in to get my snack, I discovered my Chocolate Almond Explosion bar had melted and adhered to the inside of my bra. I had to fight with it to get it out, but it still tasted great!

Aaaaah, so many food stories and memories. This little event reminded me of so many others....

Cycling shorts are, in fact, the BEST place to store food. While adventure racing, I would frequently carry a virtual smorgasborg of deliciousness stuffed in the front legs of my shorts. People were amazed when I would randomly pull out pieces of beef jerky, fig newtons and entire slices of pizza out of my shorts. This system worked well, but was *slightly* problematic when you had to go to the bathroom.

I have a friend who did an Ironman a few years back and when asked to describe how the experience was, summed it up with her fondest memory:

"I was halfway into my marathon run and feeling rotten. I was tired and grumpy and had stopped eating and drinking because I couldn't stomach anything. I was rummaging through my collection of Gu Gels, and Sports Beans and all of this synthetic crap when I found a Ziploc full of Pringles Potato Chips. When I bit into that chip and tasted the fatty salty goodness, it was the best thing I had tasted in my whole life...."

Aaaaah. Food and sport. I can still visualize and taste in my mind, a sandwich that I once found in the bottom of my pack, during a particularly long 12hr+ day of racing. I too, found myself rummaging through a variety of snacks that had long since lost any appeal when I found it. It was a bacon, avocado and havarti sandwich that had squished itself in the far corner of my hydration pack, almost pulverized beyond recogniton, but still intact in it's happy ziploc home. It was in fact, and still is in my mind the singlemost tasty morsel of deliciousness that I have EVER eaten.

Oh yeah, of the many multitudes of super incredible reasons my husband fell in love with me, was because of a slice of pizza.

This food story takes place on a chairlift. Fifteen years ago I was riding a chairlift with the younger-version-of-Keith, who was a very hungry ski bum. While riding the chairlift, I offered him a piece of pizza. He was instantly smitten when I reached into my pack and pulled out an unwrapped piece of pizza. Ah, wuv.

On that note, I will wrap up the food stories. I'd love to hear some of your stories, I know that you all have them!

The Readers Digest Condensed Version of my weekend went like this:

Friday, Run for 6 1/2 hours, twice up Sulphur, great run, great day complete with the Chocolate Almond Explosion Cliff Bar. Saturday, 5 hours of ski touring in a very beautiful place with fluffy turns. Prosciuto and Avocado, with a Coffee Crisp which I mooched. Sunday, run to Skoki, 29km. PB and J, with a butter tart for second breakfast.

I got a new camera and so far I'm enjoying the results! It's shockproof and waterproof and hopefully food proof. It will frequently find itself in the pocket of my shorts, next to the unwrapped Toblerone triangle and the handful of salty pecans.

We had a very pretty ski day on Saturday, enjoy the pictures.

And some random silliness running the snowmobile trail into Skoki Lodge: