TriTalk Tuesday - Race Day Fueling

Happy Tuesday to everyone!  Cynthia at You Signed Up for What?, Courtney at The Trigirl Chronicles and I are continuing last week's theme of delicious #trichat with this week's theme - what to eat during (and before and after) a big race. 

Advanced planners - next week's topic will be paying homage to our support crew for their long hard work putting up with us and all our laundry.  Supporting a Triathlete!

Race day fueling is very personal.  There are hundreds of specialty products out there - GUs, Gatorade, Hammergels, Shokbloks... the list goes on.  I'm sure that you could ask a hundred different athletes their nutritional strategies and get 100 different answers.  There are some common themes though:

• Don't try anything new on race day (this includes nutrition)
• Take in calories every 45 minutes to an hour, if doing anything longer than a sprint
• Hydrate hydrate hydrate.  Best place to do this in a triathlon is on the bike leg, so practice getting your waterbottle in and out easily!
• Eat a good sized breakfast of carbs a couple of hours before the start - don't race on a full stomach.

The details are mostly personal preference.  I will share what I have found works best for me.  My racing nutrition has been a results of huge trial and error (including some epic bonks during longer races)

Leading up to the race:  I don't carbo-load, in particular.  I have tried it in the past, even eliminating whole grains and vegetables to reduce fiber (as my tummy can be problematic on the run.  Pun intended).  That strategy left me with too few calories in over the course of the taper, and my blood sugar unstable.  Now I eat my regular diet of whole grains, fruits and veggies, and proteins leading up to a race, focusing on keep my blood sugar levels from oscillating too much.  I do, however, have my traditional pre-race dinner of tuna casserole the night before (or 2 nights before) the race.

Why tuna casserole?  Two reasons - it was a childhood staple and comfort food that even my older brother could make for dinners, so it's a bit nostalgic and helps my race jitters.  Also, champion triathlete Chrissy Wellington says in her memoir "A Life Without Limits" that her go-to race meal is also... tuna pasta.  I'm guessing she doesn't mean the cream-of-mushroom soup kind with the breadcrumbs on top, per se, but if it's good enough for Chrissy it's good enough for me!  (Chrissy's book is a great summer read, by the way.  Very well written and inspiring.)

On race day itself, my standard breakfast is a banana and English muffin with natural peanut bitter.  Sometimes adding Greek yogurt as well.  My goal with breakfast is to get a good amount of slow-burning protein into my system a couple of hours beforehand, so it has some time to digest.  I know that many athletes race on only carbs because they are easier to digest - for all the reasons I talked about last week, this doesn't work for me.

About 30 minutes before the start of the race, I'll have one last carb/protein balanced snack, like a Pocketfuel pouch or granola bar.  On the bike I'll take in a GU every 45 minutes or so.  I'm not a huge fan of GU, but they are one of the easiest things to consume while in motion, and I've had ok success with them.  As I said above, hydrate like mad on the bike, especially if it's hot.  Then on the run (or on stand-alone running races), this is my go-to fuel: 

I kid you not.  I've tried a lot of different things, and peanut M&Ms work great for me.  It's (again) the combination of sugar and protein.  Plus, they are dirt cheap, which in this heavy expensive triathlete world, is a great thing!  I eat a fun-sized package (8 M&Ms) every four miles, religiously.  When I ran my most recent half-marathon in Raleigh, I even squeezed in some extra at mile 11 - nothing wrong with starting to space your snacks closer the longer you've been at it!
The only tough part is keeping the kids out of my M&M stash....

Of course, the one item I really can't live without is Nuun.  Electrolyte tabs in lots of yummy flavors, but with no calories.  I drink at least one bottle of Nuun for each workout, and on hot days or long workouts I'll both start and end a workout or race with it.  After our most recent Oly, Gypsy and I were driving back from the race with killer headaches that we couldn't figure out, since we were both drinking (plain) water like fishes.  Once we realized we were low on salt and chugged 2 tablets worth of Nuun each, we were all better!

What is your favorite race fuel??  Are you a GU junky or a whole foods aficionado?

In other news, it's been a while since I've done any kind of product review.  What would people like to see me review here?  Fellow bloggers - any suggestions on new stuff that needs attention?  Let me know in comments!

An InLinkz Link-up

TriTalk Tuesday - What's for Dinner?



Hello hello and it's Tuesday again!  Cynthia from You Signed Up For What? and Courtney from The Trigirl Chronicles decided to take on one of the toughest parts of being an athlete - of being a human! - this week.  Nutrition.  Not Race Day Nutrition (that's next week), but the day to day diet of someone who is trying to train for a triathlon or other athletic event.

Nutrition is said the be the fourth discipline of triathlon.  By whom, you ask?  People, ok?  Just PEOPLE.  Everyone agrees that what you put into your body is a critical part of your training, your life, your physical being, and your sanity.  Frustratingly, no one seems to agree on just what the right approach is.

Spoiler:  I don't have the right answer either.

I actually find the subject of nutrition so very confusing, that I'm actively soliciting comments on this blog post.  Please, oh readers, help a Cupcake Tri Girl out at chime in!

This used to be "right" - base of carbs, then fruits & veg, then protein, then fat:

BUT obesity rates have more than doubled in our country since the 1970s.  Now 2 out of 3 Americans is overweight or obese.  1 in 3 is obese.  What's scarier - these days about a quarter of preschoolers are overweight, and one in three school age children are above a healthy weight.

Just think about what that is going to look like in another 20 years in terms of diabetes, hypertension, cardiac disease, and the host of other factors than come with obesity!!! 

So the "conventional wisdom" of the food pyramid has now shifted away from a carb-loaded, grain heavy diet, and now looks like this:

Fill your plate halfway with fruits and vegetables, get about 1/4 protein, 1/4 grains, and a little bit of dairy.  This is more or less what I strive for (I know... I'm a follower...)

Fish, avocado, quinoa, broccoli, and 1/4 sweet potato

Great big salad over 1/2 the plate, quinoa and beans,
 turkey kielbasa and watermelon

Right about now I'm guessing that several of you are yelling "Carbs!  Cut carbs to lose weight!  High protein!" while the others are chanting "Carbs fuel your workouts.  Carbs fuel your workouts!"  So confusing.  I have tried varieties of "clean" diets.  I tracked everything I put in my mouth like it was my job (counting calories) for a good solid six months and lost 20 lbs.  I went on Weight Watchers.  I also go through periods of this (particularly during peak training weeks):



My favorite diet - "The Rungries"

My nutritional situation is complicated by the fact that I have severe reactive hypoglycemia.  For a full explanation of what the heck that means, please read my review of PocketFuel (I even made graphs!).  In a nutshell, my body can't handle large doses of sugar/carbs, or being without food for more than a couple of hours at a time.  I absolutely must pair carbs, protein, and fat together in the right ratio every time I eat (which is several times per day), or I suffer the consequences.  My blood sugar fluctuations are a huge part of my battle with anxiety and mood issues.  They also make trying to lose weight very difficult and training for long-distance endurance sports very difficult.  Yes, my current goals are to shed a few pounds and train for a 3-4 hour Olympic.  We've already discussed that I'm crap at goal setting.....



A lunch from my Clean Eating phase:
apples, homemade coconut granola,
and tuna & avocado on an egg and flaxseed wrap

Every time in my life that I've deviated into new dietary zones I have made myself very sick very quickly.  After last week's goal post I told my coach I was trying to cut back on the pounds again.  I could here the "No!!!!  You need to fuel your training!" echoing all the way from his home in NYC.....  He was correct.  After a single day of attempting high protein, lower carbs I was a sick puppy.

After all this experimentation, the only single thing that I can say makes a big difference is vastly reduced the amount of refined sugar in my diet.

These would be onion rings.  Which are awesome.
I'm in workout gear so I assume that I earned them!

All of the above is why I stick to the current wisdom (the plate picture) and try to not get too caught up in popular diets.  I also try to not get too hung up on the scale.  After all, I'm smack in the middle of the healthy BMI range.  Just because I look like a 34 year old who had two kids, but want to look like a 22 year old, is not a reason to jeopardize my training or my health.  Since starting my triathlon journey over a year ago, my weight has stayed the same, despite 4-6 workouts a week.  The endurance athlete lifestyle does not lend itself well to looking like Jillian Michaels, alas (though if folks have suggestions... go for it!)

I actually am so very deeply confused about my calories in versus calories out that I bought myself a new toy - the Garmin Vivofit.  Ok, I actually got it because I wanted it, it looks cool, and I like playing with data.  But rationalization is a skill, so....  My thoughts are that I have office days were I sit at a desk, I have big training days, I have crazy-running-around Mommy days, and I'd like to know what the range of those days really looks like, and how much fuel I should be taking in.

Garmin Vivofit, pristine out of box!

 I'll end this not-quite-helpful solicitous ramble with my favorite foods to have on hand for training.  When I'm really in deep training weeks, when I've had the presence of mind to meal plan (note: these two are usually mutually exclusive), these are my go to foods:

• Quinoa.  The only grain that is also a complete protein (all amino acids).  #nutritionalhack
• Almond milk.  More calcium than regular milk.  And I just feel virtuous drinking it.
• Avocados.  I eat them plain, out of their skin, with a spoon.  Even other athletes think this is odd.  

My Mother's Day "mad libs" from my 5 year old.
Mommy likes avocados and to "lots of things" all day...

• Salmon.  Which is sad, because my family hates it
• Tons of produce.  Frozen in the fridge for emergencies.  My family also has organix produce delivered to our door once a week.  We never know just quite what we will get, which is part of the fun.  We have usually been members of a CSA (community supported agriculture), but are trying to make a go of it with our home garden....

The first of our carrot crop this year

•  Grilled chicken.  Buy it in value packs, grill en mass.  Quick protein source and there are tons of fast dinners you can throw together with it.  Quesadillas anyone?
• Protein powder - I haven't found one I really like yet.  Suggestions welcome
• Greek yogurt.  Either plain or vanilla.  Much more protein per spoon than regular yogurt.  Again, it's all about pairing protein/fat/carbs....
• Energy snack raisin thingies.  I don't have a name for them really, but you take equal parts almonds and raisins (and a handful of chocolate chips if you want) and put them in a food processor.  (Soaking the raisins in hot water for a few minutes first helps). Then roll them into bite size balls.  A training must.

Ok all my nutritionist readers - how am I doing?  What tips, beyond the usual athletic advice, would you offer someone with blood sugar issues?

An InLinkz Link-up

New Bedford Half Marathon Race Recap

Unluckiest race number ever?  Or awesome bc it's 13.1(3)?

Well folks, I did it.  My first half marathon is on the books.  It was an experience.  A great experience, a painful experience, and definitely a learning experience.

Gypsy [post-race]: Yeah I guess it is a lot like childbirth.  It hurts while you are doing it and then you walk funny after.

I didn't have the week I wanted going into this race.  I had a lot of stress-related jaw pain and shoulder pain (happily resolved due the efforts of my awesome physical therapist - thank you Laura!), was just generally tired. Then Saturday morning, the day before the race, I missed my last Total Immersion class taking care of my kiddo who had the stomach bug, only to realize I also had it myself.  A half day in the bathroom and bed.  I tried very hard to eat lots of carbs and low fiber for the days leading up to the race (please I never want to see a baked potato again), but all that kind of went out the window down the toilet.  Ah well. Jedi made me my favorite pre-race tuna pasta Saturday night.  Why tuna pasta?  Because it's what my parents made me growing up, and because it's what Chrissy Wellington eats before all her races.  Two good reasons.  Anyway... onto race morning.

Walking to the start.  New Bedford is a pretty little coastal town

 The New Bedford Half had an 11 am start.  Which meant that Rio and my coach Sheriff (also racing this day) would be done with their races before I even got my bib.  It was an hour and a half drive, and we planned on getting there an hour and half before the start to park, catch the shuttle to the start, get our bibs, etc.  This race is known [to me only as of yesterday] for being kind of a logistical nightmare.  With 4,000 runners, there are too few bathrooms, and bib pick-up can take a while.  Furthermore, there are seven aid stations on the course but only water at all of them.  No fuel, no porta-potties.  You're on your own.  As tummy issues are a problem for me even on days that I wasn't recovering from a lower GI bug, I had carefully researched all the coffee shops and convenience stores along the route, should I need an emergency potty stop.  I would later entertain Gypsy by pointing them all out.  "There's the 7-Eleven I could go at..... there's the Dunkin Donuts..."  In fact, I was validated in this approach when we saw a trio of tutu-ed runners bolting into the Dunkin Donuts around Mile 7.  I don't think they were ordering coffee....

Anyway, we got there with time to spare, picked up our numbers.  I got 1313 - unluckiest ever??  Really???  Waiting in the hot locker room for about 20 minutes to pee, and met up with my friend Dawn who was also running.

Staying warm and ready

I did not eat much at this point.  I had tried to eat a pouch of PocketFuel in the car, but I couldn't get most of it out of the pouch.  Instead I took a Gu, which was all sugar and caffeine.  Mistake #1.  I figured I'd have my meticulously planned Mile 4 and Mile 8 fuel stops, so I didn't sweat it.  Also didn't really appreciate that I'd eaten breakfast about 4.5 hours before the start.

We headed out, and lined up with thousands of our best friends for the race.  It was a gorgeous day - sunny and bright but seriously, seriously cold.  With half of the course along the coast where the wind can be quite strong, I had opted to layer for too hot, rather than too cold.  Mistake #2.

The start

Gypsy and me.  I seriously love this girl.

The race started well enough.  The beginning of the course was a gentle downhill.  We had seeded ourselves in the 10:00 minute milers, my goal pace for the whole race, but the first two miles we were running under 9:00 - passing people as we could in the crush.  We even had the amazing experience of running past Team Hoyt around mile 1.  Seriously inspirational.  I didn't get a picture, but my friend Dawn did later so I'm stealing it:

Team Hoyt.  Photo credit Dawn Ertel.

Towards the end of mile 2, I started to slow.  Gypsy asked what was up.  I was seriously too hot.  I made the snap decision to move over and walk while I took off my middle layer.  Why my middle layer, which had the pocket with all my fuel, instead of my top layer?  No idea.  Made sense at the time.  I handed all my gear to Gypsy, stripped, and tied my sweatshirt around my waist.  Back on the road.

Splits.  Pretty clear BONK
at Mile 8

The next section, miles 3-5, were the hills.  I use this term very loosely, because the hills around our homes in central MA where Gypsy and I train make these "hills" look like bumps.  But they were enough to slow my pace to around 10:30.  I'm not quite sure because my watch had stopped working during my strip-tease, so I had to rely on pestering Gypsy for our time and pace.  I was rattled by my watch stopping and my wardrobe failure - already was questioning self.  At Mile 4 Gypsy again helped me take off my sweatshirt, extract my mile 4 Pocketfuel.  Walked for a little bit while I ate and chased it with water.  I tied the shirt back in place, and tucked the Pocketfuel pouch into my waist, thinking it would stay.  Mistake #3.

Around Mile 7 I was starting to feel tired.  My hips and lower back were hurting.  I said something along those lines to Gypsy, and that I wasn't sure I could make the last six miles.  I also knew we weren't pacing as quickly as I'd hoped.  My confidence wasn't really there.

Gypsy said "It's not six miles!!  [Counting on fingers] Eight... Nine.. Ten... ELEVEN!!!"  I looked at her and yelled loud enough for the racers nearby to hear me over their headphones, "It's a 13.1 mile race!!!"  Laughter.  Gypsy said her math was more cheerful.  Agreed.  

I will admit to being pretty grumpy during the race (sign of low blood sugar).  God bless Gypsy for keeping me going.  Mile 7 brings you out onto the water portion of the course.  The crowd support thus far had been great, but at this point the wicked wind drove everyone indoors.  It was very pretty, but freezing cold.  We started joking about going for ocean swims, what kind of wetsuit Gypsy might need (she's in the market).  Make it a reverse 70.3?  Where the heck is my bike?  That would get this over with faster....

Pretty but freezing.  Photo credit Dawn Ertel.

The Mile 8 marker rolled around - the second mandatory fuel stop for me.  I reached into my waistband for where I'd stashed my Pocketfuel.  It was gone.  Not good.  I have pretty severe hypoglycemia - unlike most athletes straight sugar doesn't do it for me - I need the mix of protein and carbs to keep me going.   We kept going.  I'd been stopping for brief walking breaks for the last couple of miles.  

I knew I was in trouble when I stopped to stretch my back, bent down to touch my toes, and fell over.

I caught back up with Gypsy and told her I wasn't feeling well.  I was slurring my words.  I was unbelievably dizzy.  She asked me if I should start walking backwards.  "Why?  Does that help?"  She said the med station was behind us. Oh.  I said no way - I was not stopping, I was not doing anything that didn't result in forward motion.  I was finishing this race.  But that I might have to walk a bit.  Which I did.  Walk and jog and walk.  I'm not sure - this part is a little blurry to me.  I remember being very dizzy, and Gypsy giving me jelly beans to eat.  That the jelly beans were frozen from being in our hands over the last several miles of windy coast, and that they were hard to chew.  Making jokes about feeling like I did three shots of tequila. Handing the jelly beans back to Gypsy like a toddler and telling her I didn't want to hold them anymore, even though her hands were full too. Wanting desperately to be warm again.  (You could ask why I didn't put my sweatshirt back on.  I wasn't in the best decision-making state).  

Around Mile 12 the world stopped spinning.  Jelly beans had done their work.  I told Gypsy I felt better.  Mile 12 is a hill (again I use this term loosely) - if I'm proud of anything from yesterday it's that I didn't walk a step of that hill.  Which isn't to say we were moving faster than many runners who were alternating walking and running.  We weren't.  But I wanted to finish the race running, which I did.

After we crossed the line I again almost fell and grabbed onto Gypsy for balance.  Someone offered me a wheelchair.  Again, no thank you.  I just needed food.  We ate the best orange slices on the planet.  Gypsy told me to give her my phone to take photos of me getting my medal.  Even that wasn't done very gracefully!

It's stuck... wait.... oof got it now!!

My phone then died. Gypsy texted out husbands that we'd survived.  Walked back to the YMCA where everything was based for some clam chowder and fish sandwiches (possible the worst post-race meal possible).  Saw some more friends.  It seems everyone had a tough time.  An elite friend of ours dropped out due to injury.  A friend & trainer from my gym had her legs seize.  Everyone was cold.  Moreover, they were packing up the gym and food while people were still out on the course.  Not cool.  3 hour runners need that food even more than the quick ones!

In the end, our time was 2:23:03.  Gypsy even dropped back to let me cross first.  She is awesome.  This was not the race I had wanted.  I didn't feel strong or well through most of it.  I made some mistakes.  My nutritional planets did not line up right.  I really want a new GPS watch.  And I shudder to think what might have happened if I hadn't had a good friend there to watch out for me.  Maybe a DNF.  Maybe an even slower time.  Who knows?

I was disappointed on the ride home.  I had been hoping for 2:15.  Why?  Just because.  I feel like that's what I could have ran given all things going well.  But when I got home, my kids were so proud of me.  They had made me paper medals and a paper trophy.

Guess which medals mean more to me?

We went out to dinner at my favorite Mexican place.  My phone was charged again, and I received texts and messages from many friends.  Hummingbird's first HM time was similar to mine.  Rio's time for the day was also similar.  My coach was proud and congratulatory and insisted that nutritional BONKs happen even to the pros.  

And hey, I finished a half marathon.

It's amazing what running 13.1 miles and then having a margarita can do to you.  My kids cuddled in bed and read me stories - I was out by 8:30.  

I deserved this.

I took today off to rest and reflect.  I learned a lot of what to do next time.  I'm grateful for the amazing support of my friends, especially Gypsy.  Grateful for my family, and my kids who have insisted I can stay in bed all day if I want (unless they want me to play with them).  Grateful that I'm not so sore today that I can't go up and down stairs (a small miracle).  I'm not sure if I will run another one after the Raleigh Rock'N'Roll next month.  I'm sure that race will be 100% different.  For one thing, it will probably be warm.  Definitely re-learned that you can't predict what will happen on race day.  And learning to be proud of my accomplishments, even if they aren't exactly what I had imagined.....

Are We Having Fun Yet?

I have a coworker for which this is their standard water cooler greeting, similar to "How's it going" or "Sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays!"  Of course being at the office the standard reply is usually some version of no thanks and when can we go home?

Yet it is a very relevant question.  Are we having fun?  Am I having fun in everything that I am doing?  Is training for a half marathon, while learning a whole new way of swimming, and also trying not completely lose to ability to identify my bike, all at the same time, actually fun?

My daughter thinks the
treadmill is seriously fun.

As adults we spend tend to describe facets of our lives as rewarding, meaningful, fulfilling... but not often fun.  In my experience, most problems can be fixed not by excessive over-analysis, but with more fun.

On the trail

Yesterday Gypsy took our kids for the entire day, giving the Jedi and I several blissful hours of uninterrupted time to just enjoy each other's company and talk.  As our kids + her kids = 6 kids solo for the day, this earns her Best Friend of the Year and Mother of the Year simultaneously.  Seriously.  We went for a nice long cross-country ski on the rail trail, and followed it up with some chores around the house (remarking the whole time how quiet it was) and lunch out at our favorite local sushi place.  I cannot describe to anyone who is not a parent what a tremendous gift it was to have that much time together, and how much ground we covered as a couple. Career.  The kids.  Training.  The correct method of snow removal from our driveway.  The future.  The past.  All these things that you never get a chance to really connect about when the day-to-day reality of work and parenting turns you into Mrs. "Why can't she stop leaving dirty clothes all over the house" and Mr. "You always load the dishwasher wrong".  So that was excellent.  Just a few hours of fun together smoothed over months worth of bumps in the road.  Not that we have major bumps in the first place.  But nothing is perfect, not even us.

Wine and Sushi.  Big fun.

After Sunday's race, I was seriously questioning my sanity and the fun-ness of training this time of year.  I mean really - THIS is the correct way to cover a long distance on semi-packed snow:  Not running.

They make these things called skis that slide over the snow....

Similarly, getting out of bed early, trainer rides, and cold pools were starting to top my list of non-fun things. Ditto for lonely long runs in the cold that left me Cranky Tired Mom afterwards.  Ironically one of the reasons I wanted to run longer distances was to be able to go out with some of my runner friends.  Who now are running much less or not at all because of the weather, leaving me to soldier on alone.  Not fun.  So friends - as it warms, expect me to come for you.  I'm a lot faster than I was last fall and I want buddies again!!!

I talked to Sheriff about all of this in a few back and forth emails, and we decided that truly, what is needed is less pressure and more fun.  He even gave me license to "goof off". (I'll be testing the limits of what that means!).  We agreed that for the next few weeks, it's ok if I can't get up super early.  The cycle of packing for a workout, hitting the snooze and then feeling guilty about it all day is killing me.  I will religiously complete my three key runs a week to get ready for the New Bedford half, but other than that I can swim, bike, ski, yoga, or lay around with the kitty as much as I like.  This sounds like fun.

For clarity, here are some examples:

Not fun: commuting home in a huge snowstorm - the third in four days.
Fun: stopping at the gym to wait out the storm, and doing a 2000m swim set that felt like much less, in a completely empty pool.  Oh yes, this happened today.  After running a pretty fast 5K on the treadmill this morning.  Funny how I celebrate freedom to punk off by working out twice in one day.... hmm......

Not fun:  Watching every. single. thing. I. eat.
Fun: Weirdly slug-like and suggestive flambeed banana.

Not fun: Endless trainer rides in the cold basement.
Fun: Trainer rides in the warm living room, while watching Game of Thrones Season 3 which we got on DVD yesterday.  I'd adapted this drinking game for use on the trainer.  Shift up a gear every time someone dies.  Spin up whenever a White Walker appears (bike away!).  Stand up and push for 3 minutes whenever a main character dies.  The Red Wedding episode is gonna be tough....

How do you make exercise fun when you really aren't feeling it?

Any other GOT and SciFi geeks shout out!  (come now don't be shy....)  I'll send you the complete rules to Trainer GOT.....

For your meditations - watch the pretty snow fall......

Product Review - PocketFuel

Sponsored post.  All opinions are my own.  FTC disclosure - free product was provided to blogger for the purpose of review.

Fueling and nutrition are a challenge for every endurance athlete.  Ask any set of triathletes, and you will get as many different strong opinions on what works best as there are people.  Everyone is different - there is no one-size-fits-all formula for proper nutrition.  On long workouts, say over an hour, it becomes even more critical.  The traditional wisdom is to consume a large meal with balanced carbs and protein a few hours before a race (or long workout), and a small easily digestible carbohydrate snack 30 minutes prior.  Then fuel every 45  to 60 minutes with more carbs.  Most sports products like GU gels, Huma Gels, Shot Bloks, and Gatorade offer a mix of electrolytes, naked sugar, and sometimes caffeine.

This is all well and good for people with normal blood sugar.  Bear with me - here comes the science (finally that Masters in Biology is good for something!).  Most people are familiar with insulin, the hormone secreted by the pancreas that moves sugar from the blood into cells where it can be utilized.  This is what diabetics are missing, so that sugar accumulates in their blood without reaching the target cells.

Chronic hypoglycemia is essentially the opposite problem.  The pancreas produces too much insulin, especially in reaction to intake of sugar.  I was saddled with this diagnosis as a child - I kept passing out in class.  Once I even fell off the top row of the choir risers.  I visited the school nurse on a daily basis for doses of granola bars.  Finally my wise mother took me to the doctor.  The test for hypoglycemia is brutal.  After 12 hours fasting, you drink one of those sugary orange soda beverages with a bolus of glucose.  They then collect urine and blood every 1/2 hour for five hours or until you pass out - whichever comes first.  I'll let you guess which I did.  I have distinct memories of playing endless rounds of gin rummy with mom (I was a disadvantaged child before IPads were invented), a gap, and then waking up on a stretcher.

In a normal person, when your blood sugar is low, you eat, and no matter you ate, your body produces the correct amount of insulin, which slowly returns your blood sugar to normal levels.

In a hypoglycemic, when you eat, especially if it is straight carbs, your pancreas completely freaks out and overcompensates by flooding your blood stream with insulin.  The result is a sugar high, followed by a monster crash.  You get dizzy, then cranky, and then turn into a completely scary hell beast with no ability for rational thought.  Even my four year old knows to get mommy a snack if I'm being crazy.  I have no doubt that all of my struggles with anxiety and depression are related to blood sugar.  The antidote to this phenomenon is to always pair carbs with protein.  Protein is digested more slowly, so serves to stabilize the blood sugar, avoiding the crash.  I am never with peanuts, granola bars, or something in my purse.  In my next life I'll be a squirrel.  

(Interesting aside - a paramedic recently told me that the current preferred rescue snack for people in hypoglycemic crisis is frosting.  The sugar and fat is the perfect balance.  So they carry tubes Wilton's in the their med kits.  Cool, huh?  Better health through buttercream....)

While there certainly is enough frosting in my house to serve as a workout fuel, I'm not quite ready to cross those worlds.  And I hate frosting.  But something different than the norm IS needed, because this is what happens to a hypoglycemic on a long workout fueling only with carbs:

For ever gel consumed, the sugar spike and crash comes faster, until you completely bonk and can't continue.  Clearly I'm not going to do 70.3 with only sugar in my tank.  I eat small meals every 3 hours and have been since I was eight years old.  No seven hour workouts here.  So what to do?  A fellow member of the SBM Army suggested I try PocketFuel, an almond-butter based fuel with a whopping 8 grams of protein per pouch.  Yes please!!

I wrote to the kind folks at Pocketfuel, and they very nicely agreed to let me try it out.  They shipped me all 8 flavors the next day.  Talk about service!!  The small packets are slightly larger than a typical GU pack, but still perfect size to fit in your bike jersey.  There is also a twist off lid that is resealable, so you can either chug the whole thing or sip at it slowly over the course of your workout.  Bonus, the packs are reusable - you can also order a giant vat of your favorite flavor (which I will be doing) and refill your pouches from there.

The Jedi and I decided to test drive Pocketfuel on our American Lung Association 2-day 100 mile ride.  And we were pretty excited - the flavors all sounded yummy!  Chocolate smackaroon, Vanilla Haze, and Chunky coconut cherry - these sounded like sundae flavors!

The first flavor up was Vanilla Haze - Jedi broke the top at the first SAG stop of Day 1 (lightweight).  His first reaction was "Oh my god you have to try this.  I want to put this in a cupcake!".  I tried it - he was right.  It was beyond delicious.  Nothing at all like choking down other energy gels.  I started to bonk about 25 miles into the ride and we stopped on the side of the road to refuel.  (Another trait of hypoglycemic - fine to crashing shaking wreck in 60 seconds.  You'd think I'd know better by now.)  I had the Chocolate Espresso in my jersey.  I tried it, and passed to Jedi for his taste.  In the time it took him to say, "Wow that is strong" I sucked down the entire sleeve.  What I loved was that it wasn't sweet.  Not really.  I have a love/hate relationship with sweet things - my body knows that they make me sick, so I always feel some level of queasy as soon as I eat a gel or other sugar.  Not so here.  The chocolate espresso was barely sweet - it tasted like pure fuel.  I didn't experience anything like a crash in the miles that followed - just a slow, strong burn.  I am 100% sure that with enough of this stuff, I could climb Everest.  Win Kona.  Clean my kids playroom and never yell at them while doing so. It is that good.

True, Pocketfuel does have a texture.  You need to massage the packets and mix them up before you consume them.  Just like natural peanut butter, they do separate.  And these are ALL NATURAL ingredients - nothing on the label I couldn't pronounce or wouldn't cook/bake with.  The other flavors we tried were the Chocolate Smackaroon (Jedi wants to put it on his toast) and Pinapple Coconut.  Those too, were not too sweet, and even a little crunchier than the first we tried.  Which I actually like.  I don't like the pudding feeling of most fuel products - with Pocketfuel I felt like I was actually eating something.  But quickly.  Which is great.  You can also add to to milk to make a smoothie - something I'm looking forward to trying with my remaining packets.

In short, Pocketfuel totally rocks. I have no doubt that when and if I make it to the starting line of the Patriot Half Ironman in June, that I'll have my pockets full of the stuff.  Hopefully in Chocolate Espresso.  I might even smear it on my foot to see if it will heal it faster.  I think it will....