170 Days and Counting....

I rarely have any method to the madness for my photos anymore (I used to have them at least make sense), but I was flipping through our Honeymoon photos, and was feeling nostalgic... So, today it's surfing in Hawaii!

Today's Training:

50 minutes on the treadmill, 2.5% incline, 5.5 miles.

Nutrition:

2 nutri-grain bars, one can of ensure, one granola bar, 2 packages of fruit snacks, a handful of wheat thins, and a can of vegetable beef soup with goldfish crackers, and a chocolate chip cookie.

I was thinking about what to write today (I know, as bad as this is, I actually put some forethought into it!), and was feeling a bit stumped... And then, after my run, I was absolutely CRAVING wheat thins and cheese. Weird, huh? Not for me!

I have a friend who blogs, and he is an EXCELLENT writer... He is deep, meaningful, intellectual, and fluid. He is also super organized, and when he wants to reference a previoius post, he hyper-links that post into his current writing. I wish I was that organized! I tend to be more of a writewhateverpopsintomyheadandtrytobefunny kind of blogger.

I know I have written about food before, and how an Average Joe like me approaches the diet; if I had a hyper link I would put it here, but I don't (there's only 107 previous posts to filter through). My point is though, I am a creature of habit when it comes to food, and I have a pretty limited repertoire. Oddly, wheat thins and cheese are part of that routine, and since I was craving them today, I felt like I was REALLY getting ready for Ironman!! As I was scanning last year's blog, and my training diary for the previous 2 years, there was a TON of canned soup, and wheat thins and cheese. Literally, if I added up quantities, it would have come to just about 2000 lbs of cheese and crackers.

Having said that though, I think my nutrition this year will be better than it has been in the past. As a general rule, I have eaten well, but there is always room for improvement. Like a lot of people, Smokin Hot Wife and I used to eat out a lot; cooking was something we (she) did on Christmas. That grew into a slightly more respectable routine this past year, when I got fairly savvy on the grill outside. Burgers, steaks, chicken, etc., but with different marinades, sides, and seasonings. There was actually a pretty good variety.

Now, we have elevated our game! We've started getting about 99% of our food from the grocery store, and eating out rarely (I think that 1% comes from the Wing Dome). We still have some packaged stuff, soups, chips, and a few frozen foods, but there is a lot of home cooking going on. Even more fun, we're both getting into the game, and sharing chef duties a few nights a week.

Nutrtition to an athlete is similar to the gas you put in a car; the higher quality fuel, the higher quality the performance. So while that statement makes it sound like I live on organic herbs and tofu products, and will win every race I enter from this point forward, I am actually just excited to be eating more foods WE cooked, and less stuff processed in an industrial oven then scraped into a freezer box to be sold at Costco.

Will it make me faster? Seriously, it would take all the organic herbs and tofu in the WORLD to make me faster. I am one slow racer. But it will help us teach our daughter that more often than not, dinner comes from the kitchen.

And sometimes from the Wing Dome.

http://www.thewingdome.com/index_mm.cfm