Food- the hardest part about training

Who would have thought that eating would be difficult? You'd think that the more you train the more you'd want to eat. Actually the opposite is happening to me. Over the past few weeks the more I train the hungrier I become but at the same time- the less I want to eat.

More often than not I find myself staring into the fridge and pantry, my stomach turning, and nothing looks good to me. It is frustrating to say the least. My body is starving for calories but it takes all that I have to be able to eat. What makes it worse is that these feelings are inconsistent throughout the day. One minute I can be sick to my stomach when I think about food and the next minute I get so hungry there isn't enough food in front of me to satisfy my appetite.

On the weekends when I do my longest bike rides I wake up in the middle of the night and eat. Last weekend I ate all 960 calories of a Trader Joe's spinach pizza at 2:15am. I woke up to use the bathroom and was ravaged by hunger so I thought I'd eat something...I didn't expect to destroy a whole pizza before going back to bed. I suppose my body needed it though. I eat a fairly healthy diet but the further I go into training for this race the more junk food I pump into my body. When I am sick to my stomach and nothing in my house looks good to me I turn to highly processed sugary foods and they always seem to go down easy. Of course after I eat it I feel guilty because it is not what I normally would eat and is far from natural and whole. Food used to be fun and I loved trying new things. Now food has turned into a challenge and what I end up eating half of the time is far from nutritionally balanced. I think I may need to turn to another nutritionist to help me in my last few months of training. I need some new ideas of new foods to try and I need to be eating the most nutritionally dense foods out there to make sure I am giving my body what it needs.

Do you remember the Michael Phelps diet skit on Saturday Night Live? They joked about him eating 10,000 calories a day? Well that sometimes feels like my reality...except that I can't stomach it. I get so hungry sometimes I feel sick, then I eat and feel even more sick, until it is digested and I feel normal again. Training is slowly turning me against food which was once one of the best things about training. I used to train so I could eat without guilt...now I eat, with guilt, just to have the fuel to be able to train. Who would have thought.

Today I need to thank Melinda Yelton. Last season's coach, a good friend, and an amazing athlete. For the past two Wednesday's she has run part of my long runs with me. Sometimes I feel that I am out there by myself and doing this alone so it is nice to have someones company for parts of my runs. She has helped to keep me motivated, kept me on pace, and has given me so much good advice. Thanks Melinda for all of your help, your company, and your friendship.

This may come as a shock but...off to the pool I go!