Race coming up, food musings.

Rest day today, and taper week this week.  Then a semi-week, then another taper week for Irongirl, so I'm not really going to have a hard week until after the sixth of May.  Then it's on like Donkey Kong for October's Half Ironman.  I'm sooooooo looking forward to the longer training sessions.  Three weeks, though.  At least I get two hard races.

The goal is to hit it hard for RAGE even if it hurts Irongirl but 2 weeks should be enough to recover and then hit it hard for Irongirl, then 23 weeks until PM (Pumpkinman, Half Ironman, 10/20/12).  I can do the Oly distances for RAGE, so I'm just gonna go and hit it hard.
So a little diatribe on food.  I crossed over into the dark side today.  If it goes into my mouth, it helps my training.  That means my diet consists of chicken, fish, eggs, brown rice, yams, yogurt, vegetables, and apples, mostly.  I really want that Ironman. 

I was talking to some about food and it came up that people thought that was depriving myself.  But food used to be a source of fuel, we as a society made it into reward and punishment.  Easy to see how it is a reward, but how is it a punishment?  Behave or you get no candy/McDonal's/etc.  You cannot leave the table until you finish everything (how about trying out different foods with the same nutrients or different ways to prepare it?  I didn't eat vegetables until I was 33.  If *I* can figure out a way, *anyone* can figure out a way.  I love the microwave steamable bags, throw into microwave, six minutes later have delicious steamed vegetables with NO preparation.  I regularly eat broccoli, cauliflower, and green beans).

I don't view it as depriving myself of sweets or pizza or whatever, or denying myself, I view it as giving myself something else.  Because nothing can taste as good as "Debbie Eidelman, YOU are an Ironman" is going to feel.

So I did a trail 10K yesterday in over 2 hours.  Other than a bit of a bruised ego, I'm fine.  I had only ran in trail once before recently (and it was flat, this one was HEEEEEEL-LY) and had only worn those shoes once before (on flat terrain).  The shoes were a bad fit and I could feel them pinching my feet in so I walked after 2.6 miles or so because NOTHING is going to stand between me and Saturday.  That triathlon is MINE.  Lessons learned - wear race shoes a lot before the race, train for the race, don't do new things a week before your A race.  But I did this on the spur of the moment, I wasn't really invested in it.  I can see myself getting into it in the future and properly training for it, but no more off-road races for now, although I would love to use trail running (REAL trail running, with hills) as part of my training, with good shoes.