Friday Favourites – Running food
So I typically have a lot of tummy troubles. I have issues with greasy food making my tummy hurt, I get nausea easily, I get car/sea/air sick, so when I say I have an iron running stomach it’s a strange thing. I am one of those people who can eat dinner and take off for a 10k like 5 minutes after I wash the dishes. I have no idea why, but I can do a lot of working with food in my belly. My theory is that my family is german and I come from really hard working people so we tend to eat and go right back to working, which is how I function too. So probably it comes from my genes. I actually found this week, that my stomach is more bothered by running on little food, than a lot. I drink a lot of water on a run, so if there isn’t much food I end up with a lot of liquid sloshing around in there, and that makes me uncomfortable. So here are my favourite foods to eat while running and some foods that I am planning to try when I do my marathon training.
1/ My running cookies!
I use my standard oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I add flax seeds, dried cranberries, and almonds. I can munch them while I run and if they crumble in my pocket who cares, that just makes them easier to eat. I take 1 on a 10k route and 2 if I go 12-20km. I love the taste, and they sit wonderfully in my tummy. I just have to make sure I have water when I eat them, in case I swallow a chunk without chewing it enough, but that only happened once. I store them in the freezer so I can bake a huge batch and take them out before a run.
2/ Bag of nuts / Nutty granola bar.
I love almonds so I often will take 10-20 almonds in a ziploc bag in my water belt in case I need a little pick up after my cookies are gone. I find that they don’t give me the same pick up that my cookies do (probably the lack of sugar) so I keep them for after my cookies. If we’re out of almonds, I’ll take a nutty granola bar. I’m not a big fan of granola bars so I avoid using them. I also don’t like the processed stuff in the in those bars. My cookies are all natural so I prefer stuff that is real.
3/ Eat before or after — a/ before
If I eat something specific for a run, I eat homemade blueberry/banana oatmeal made with large flake oats, or a piece of wheat toast with nutella and peanut butter and banana bits if I have one. If we are down to 1 banana I won’t eat it because Lillian loves bananas and I can’t eat it away from her.
b/ after
I’m a snacker so I usually have eaten within 3 hours of a run. Plus with two little babies, I don’t always get notice of when I can run. Sometimes I turn around and both kids are asleep and I just rush into the basement and hop on the treadmill until someone cries. On days that my run magically appears out of no where I eat after. Usually I enjoy a bowl of yogurt, with Kashi cereal or bran buds, and fruit (usually what Lillian left on her plate). In all honesty, if I’m in a rush I’ll eat a bran cookie and small glass of milk too.