Not So Conscience Eating

On Friday and Saturday I competed in the Ragnar Relay, a 12 person team relay running 200+ miles from Cumberland, MD to Washington DC. It was an amazing experience and am looking forward to competing next year. After wards, not only was I physically beat from lack of sleep, dehydration, long hard runs and small recovery time, but my stomach and digestion were also stressed. Here is a conservative estimate of what I consumed from 330AM Friday to 430PM Saturday:

48 oz. Coke/Diet Coke
8 oz. Sprite
128 oz. Gatorade
300 oz. water (at least)
24 oz. coffee
swedish fish
gummi bears
potato chips
2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (small)
2 turkey sandwiches (small)
1 Italian cold cut sandwich
2 apples
2 bananas
2 oranges
2 watermelon slices
grapes
1 oz. almonds
1 oz. salted peanuts
2 gluten free vegan waffles w/maple syrup
1 oz. orange juice
4 smoothie samples

This is the worst I heave eaten in years. Let me also say that I follow a gluten free vegan diet, obviously these past two days are a great exception, and am almost obsessive-compulsive about my caloric intake and quality of calories. I found it extremely difficult to eat well, one is either running, recovering, driving, navigating or sleeping on a continuous rotation as well as living out of a van with five other team mates and battling the heat. I found that I had to make myself eat- exception immediately following a run I always craved salty food and Gatorade, other than that my eating was to be sure I stayed ahead of calories burned and dehydration not because I was hungry. When I was hungry I craved quick energy that was calorically dense or protein. Oddly enough, at the end of the race and after I had completed my 'legs' we stopped to support (provide fluids etc., to our runner) and a McDonalds was near by- I craved McDonalds. I have not had McDonalds in at least 15 years and am normally turned off just by the smell of McDonalds. (I did not get McDonalds, I shudder to think of the consequences if I had gone with the egg mcmuffin and hashbrowns.)

What I ate is close to the normal diet of the other racers and lower on the calorie side.

I am almost certain I was dehydrated the entire race, and once you are dehydrated it is impossible to rehydrate while maintaining a high level of activity. I also netted a total of 3.5 hours of sleep between Friday and Saturday.

I am of course now paying the price- but I will run this race again, only plan and implement my food and fluids. Sleep is optional at Ragnar. I will be browsing through Conscience Eating in the coming days.