Thursday, July 24, 2008

The Watermelon Experiment




A morning dentist appointment kept me from running far today, but it also gave me the chance to experiment with breakfast.

I've long avoided food before my morning runs because I've found that it makes me cramp up. That works fine for four-mile morning runs, but what about 26-mile afternoon runs? Fuel really begins to become a problem.

So today I ate half of a watermelon for breakfast at about 7:15 a.m. I started running after I got back from the dentist at about 9 a.m., and it didn't give me a cramp.

I have no idea why not. I'm going to experiment with some blended bananas before a run this weekend.

The Response: I just wanted to thank everyone in the community who has emailed or called me to give me advice. I've probably had at least 30 people contact me since Tuesday.

Diet Questions: I've been fielding a ton of questions about my diet, what I eat, why I haven't wasted into a gelatinous blob, etc. Rather than answering all these questions individually, I'd like to ask that people check out my website first, and then email me if you still have questions. The page is: Diet Page


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I miss running in Meriden. The grid street layout in the city really lends itself to less monotonous out and back and loops. In contrast, my current home of suburban Southington restricts you to the same boring collector streets that all the dead ends dump out onto.

Sarah said...

I'm glad you have found a breakfast food that doesn't make you cramp! :-) Like you, I just about never eat before working out - but have on the rare occasion had a bit of melon or OJ and either of those were fine. I'll be looking to see how blended bananas work out for ya.

Running Raw said...

John,

I completely agree. I used to live in Cheshire and I got tired of some of those roads, though there are great hills there.

Meriden is offering me some nice runs.

Sarah,
I'll be sure to let you know.