Variety is the spice of life

In my previous post "Ironman by the numbers", I gathered some rough numbers on how many calories get burned over the course of the race. That number came out to about 12,500 calories. So how do you deal w/ losing all that energy? Obviously it's virtually impossible to take in that many calories over the course of a day (unless you're Michael Phelps), especially if you're on the move the whole time.

Throughout this training process, nutrition has become one of my bigger worries for the race, as I will need to consume MUCH more food than I ever have during a race. So the problem boils down to needing to eat a lot of food (which of course I never object to), but the kicker is that you need to eat food that won't upset your stomach as you're moving. Usually that means eating products that begin w/ Clif or Power, but i've recently gotten pretty sick of them. This past weekend in the peak training workout, I decided to roll the dice and mix it up a little bit. The workout was an 85 mile bike + 20 mile run brick workout. I felt pretty good on the fitness side, but the greatest thing to come out of it was I ate a variety of food to keep me going, and no digestion problems! Here's the rundown:

pre-workout:
16 oz Safeway Plain Yogurt - 280 Calories
1 cup Quaker Natural Granola (this stuff is awesome) - 420 Calories
20 oz Gatorade - 130 Calories

During Bike:
1 pack Sharkies Organic Energy Sport Chews - 140 Calories
1 crunchy peanut butter Clif Bar - 250 Calories
1 strawberry pomegranate Odwalla Bar - 220 Calories
1 Sara Lee plain bagel - 270 Calories
2 tbsp Skippy Super Chunk Extra Crunch Peanut Butter - 190 Calories
1 tbsp Welch's squeezeable concord grape jelly - 50 Calories
1 package Nabisco fig newtons - 200 Calories
1 pack Sharkies Organic Energy Sport Chews - 140 Calories
48 oz Gatorade - 390 Calories
20 oz Clif Shot "Lemonade" Electrolyte Drink - 160 Calories

Transition:
1 strawberry pomegranate Odwalla Bar - 220 Calories
1 18 Rabbits Funky Figs and Cherries veritas granola bar (whatever that means?) - 220 Calories
20 oz Gatorade - 130 Calories

Run:
4 Clif Shot "Razz" energy gels - 400 Calories

All this came to a grand total of 3810 calories and overall I felt like i had enough nutrition in my system to keep me going! Now that the nutrition plan is set, and taper officially begins this week, bring on the ironman!!!

Countdown is at 18 days!!!