Post Race Paleo

Nell,

What did you eat after you finished Ironman on Saturday?

Thanks,

Nick

When I came across the finish line and into the athlete's area after racing 140.6 miles at Ironman World Championships, my choices for food were:

• Pizza
• Ice Cream

Not that I was surprised, as this is typical post-race fare.    What an insult to one's body!  After it worked so hard all day long, to inflict gluten and dairy upon it… it's appalling, in my opinion.  I much preferred the kale shake my husband had waiting for me after Vegas 70.3!

For most races, I'll prepare Homebrew and bring it along, packed on ice and drink it right away.  For Ironman, however, I do take a bit of a different approach.

As you regular readers know, I'll have eaten my sole non Paleo food (carbohydrate gel)…and nothing but, all day long!

After ten hours of sweet, sweet, sweet, the last thing I usually want is more sweet!  In addition, my body's just been through a long day, at a high intensity, with fuel very different from what I'll have eaten on a normal day.  Not much veggie and protein eating going on during Ironman! : )

So, I go with what my body is telling me I need, and I almost always go for a nice, grass-fed burger on copious amounts of leafy greens with healthy fats like avocado and olive oil.  I'll have some fruit as well, once the sound of the sweeter type foods becomes appetizing.

Part of the purpose of having the homebrew recovery drink is also to prep the body for the next workouts to come, and since I'll have a few really easy days post race, I don't feel particularly concerned with this aspect of recovery. 

Of course, if is of utmost importance to ensure I do everything I can to support my body nutritionally to recover so I focus on all my normal alkaline food as well as some extra servings of the natural anti inflammatory components in my diet like turmeric, oil of oregano and extra fish oil.

I also drink even more water to continue to flush out all the extra electrolytes I'll have consumed during the day.

In a nutshell, I get back to normal Paleo eating asap!