Goshen 5 & Dime Challenge Recap

I completed my first race since the Disney Marathon last Saturday.  The Route 66 Festival in Edwardsville, IL hosts the (you guessed it) Route 66 10K every June. This year, they partnered with the Glen Carbon Homecoming “Glen Carbon Covered Bridge 5K” to create the Goshen 5 & Dime Challenge.  A colleague of mine convinced me to sign up even though my New Year’s Resolution included “no races, just run for fun” for 2014.  Turns out, I didn’t break my resolution because I didn’t really train for the race and still had fun.

The Route 66 10K is great for several reasons:

• 8am start time
• Great, laid back atmosphere
• Similar, predictable course as previous years (3+ miles are on the trails!)

I started and finished the 10K pretty strong even though I had moments of “quit” in each mile.  I finished without pain and never felt like my tank was on “empty”.  I was a little concerned because my normal go-to pre-5k/10k is off the table during my elimination diet (toast, peanut butter, honey, banana) and I wasn’t sure if the apple cinnamon rice pancakes with coconut butter & apple butter would hold.  But it worked out well!

After the 10K, I headed home to shower, eat, & rest my legs before our next “challenge”: the Glen Carbon Covered Bridge 5K in the evening.

10K results

 

Lunch! Sweet potato “nachos” w/chicken, mango & avocado.

The 5K had me a little worried because it was much hotter at 5pm and I’m not an evening runner.  I like to wake up, run on empty, and recover the rest of the day.  I didn’t know how my stomach would  hold up after a day of food, especially since I planned to be a little faster in this race.

The 5K course was flat & fast (all of it on the Nickel Plate Trail!) but all in the hot evening sun.  I started out fast (too fast: my splits were all positive) and my quads were tired from the morning race.   All “running pain” aside, I pushed through and managed to place 3rd in my age group.  Not a PR, but I’ll still take that extra medal!

5K results

Goshen 5 & Dime Challenge Dominated!

Elimination Diet: Day 4

As I suspected, Day 4 was much easier and happier than Days 1-3.  My cravings were completely under control and/or gone. I was truly baffled by the hunger and cravings to begin with since my breakfast & lunch meals haven’t really changed.  I’m still having my protein smoothie for breakfast and rice, chicken, avocado,  spinach/lettuce, & a fruit for lunch.  It’s amazing how my poorer food choices the 3 days leading up to the elimination diet can “undo” a lot of the good food habits I’d had for so long. Another theory of my extreme hunger could include the complete reduction of sugar.  I’m not one to devour candy or desserts, but just little changes here and there (cutting out all artificial sweeteners, no after-meal peppermints, no coffee/lattes, etc.) probably sent my sugar-craving organs into a frenzy!

From what I’ve read, the first few days of the diet send your body into a detox mode.  I imagined my body going through rehab and withdrawals and my symptoms made much more sense: headache, general “icky” feeling, extreme hunger & cravings, fatigue, etc.

I haven’t worked out much this week (only a couple of 3 mile runs) but that might bring another set of challenges as I up my calorie burn and need for fats & protein for muscle repair.

I’m pretty adapted to “running on empty” since my runs occur toward the end of my daily fasts and I don’t eat before a run (unless it’s over 1 1/2 hours).   I had plenty of energy and endurance during this morning’s run but I could definitely tell I didn’t eat enough yesterday.  Combining an elimination diet with intermittent fasting AND fitness is tough…Stay tuned!

Elimination Diet: Days 1 – 3

Ah, Days 1, 2, & 3.  The worst days of any new routine, diet, job, etc.

As I’m adjusting to my new diet, I’ll admit the first few days were pretty rough.  It didn’t help that the 3 days leading up to this diet were major cheat days for me so I was feeling extra crummy after binging on foods I knew I wouldn’t get to eat for a few months AND foods I knew would cause problems (salsa, peppers, restaurant food, wine, toasted ravioli [beef, cheese, deep fried], etc.).  I’m still really struggling without my afternoon protein snack (hard boiled egg or almond butter)

Day 1: Starving, starving, starving all day. Even when I knew I’d hit my calorie allotment (or even exceeded it). While I normally eat a fair amount of protein with the help of eggs & nut butters (not allowed on this diet), you can only get so full on chicken and avocado.  And I can only eat so much chicken in one day.
Day 1’s menu consisted of apple cinnamon rice pancakes , chicken, rice, avocado, mango, bananas, rice cakes, & rice crackers. I blame my food choices the days leading up to this day and was also very sleepy (sleepiness makes me have ridiculous cravings).

Day 2: For some reason, even my normal protein shake (brown rice protein powder, banana, unsweetened coconut, aloe vera juice, coconut milk) didn’t do much to fill me up. My department had a lunch/retreat that afternoon so I was THAT PERSON who brought her own food (chicken, rice, avocado, lettuce, spinach, & cantaloupe).  Eh well, I’m pretty used to that by now!  Dinner also consisted of chicken, rice, & avocado with cantaloupe & watermelon for dessert.  I was left pretty unsatisfied all day.

Day 3: After 2 days of hanger, I spent all day longing for my next meal or snack. Today was a little better on the hunger front but a morning run helped to keep some cravings at bay (seriously, yay running!). Breakfast & lunch were the same as Day 2 but supper was da’ bomb!  I knew I needed something a little more filling so I scarfed down the sweet potato hash & coconut rice pancakes I’d prepared a week earlier to freeze.   I had the watermelon & cantaloupe for dessert again and was still a little hungry when I went to bed but felt a bit more in control of my appetite than the day before.

Just a note about the 3 recipes above:
The apple cinnamon pancakes call for oats which are currently eliminated from my diet (and were before this process started) so I removed them from the recipe and the results turned out fine. I think the oats might hold the pancakes together a little better so I had to cook them a little longer. Everything else stayed the same (I used all purpose GF flour…make sure it consists of only the flour-types you can have!).  I also top these with apple butter but I’m looking forward to trying these with peanut butter.

The sweet potato hash calls for onions, turkey sausage, and lard. All of these items are removed from my diet because of the elimination diet or because I’ve chosen to eliminate then.  It tastes fine without the onions and lard (I used olive oil instead).  I used very lean ground turkey in place of the sausage and seasoned with a bit of salt & pepper to create the sweet & salty combination.  It’s VERY filling!

For the coconut rice pancakes, I only used rice flour mainly because I couldn’t find sorghum flour. I made one batch with nutmeg & ginger and HATED it (I’m not a fan of nutmeg). The second batch was made with just a pinch of nutmeg & ginger.  These are very dense & filling.  I topped them with apple butter and it was a great combination.