Anyway, the prevailing conventional “wisdom” is to load up with carbohydrates the night before, so you’ll have plenty of fuel to carry you through the four or five-plus hour, 13.32 mile, 7,815-foot vertical climb. People get together and eat gobs of spaghetti with this notion in mind. I put wisdom in quotes, because while it may be conventional, it’s far from wise if you ask me. Carbs–especially refined carbs–will have been converted to body fat long before you’d get a chance to burn them, after sleeping on a meal like that.
My idea is a little different, so here’s what I decided to eat. I had a Mediterranean dinner high in green herbs , vegetables, beans, quinoa, and unsaturated fats (lots of fats). Fats make excellent, readily available, clean-burning fuel. And I wanted a lot of chlorophyll to boost my red blood cells, so I’ll have a shot at easy breathing once I hit 12,000 feet. That was my plan. The menu was quick and easy:
I made my quinoa tabouli, some grilled baby eggplants with ras el hanout–brushed liberally with Udo’s DHA Oil–“Greta’s Cannellini Salad with Mint,” from Speed Vegan, and had all this with some mixed olives. Now, an hour later, it’s all gone down nicely and I’m getting ready to hit the sack.
Tomorrow morning I’m going to have my “Tarahumara running food” drink and that’s it. We’ll see how this goes…
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