We’re now on week 7 of my 10 week “Learn to Run” class. Things are going along very well. I’m quite happy to see the progress everyone has made in these short weeks. I can feel everyone’s confidence is soaring. It’s fantastic! Last week, I had a nutritionist come in to speak to the group. The group got a lot of good info out of that session. I kind of hope that everyone got a little bit of increased awareness over what they eat throughout the day. Part of the talk suggested that people eat their meals at least 3 hours before a run: not a rule–just a suggestion. That gives some time for digestion to get to work. If someone eats a meal too close to the run there’s a tendency to just feel kind of gross with all of the motion. The body might not know where to divert its energy–to the legs that are under stress or to the stomach that’s having to deal with all of the food just put into it.

I think part of what was unspoken was to eat something sensible. I mean, heading out to the Mandarin buffet prior to a run is probably not a great idea. That’s all great, right? I guess I’m mentioning all of this because today I kind of failed in my quest to completely practice what’s being preached. It’s not often I do something like this on a day where I run, but I kind of got stuffed. I wasn’t aiming to feel it, but when lunch was decided it just kind of happened.

Here:

My colleague picked up an east Indian roti from Queen St. West. Just look at it. It was huge! It was also expensive, but at that size it’s understandable. When I got it back to my desk I knew that that thing was “my Everest.” Part of me knew that the smart thing to do would be to eat half and save the rest for the next day, but…that’s usually not something I’d do. It was very tasty. I did manage to eat it all, but afterwards I fell into a predictable comatose state. It’s like all of my energy was being diverted to my gut. See! It’s as predicted. With that feeling, I was worried about my run. My saving grace though was the fact that the run would be 6 hours later, and not sooner.

So anyway, as much as the roti as good, I kind of wonder if I should really work harder to keep things under control. I have to lead my example, no? Even so, I guess having something like this once in a while just means that I’m human.