Operation Gluten Free*

*err... technically... not entirely gluten FREE, but we'll get to that.

True.

But, you're going to hear about it anyway.

So, this past weekend I flew up to Michigan to run the Ann Arbor Marathon in order to cross Michigan off the list (full race report to come). After Eugene, I decided that Ann Arbor would be the perfect opportunity to experiment with eating gluten free before the race. 

Here's a quick run-down of the food I ate on Saturday:

At the airport: Slice of Lemon Glazed Poundcake (the only thing Starbucks has going for it).

Lunch: Mexican food that included rice and beans, a helluva lot of corn chips and salsa and a chimichanga (which, yes, I realize is a deep fried flour tortilla).

 And beer. I had a 24 oz Pacifico at lunch.

It was only $2.10!!!

I also drank zero of that water. FAIL.

Snack: Cookie.

Dinner: French Fries and a Salad.

Dessert: Snickers Bar.  

I realize beer has gluten, the cookie had gluten, etc. But, I'm not a celiac, so I didn't really GO ALL OUT on this gluten free thing. Technically, my dinner salad had gluten because it had crispy fried onions on it. And I dont even know if a Snickers Bar is gluten free... but, to my knowledge it doesn't have flour... so, I considered it fine. (It sounds like I had a major case of PMS ... but this is just the way I eat when I travel, yo). 

I felt good with the dinner. Who doesn't want an excuse to eat french fries?? And I had no problem saying no to the bread basket that was passed around. All-in-all, I felt good about my food choices during the day. The important thing to me was that I wasn't shoveling breadstuffs after breadstuffs after breadstuffs down my piehole 12 hours before the race.

My breakfast before a race is normally a poptart. I love this ritual so much that I actually label my early morning run alarms... "Mmmm... Poptarts." It's like my reward for getting my ass up and running. I knew that I definitely wanted to stay away from the gluten pre-race so I had one of these instead of a poptart:

Where there's a Whole Foods... there's a gluten free freezer section.

One muffin had 400 calories and 62 carbs. Whoa...

All this to say that the operation appears to have been a success!!! I didn't even get a stomach grumble during the race!!! OH MY GOD. You have no idea how awesome that is. The race sucked, but I was thrilled to finish the race without having to stop and poop along the way. It's a gluten-free miracle!!!!

I cannot wait to train and get into shape again and run MY race this time. Nothing's stopping me now...