Today is one of those days. Wake up, eat, work out, eat, work out again, eat again, work out for a third time, and finally eat a full-sized meal. I started off with a big bowl of oats with a banana, protein powder, with some homemade apple sauce mixed in. During my first workout, a two hour bike trainer ride, I drank two bottles of sports drink and had a gel. After rides like this the last thing I feel like eating afterwards is anything sugary. Enter the savory second breakfast.
Most pro triathletes spend the winter at training camp, putting in grueling hours of work in order to prepare for the upcoming season. Instead of spending my days trail running, going on group rides and smashing swim sets, I spent the winter recovering from a C-section and waking up at in the wee hours to feed my newborn daughter. For the first time in my career, I kicked off the racing season while easing into training—slowly and solo.
Now that summer is here, we’re taking a temporary break from eating hot bowls of oatmeal for breakfast. Instead, we’ve been fueling our morning workouts with refreshing and light breakfasts like this bowl of greek yogurt topped with peaches, seeds and mint.
When I'm out in the middle of the woods running or biking, it isn't too unusual to come across something that makes me sprint in the other direction - a bear, a half naked man sunning himself behind a rock, parts of a gorilla suit costume (not joking!). But a discovery on last Sunday's "off-piste" bike ride might just be the most interesting yet.
This simple snack made the perfect second breakfast before a weekend bike ride. The greens, a mix of spinach, baby kale, baby mustard greens, and a few others I couldn’t identify, were so flavorful and peppery on their own that I left them raw. I fried the egg in a little olive oil, so that plus the egg yolk, salt, and pepper stood in for salad dressing.
Why not start off Christmas morning by eating like an Athlete? Here are two of our favorite festive breakfasts:
The Mix: Steel-cut oats with leftover blueberry crisp
The Story: Last night I made individual blueberry and peach crisps in mini cast-iron Dutch ovens. This morning the two leftover crisps stared at me from the counter, challenging my willpower.
The Mix: Steel-cut oats, blueberry jam, and Greek yogurt
The Story: I wake up about once a week to face an empty larder. No berries. No peaches. No melon. We always seem to have a lonely grapefruit, but on these occasions there’s nothing to sweeten a bowl of oats, yogurt, or cold cereal. Bananas are fine in winter. But in summer, I like something brighter. Enter the small-batch jam.
My morning training sessions run four to five hours now that it’s race season. After sweating and concentrating from sunrise to lunchtime, I crave fat, salt, carbs —and a salad. Yet, I rarely have the patience to chew dainty bites of lettuce.
When I don't have an early swim practice on Saturday mornings I get a little more time for a proper breakfast. Steel cut oats take about 30mins to make but the extra time gives me a chance to make a pot of coffee, read the newspaper and think about the upcoming 4 hour bike ride.
