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My previous attempts at DIY energy bars had all ended at the grocery store. I would walk in with a long list of ingredients, and walk out with a half-dozen pre-packaged, healthy-enough snacks from the aisle full of options. Baking bars had been high on my should-do list for years, but why spend time cooking something I could buy so easily?
My go to training food when I'm in mid-season intense training is a peanut butter and honey slathered rice cake, inhaled, in seconds, over the kitchen sick. But on these cold December off-season training days, I feel like I deserve a little variety and more substance.
This past month of training has been all about rehab. As much as I'd like to be training like crazy with Laurel, recovering from major abdominal surgery takes time and needs to be done properly. I've been carefully working my way back to fitness under the watchful eye of physical therapist/athletic trainer/all-around guru Carolyn Mazur.
This is kind of hard to admit, but I've been downing rice cakes like they were homemade bread for going on 2 years now. I always chalked rice cakes up to being too dietetic, but since I started eating a gluten-free diet, these crumbly mess-makers have become a staple in my pantry. I've found that they are the most convenient and cost effective vessels for the standard peanut butter pre-workout snack.
My husband John, has spent every free moment planning a late-spring ski tour to the Swiss Alps. One morning he looked up from the whirlwind of trip-related emails, phone calls, route maps, and gear lists and asked me to recreate the hearty muesli he ate daily on last year’s ski tour. 
We eat a huge amount of granola. We sprinkle it over oatmeal for extra calories before a big ride. We pour it onto yogurt for a post-workout second breakfast. We spoon it on ice cream for dessert. And we always pack a batch (double-bagged) in our gear duffle when we go abroad to race, so we’re sure to have a familiar food on hand.
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.
This West Coast heat wave is doing its best to derail my #100daysofAthleteFood challenge. Who wants to haul groceries home and then stand over a hot stove in the 100 degree heat? Oh yeah, I don't always do that on a perfect 70 degree day either, but I'm really making an effort these days!
We have a "house salad" for dinner at least 3 times a week. In the Athlete Food kitchen, this means combining the best, and least weird, ingredients from what's on hand in the refrigerator and pantry. The house dressing is almost always dressed with our Maple Curry Salad Dressing, but for last night's meal, I strayed and used tomatillo sauce.
When I returned from my trip to Vegas and Branson last Sunday night, I was depleted. In a five day stretch, I had competed in three races, navigated five different airports and checked in and out of four hotels, all on a diet that revolved mostly** around a jar of peanut butter.
When I first decided to go gluten free to help control allergies, I struggled to get enough carbs in my diet to fuel my workouts. Without carbs, my workouts would start off ok, but would start to fall apart halfway through. Unable to make it through a 6k swim without my pre-workout bagel, I started and stopped my wheat-free diet three times before it stuck.
After a double workout session last week—Bar Method then River Road run—Bec and I foraged at Trader Joe's in Edgewater, NJ. First we beelined to the sample station for a few bites of mini quesadillas. Then we each bought a snack to eat while we shopped, trail mix for me, a peach for Bec. 
As I dug my spoon into our shared pint of Stewart's ice cream, eyes fixated on Gaby Douglas’ uneven bars routine, my husband, John, turned to me and said, "Maybe we should be eating tofu or salads." I didn’t put my spoon up until the pint was gone. But the next night I cooked a salad appropriate for watching chiseled Olympians sweat over fractions of points and seconds.
Laurel's had pasta and red sauce the night before the Columbia Triathlon last weekend. I had a gluten-free quinoa and lentil salad. Here's how it was prepared:
Treats happen, especially in the weeks after big races. Wins call for celebratory sweets; losses require comfort food. Either way, the key for Laurel and Rebeccah at this midpoint in the triathlon season is to make sure the post-race treats don’t sabotage their three-a-day training sessions.
The thing about Athlete Food is that we're not all healthy, all the time. We eat plenty of kale salads and quinoa, but also have room in our lives for indulgences like cookies and milkshakes. Let's be real, who in their right mind would turn down a big slice of greasy pizza after riding a bike 85 miles? Splurges aren't a daily occurrence for us, but cake at a birthday party? A chocolate croissant from Amy's bread after a long run? Count us in! Growing up, our dad would always keep a canister of macaroons in the pantry at our house on Mastenbrook Place. Laurel would dig into them after school or after swim practice. But the sticky sweetness of these cookies was never my thing. I preferred for Fudge Stripes or Deluxe Grahams (which we also always had in stock).
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.
How many hot drinks does it take to get through these blustery winter days? I tallied my hot beverages from last week and my daily average is SIX! There’s the street cart hot chocolate I use as a heater on my dog walk,
Bikeway Bicycles in Wappingers Falls put on a great clinic for female cyclists last Friday night and I was lucky enough to be a part of it. The clinic covered training, rider safety, how to fix a flat tire, and my contribution, nutrition.
Are sodas over 16 ounces banned in New York City or not? Large sugary drinks' days were numbered until yesterday when a state supreme court judge overturned the ban that was supposed to go into effect today. I've been known to guzzle large amounts of Coke during long, hot bike rides, so I can't say I was totally against the ban.
What is it with craving fizzy drinks after workouts? Among my triathlete and runner friends there's a rare consensus that cold bubbles are thirst quenching.
This year I won't be toasting the New Year with champagne. Instead, we're gong to sip this bubbly, festive and alcohol-free drink as we continue to lay low and wait for the baby's arrival (about 2-3 weeks?!). I came up with this fruit flavored seltzer after we received a big box of Harry & David's pears as a holiday gift.
Aside from being gluten free to help control allergies, I don't adhere to a specific diet. Some days I'll eat sweet potato fries from the local diner or have a huge handful of M&M's after dinner and dessert.
After racing at the HyVee Triathlon last year, I knew the odds of finding healthy, gluten-free meals in downtown Des Moines were slim. The few restaurants within walking distance of my hotel catered to the 9 to 5 crowd and were closed on weekends. I subsisted on the free hotel breakfast and a jar of peanut butter.
As I dug my spoon into our shared pint of Stewart's ice cream, eyes fixated on Gaby Douglas’ uneven bars routine, my husband, John, turned to me and said, "Maybe we should be eating tofu or salads." I didn’t put my spoon up until the pint was gone. But the next night I cooked a salad appropriate for watching chiseled Olympians sweat over fractions of points and seconds.
