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| Hopefully that wasn't coffee. |
"All the hard-hitting journalism the liberal outdoor media doesn't want you to hear!"
If you played a sport in high school, the odds are that you've run/played/been concussed so hard that you've heaved your lunch (or was I just too competitive? Hmm...). If you're one of the few and proud reading Trek Tech, I'm going to bet that you carried that intensity on past the scholastic level and you've lost a lunch or two in the last six months.
I was in the middle of a Crossfit workout yesterday when I started getting a little...uneasy. All I could think was, "I'm glad I just ate an English muffin with honey this morning." I kept it down (barely), but that started a line of thought - every experienced over-exerter knows that some foods are better coming back up than others. What are the best and worst foods to have to re-taste in the middle of an intense workout? I pondered my extensive experience and asked around. Here's what I came up with for the best "recycled food."
Please keep in mind that these are just observations - not recommendations. No one should be puking...but if you are, these are the best things to heave:
Dairy: You need to neutralize that sharp stomach acid, and the creamy goodness in udder leak keeps that eye-watering burn to a bare minimum. Most people recommended chocolate milk and dairy-based smoothies for ease of expulsion and sweetness, but Casey Lyons in Boston suggests dairy foods "with good visual interest, like mac and cheese." The recognizable, neon yellow staple is a comfort food no matter which direction it’s headed.
Inverse: Highly acidic foods like coffee and, say Chipotle's lime-cilantro rice are terrible, repeat, terrible. They just intensify that godawful throat burn.
Salts: If you're intolerant of cow juice, going salty is another option. Top Ramen (it is a pre-workout meal when you're in college) kept coming up, scoring points for the salty neutralization properties, along with the noodles' soft consistency.
Exception: Too much salt, or food that's salty/spicy like Thai-hot Chicken Pad Thai also increases throat burn.
Melons: This comes from a more recent experience: I ate a melon fruit cup (more macho than it sounds) about an hour before running hill repeats. Fourth set, they were on the ground, and I didn't even break my stride; just leaned over, said "huuuah," and kept going. The melon tasted the same as it did the first time, and it came out nice and easy. Sheri Christie in San Jose did extensive involuntary testing during her two pregnancies; she summed up the melon nomination well, saying that "the best was shredded carrots
and watermelon! Watermelon was the easiest cause of the watery base and
both come up sweet."
Not all advice revolved around physical well-being. Yesterday, @johnnyhaddad tweeted some very pertinent financial advice:
"French fries, anything high in fat, and inexpensive! I aint trying to puke out $40 for all my protein!"
Since we're not about glorifying rerunning your food, here's your guys' worst of the worst, as per your Facebook replies:
"I know the worst. That would be spicy foods and fish oil pills. That was a bad day."
"Coffee. Nope. Bad idea."
"The worst would be rice. It gets stuck in your nose on the way back up."
"Avoid spicy Mongolian bbq and huge mountain bike rides..."
