Racing and Fueling with Celiac (photos added!!)

On Sunday I had my first major race with Celiac Disease, it was a half ironman triathlon in New Hampshire. I had to switch up a lot of my carb loading, race fueling, and recovery food after I learned about my gluten problem, and this was the first time racing long distance with my new nutrition plan. I was nervous about this to say the least!! Besides the race day fueling, I wasn't sure if I would find the right stuff to eat for the 2 days leading up to the race since I was staying in a hotel and wasn't going to have access to a kitchen.

But hot dog, I found some good stuff!

Friday night called for a BIG dinner. I actually found an italian restaurant near our hotel with GF pasta, Fratello's, but they were packed to the brim with other athletes in town and the wait was way too long. So we headed over to Uno's, where they have a nice little GF menu. I had grilled rosemary chicken with rice and mashed potatoes. Yummmm!

Saturday morning means PANCAKES!! I was SO PSYCHED to find Heritage Farms Pancake House. It was incredible. They were an adorable little pancake place in the middle of nowhere. They had a great menu of pancake flavors and even let everyone choose 2 different types! For me, they had GF pancakes.... and they would even let me customize them!! I could have any of the flavors I wanted, and they would make them from scratch with a GF base. Wow. I was boring and went with chocolate chip, I was afraid something fun like pumpkin would cause some undesirable side effects on race morning :). Anyway, these pancakes were amazing. They didn't taste GF! And Tony of babyfelos even said his (non GF) pancakes were the best he'd ever had! I can't wait for a reason to be able to stop by this place again.

Heritage Farm (how CUTE is this place??):

My awesome GF pancakes:

Breakfast gang, minus Brian who was taking the photo:

The rest of the day I snacked on GF Rice Chex cereal, rice cakes, GF crackers, Tapioca Bread, and baked chips. For dinner we went back to Uno's and I had basically the same thing as Friday night, minus the rice. Not supposed to eat too much for this meal.

Race morning, I had my usual breakfast: lots o applesauce, a banana, a bottle of sports drink, and a protein shake. I had to switch my sports drink from PowerBar to Gatorade, as PowerBar drinks are not safe. I was lazy and had purchased one of the regular Gatorade bottles from the store, the purple kind, and it gave me heartburn for a little while. Next time I'll use the performance powder like I should have done!

Throughout the race, I ate Hammer Bars (chocolate chip are DELICIOUS!!) and PowerBar gels (double latte with 2x caffeine) on the bike, and Clif Shot Bloks on the run. Luckily this race offered Gatorate drinks on the course, so it was safe to drink from the aid stations. Otherwise I would have had to stick with water or bring more of my own drink mix (annoying!!).

For recovery food, I brought Hammer Recoverite since that has been working for me, but I completely forgot to have it after the race was over. Instead, I had some fruit, a Hammer Bar, and later some homemade GF peanut butter chocolate chip cookies that I had baked at home before heading to NH. They were delicious, I'll share the recipe soon.

And finally, we stopped (AGAIN) at Uno's on the way home where I had their GF pizza. So far, it's my favorite! Yum!!!

All in all, it was a great weekend and an amazing race for me. I can't even tell you how much better I am feeling these days! It was a PR for me by about 20 minutes!!!

Kudos to Kim and Tony for their great races too!!

Oh, in case you are wondering... I've abandoned the SCD diet. I will for sure still use their recipes, but it's just way to overwhelming right now. Regular old GF dieting seems to be working just fine.