Marathon PR plan: Do Whole30, try again

Well, I have nothing to share about running this weekend, because I didn't do any. I went to spin class Friday morning, and fully intended to knock out 10 miles Saturday morning, and then I just...didn't. My bed felt good, it was warm inside, I wanted to hang out with Eric (especially because he cooked me breakfast), so it didn't happen.

But we did have a football game Sunday morning, and despite that fact that the other team scored 40+ points and we scored....zero.....it's still 40 minutes of repeated sprints, so that must count for something.

Don't worry though, I still have something to talk about. It's a bit of a confession, really.

Eric and I started doing Whole30.  For those who aren't immersed in the blog world and didn't ask for a homework assignment, it's basically a very strict diet (although it claims not to be a diet) that you follow for 30 days. 

In a nutshell, you don't eat or drink:

• Sugar (including honey, syrup, agave, etc) or fake sugar 
• Dairy
• Grains or legumes (like peanuts)
• Alcohol
• Anything processed (so no chemicals, artificial colors, flavors, etc)

If I've represented myself accurately through the art of the written word, this should surprise you. It meant that approximately 95% of my diet was out, and it makes my blog title a lie. I love to eat and openly mock restrictive HLB blogs (if you consider Twitter an open mocking platform). Furthermore, while I love to eat, I wouldn't say I love to eat meat (yet) and it's still new and somewhat foreign to me. On this diet, meat is one of the main components (there aren't many other options!). I believe it's also closely allied with the Crossfit community (based on the fact that I've heard Cross-fitters mention it more than once) and the only thing I can do with Crossfit is hysterically laugh like a 12 year old boy about people doing snatches and jerks at their box.

And yet I'm not only doing it, I've convinced my husband to do it, AND we're already 7 days in.

Here's what happened.

Victoria ran a 3:47 marathon. Sounds unrelated, but stay with me. Victoria also told me about Whole30 right after her marathon, and before mine, and it seemed like a lot of WholeCrap to me.

Then the marathon happened. I trained my ass off to PR and failed. I'm sure we've all gotten sick of that sob story. At about mile 23 of that marathon, it became apparent that a PR was out unless I suddenly managed to run the last 3 miles at a 7:00 pace (and I did fade in and out of delusions that I could do so). During one of my more lucid periods, when I was trying to come to terms with the fact that it wasn't happening, I yelled out "that's it, I'm doing Whole30!!". We all know that if you commit to something during the final miles of a marathon, you can't back out.

So I checked out the website, gave it some thought, and it was on. There are a lot of other reasons we decided to do it (and also Victoria trained like a beast, I didn't think Whole30 was some magical fix or anything), which I may or may not write about, depending on whether I can make them sound interesting or not. But they can essentially be summed up here.



I was hesitant to blog about this because it's the kind of thing people have pretty strong opinions on and I was really trying to go into it with an open mind and wanted a chance to form my own opinions. Especially since I'm pretty easily swayed by peer pressure. I was also concerned that I'd barely be able to make it through one day, much less 30, and make a huge sweeping declaration about my intent and then have to come back the following day and be like "uh, never mind about that, I really wanted cheese".

I can definitively say I no longer think it's WholeCrap. It's been actually much easier than I thought and I've felt pretty good. Rest assured thought that I don't ever plan on becoming one of those annoying "GLUTEN IS THE DEVIL" types. 

Thoughts? Bring on the mocking, I can take it.