Tummy Troubles

Joy here...Thank you so much to our friend Lulu for posting on the blog about her own running journey.  Lulu's been a character on this blog and a participant in our adventures since July 15, 2010 when she first signed on as a "follower" of this blog.  Sometimes I used to think that Lulu was the only one out there reading this blog!  She's appeared many times as we've described her running and her own adventures, but now she's actually added her own voice to our stories and spoken for herself!

And for any and all you beginner runners out there thinking about taking up running (whether you want to join races or not is a whole other story), I suggest you read what Lulu has to say!

Once you're done skipping down to read Lulu's words and you return to my own...here's what I have to say:  I've got food poisoning!

Okay, I'll back it up a bit.  You see since early April, when I finished my 30km race, The Man and I have been eating Paleo.  What this means is that we've been eating in a way that is more akin to what Paleolithic people ate than what a typical contemporary diet looks like.  The theory behind this is that homo sapiens have not radically changed biologically since the days when Paleolithic dudes were out there hunting and gathering, but we've started to eat things that our bodies aren't evolutionarily designed to cope with.  Since humans are incredible animals with the most amazing traits of adaptation and compensation, sure we can eat things we aren't meant to eat and survive, but will we thrive?  That is what some people have begun asking, and their answer is a resounding NO.  The proponents of Paleo eating suggest that we eat lean protein, fruits, veggies, and healthy fats, and avoid sugar, salt, dairy, and grains.  Sounds reasonable to me.

In fact, eating this way isn't all that different from how we ate before.  Instead of having a dinner of say salmon, greens, and brown rice, we'll have a dinner of salmon, greens, and drizzle it with a bit of olive oil.  Or instead of a dinner with steak, salsa, taco chips and guacamole, we'll have a dinner with steak, salsa (home-made), and sliced avocado.  Or instead of a dinner with stir-fried veggies and chicken and whole wheat pasta noodles, we'll have a dinner with stir-fried veggies and chicken drizzled with flaxseed oil.  You get the picture.

It's been pretty good.  We don't have muesli or anything like that for breakfast anymore, but have the same kind of meal in the morning as we do at lunch and dinner.  And I can tell you that my energy level was consistent all day, and we were feeling lean and healthy.

Then, um, well, we came to Malaysia.

We were really good here for the first month, but then on Monday, figuring it was our last 2 weeks here, we decided to have a curry mee...

...It broke all the rules of our Paleo eating plan.  It tasted sooooooo good going down.  We gulped up those noodles, and loved every minute of it.  But I think that we both knew something wasn't right pretty quickly.

And for the last 5 days we've had what the indomitable Training Payne refers to as "squirt bum."  Let's just say that such a condition isn't overly conducive to running.  So I've had a week off running, and only urged myself out the door to join Nomi for an easy, slow run, because I wanted the company and hadn't seen her all week.  So before the sun was up, me and my roiling tummy were seated in her car to head to the park for our run.

I just took it easy and had only two potty breaks before leaving the park and heading for home.  I take that as a success! ;)

Here are my tummy troubled run stats for today:
Ran for a total of 1:14:15 for a distnce of 11.31kms with an average pace of 6:20min/km.

I guess this food poisoning has clubbed me over the head and dragged me back to my paleolithic cave, where I can resume eating properly and get my gut sorted!

Over and out,
Joy