Food Porn for Runners

Oh, I hesitate to use such a provocative title on a G-rated (maybe PG) running blog! But how else can I describe the titillation of reading about someone eating large quantities of pizza and cheesecake, while running? It's like eating ice cream in the bathtub, or (to raise this to PG-13), George from Seinfeld eating a corned beef sandwich during sex. It's combining two rewarding experiences to achieve a greater high. Of course, when the pizza and cheesecake eating runner is hunky super-endurance athlete Dean Karnazes, the titillation factor reaches a whole different level. But I digress.

What I am referring to is Dean Karnazes' amazing and inspirational memoir, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner, the story of how he started running, stopped running, and then became an extreme athlete, running 50 and 100-mile stretches, and more. I first heard of Dean Karnazes last year at the Whidbey Island Marathon (he participated last year and will again this year). I started reading the book yesterday while waiting for a court hearing, read some more last night, and finished it sitting in my car outside Starbucks today on an extended coffee break. I think it would be fair to say I could not put it down.

The idea of running more than a marathon does not appeal to me. In fact, the idea of running more than a half marathon does not appeal to me! But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy reading the stories of those who do. And boy, are there stories here. In addition to the history of how he became a runner, Dean describes in detail his experiences in several harrowing ultra-long races and runs (not all of his runs are organized races). All this running occurs in addition to him being a husband and father, a successful executive, and a recreational outdoor athlete.

And the food porn part of it? In order to sustain himself during super-long runs, Dean has to consume vast amounts of calories, and you can't get those numbers from healthy foods. So he has no choice but to scarf down pizza, cheesecake, doughnuts, cinnamon buns, and various other kinds of empty calories. In order not to lose time in his running, he has trained himself to eat on the run. The book begins with a story of him balancing a large pizza and a cheesecake from a pizza delivery service that agrees to bring him food on a street corner, while he is solo-running a 199-mile California relay. (Remember, I solo-ran a relay too...10 miles!)

The epilogue in the newest edition of the book tells about Dean's nutrition and training—all very healthy and admirable. But it also lists all the foods he ate on the 199-mile run—some 28,000 delicious and crazy calories. For those of us who have sworn off sweets and white carbs (like Dean's other diet), it is truly a lust-inducing list of sinful treats. (What kind of internet search am I inspiring now—porn, lust, and sin, all in one blog-entry!) Actually it reads like a successful dieter's "before" and "after" menus from the Joy Fit Club!

Despite the pizza and cinnamon rolls, however, I have no plans of taking on ultra-marathon running soon. Or ever. But I certainly did savor reading about it.