No Claires were harmed in this experiment

So when we left off I'd just read The Thrive Diet (Brendan Brazier) and decided to try it out. Rocketpants has pointed that, as a vegetarian, I should be against animal testing. Well duh, I'm going to be the guinea pig.

The Eating Side of Things

As someone who hasn't always had the healthiest relationship with food, I have to be really careful when I make drastic changes in my eating. I can't restrict foods, or else I go way overboard and everything suffers. So I decided that instead of "not eating processed foods" I would try to "eat more whole grains, raw fruits and vegetables, etc." I went down to my local neighborhood Whole Foods and spent $100 on $6 loaves of "sprouted 7-grain bread" to take the place of my Pepridge Farm "multigrain" (white flour dyed brown) bread. I bought a tub of foul-smelling green powder containing chlorella, spirulina, wheat grass and açaí extract (among other things) to put in my smoothies. I bought about a million grains from the bulk bins that I promptly forgot the names of when I got home. I bought ground flax seed for protein and omega 3's, nutritional yeast for B vitamins, maca for whatever that does, nori and umeboshi plums to make brown rice balls, miso paste to use instead of salt, dates to make my own energy bars, coconut oil for god knows what, and some other things I can't remember.

I'm not even going to pretend that I followed the diet to the letter during my 2 week experiment. If it was too much effort to eat "the Thrive way", then I ate bread or cheese or sugar or whatever I had around. Another thing I'm not allowed to do is spend all day obsessing about what I'm going to eat at my next meal. My diet on a normal day looked something like this (new additions in bold):
4:45 AM: a banana and a handful of almonds
7:00 AM: omelet (one whole egg, one white) on sprouted multigrain bread, a berry smoothee (with whey powder, ground flax seed, maca, and green foods), green tea
10:30 AM: trail mix of raisins (it used to be craisins, but I got rid of them to cut the sugar), and soaked almonds. More green tea.
1:00 PM: soup with some kind of whole grain and lentils cooked at a low temperature with miso paste
5:00 PM: whatever I can find in the kitchen that I won't puke up during my workout
8:00 PM: whatever dinner Dad makes. No one's allowed in the kitchen while he's cooking, so what Daddy makes, I eat. Spoiled, I know, but I'm not going to go imposing my weird experimental recipes on him.

To tell the truth, my diet really wasn’t all that bad to begin with, and so my little experiment really just meant tweaking a couple of details... if I felt like it. For example, I didn’t nix the sports drink, but I did try to mix papaya chunks in with my shot blocks (which was good because they didn’t stick to my teeth, but bad because they also had some undesirable side effects), I had white pasta when that’s what Dad had prepared, but if it was a rice dish, I made some brown rice on the side (as long as Dad didn’t have to take responsibility if it “came out wrong”)...

... And I tried to cook...

I’m not a bad cook when I know someone else is going to try to choke down whatever I prepare, but I’m not nearly as attentive for my own palette. I don't mind if it tastes like sand just as long as it's good for me, and when my food tastes like poo I don't tend to overeat. Being a shitty cook is my way of avoiding obsessing about food. When I cook I’ll just put in whatever ingredients I can find lying around and hope it turns out okay. Most of the time, it doesn't.

My first cooking experiment: The rice ball incident
They would have turned out unappetizing at worst if I hadn’t tried putting the umeboshi pickled plums in the middle. These barf-magnets are pink and squishy and come in a vacuum-sealed container that makes them look like fetus balls and costs $11.99. They have the texture of something organic (in the chemistry sense) that’s been rotting at the bottom of the trash can for about 6 months, and taste like nothing but brine. I’m not a big fan of nori either. It took me several tries to get the “ball” part right, and most of what I came up with looked more like dark green “rice burgers”. Let me tell you, I’ve never been as relieved as the day that I finished my rice balls and knew I wouldn’t have to pretend they weren’t that bad anymore.

My second cooking experiment: Not cooking
Another morning I came home late from the gym and didn’t have time to prepare my grain of the day (barley) and lentils. Well, that’s okay. If you leave rice in warm water for long enough, it’ll cook anyway, right? At least that’s what one of my hippie housemates told me (trying to get me to discourage war, one stirfry at a time). So I put the barley and lentils in a tupperware with some warm water, then I threw in some nori for extra credit and trotted off to work. Let me tell you one thing about nori: if you put it back in water, it turns back into kelp and smells like a bad day at the beach. Let me tell you something else, most office kitchens, like mine, do not have strainers. So here I am with something that resembles a tide pool sitting on my desk all morning, periodically going off to the kitchen to change the water, and leaving an ungodly mess in the sink. My boss told me that I had definitely "out-grossed" Diane, who can eat unseasoned brown rice and steamed broccoli and call it a delicious meal. When it came time to eat it, I could barely stand to look at it. I scraped most of the seaweed into the trash, mashed in as much avocado as I could to mask the taste, and gulped down the crunchy lentils and grains. Diane stood at the door to my cube laughing at me as I choked down the first bites. Entirely disgusting.

My third cooking experiment: The mystery of the gloppy grain
As I mentioned, when I bought my buckets of grains from the bulk bins, I didn't really take much notice of what they were or what they were supposed to come out like. So when I cooked an interesting, gravely-looking grain for the better part of an hour I was pretty disappointed that it turned into a gloppy, gooey, slimy porridge-like mush with flecks of pond scum in it (spinach, actually). But it was too late to find another lunch now, so I blasted it with water hoping to wash the slimy excess starch away. It didn't go away. The colander just held the water there. There was nothing to do but dump the disgusting mess into a tupperware with some hot pepper (to try to mask the taste) and dash off to work. When I took it out to eat it at lunchtime, it had taken on a kind of grey tinge that looked like the gruel from Oliver! with some healthy green mold for good measure. I ate it, again with Diane laughing at my misery.

The Training End of the Deal

Week 1: Totals from Sunday, March 16 - Saturday, March 22
4 Runs: Total distance 51.6 miles (15.76, 8 [speed work], 18.34, and 9.52 [brick] miles)
3 Bike Sessions: Total time 5:46:28 (actually less than usual)
4 Swim Sessions: Total distance 13,000 yards
15 Workouts overall: 21:21:30 (one near-half-ironman simulation)

Week 2: Totals for Monday, March 24 - Sunday, March 30 (Easter off)
3 Runs: Total distance 38.2 miles (10.25 [hill repeats], 7.84 [brick], 20.14 miles)
3 Bike Sessions: Total time 7:34:57
3 Swims: Total distance 7,800 yards
13 Workouts overall: 20:09:55
(for more information you can check out my training log)

So I basically did at least 2-a-day workouts 4 days a week, with long workouts on weekends and one rest day with only 1 workout, for 2 weeks. Plus Easter off. Most of the emphasis was on running, since weather insists on breaking my heart as far as cycling goes.

The Results

The positives: Most importantly, I didn't die. Although I was tired and beginning to fade at the end, especially in the swimming, I was able to pull a 20 miler out of my ass the last day averaging about 15 seconds per mile faster than my 2 long runs the week before. It should also be noted that although I was tight, I didn't feel the hint of an injury.
~My first indicator of overtraining is always insomnia, but I was able to sleep soundly almost every night and wake up feeling alive (if not "energized") every morning.
~Almost immediately I started to feel leaner and it took just a little bit less imagination to see definition in my abs (if I stood just so in just the right light). My data on this is sketchy since I bought a scale half way through the experiment, but I did lose about half a percentage point of body fat in about a week (about half a pound). It's nothing major, but I have mentioned before that I feel sexier when I eat more vegetables. I definitely felt sexier.
~Thursday (of the rest week after the fact) on the run of a brick workout I EASILY held under 9 minute miles on an EASY 3 mile run. Four weeks ago on a run under similar conditions I held a similar average pace, but including fartlek bursts of speed. Running faster was definitely easier.

The negatives: I did have to take an extra evening of rest after Easter (which I took totally off). However, after sleeping 9 hours, the next day I woke up feeling like a million bucks and ran 10 miles of hill repeats. In my training log that day I wrote, "I'm SO glad I put this workout off yesterday so that I did it while well rested! It was GREAT!"
~I was feeling blah by the end and was definitely burnt out on racing. Though now, at the end of my rest week, I feel ready to take on the world again and am climbing up the walls a bit.
~I'm a horrible cook. Luckily, I'm not a picky eater if I know it's good for me.
~I refuse to go in public restrooms. I have a very regular schedule: without fail I go over breakfast or wait till tomorrow. Uncharacteristically, there were a couple of days at work where I had to break Claire's #1 Rule of Public Pooping: Don't. And there was the papaya incident in the last 3 miles of the 20 miler.

Things to take into account
~I had never done volume like that (the previous training cycle I averaged only about 15 hours a week), so who's to say I couldn't have done that anyway, without changing my diet?
~My feelings were totally subjective. I have no way to quantify the results other than DEAD/ALIVE, INJURED/HEALTHY. I am alive and healthy.
~I did take a full day off for Easter smack in the middle of the 2 weeks, something that I almost never do. Maybe a full day's rest is just what I needed to get recharged, and not $100 worth of powders and potions.

Conclusion

I can't say for sure if the diet helped, or it was just the placebo effect carrying me through something I didn't know my body was already capable of. In any case, I figure that it can't hurt. And if 2 weeks of these changes were enough to carry me through 89.8 miles of running, 11:20:42 of biking, 20,800 yards of swimming, and 41.5 hours of training in 15 days (on top of a full time job), then who knows what the longer term effects will be.

In the poll, two thirds of you (6 out of 9) agreed with Trihardist who said, A month ago, I would have said that I would totally do it if it meant I could compete at the highest levels of sport for ten years. But that would have been before I tried to eat an all-raw diet, in hopes that it would give me more energy (and quicker recovery). I made it about a week and a half before I said "Fuck this! I'm gonna go eat a loaf of bread!" So bring on the pizza and beer, baby! And post-race nachos! I understand her point of view, but I just don't feel like pizza and nachos could ever be as dear to me as, say, a gold medal.
I am more on board with Gretchen, who said, Claire, ...your blog never ceases to entertain, inspire and make me think [why, thank you, Gretchen; the check's in the mail]... [Y]ou are totally right on about why I compete. And on that note, I can't believe the number of folks who said they wouldn't give up tastey food to kick ass on a world level.(That's some suffering, but not that much!) Either they are totally full of shit, or they just don't know what they are missing. I don't mean to be a total bitch, because I too run more for the adventure than to win, but that's mostly because winning is just not really an option. I ran competatively in college though and had my share of wins. I can honestly say that for me there isn't a longer lasting high out there than kicking some ass, toeing the line knowing that you are faster than everyone else, feeling confident, and as you put it, like a badass mofo. I don't get that so much these days, and I would happily give up 10 years of tastiness for that high. Don't get me wrong, I know that there is so much more than winning (otherwise why would I bother??) and trail running and ultras are strong on the adventuring/suffering factor which, as you note, are apparently big reasons why we are out there. But from someone who truly loves the community feel and non-competative aspects of ultra running, there is still nothing like kicking some ass.

In other words, I'm totally at peace with whatever my result as long as I'm doing my best. That said, there is not a day that goes by that I don't wish my best were among the best of the best. And even if I will never be the best of the best, I would still like to do everything I can to do MY best in anything that is important to me, be it athletic competition, my job, my writing, etc. So the final verdict is that, without going overboard, I'm going to continue to slowly cut processed foods out of my diet and work in more "superfoods" or "power foods" or whatever you want to call them. Within reason anyway... And who can resist the anti-aging properties! There's no reason to do the vegan thing (I did that for a year and a half, it sucked), or insist that I NEVER eat the "bad" stuff. But still, I think the evidence was compelling enough. I'm not going to discount my diet as another way to get the best out of my body.

PS One person answered that they would give up tasty food for a decade, but not for the reasons I'm talking about. I would be interested to find out exactly WHAT those reasons were for this mystery person.