Death March Preppers

In addition to filling our dining room table with camping gear and turning the kitchen into a bike shop, other preparations are occurring in relation to the Death March.   A good prepper always has a B.O.B. ready for a long ride - B.O.B. stands for Bike Off-road Bag, duh.  ;)  But seriously, you don't just go ride for 6 hours without thinking about one very important thing.

What you're going to eat that whole time.

This is not just because I love stuffing my pie hole (although I do).  Biking for roughly 6 hours and 65 miles burns approximately 3000 calories.  That's for a 130 lb woman; Josh will burn a bit more.  So if you want to keep going strong for that whole time, you have to stoke the fires.  During Ironman, I planned on taking in approximately 200-250 calories an hour on the bike and run.  While I haven't really worried about nutrition for the last few years (I figured most Xterras were short enough that I didn't need much other than some sports drink), I need to start thinking about it again and practicing for Leadville.  And a nice 65 mile race in March makes for perfect nutrition practice.

Yeah, it can get complicated...

During Ironman, I ate mostly Clif Bars - 1/6 of a bar per 15 minutes - and Ironman Perform (i.e. Powerbar's version of Gatorade).  This year I wanted to experiment with homemade energy bars.  Nothing wrong with the Clif Bars, they're all tasty and organic-like.  But I would like to find something that I can easily make and don't have to pay $1/bar for.

So I poked around pinterest (one of my other favorite addictions) and found this recipe for Banana Oat Breakfast Cookies.  I just happened to have some rotting extra ripe bananas laying around, so it sounded perfect.  Then I found this recipe for homemade fruit leather, and decided to give that a go as well.

The cookies turned out great.  The fruit leather was a bit of a challenge.  One, I didn't have parchment paper as suggested to bake it on.  So I just greased the cookie sheet up real well with some butter.  I could have used my silpat (as one commenter suggested) but it was previously occupied making cookies.  The butter worked mostly okay - there were a few places that the leather stuck when I peeled if off the pan, but not too bad.  Just use more butter next time.

Lots of butter, leather, and baking. And more butter. Who does that make YOU think of?

The second issue was that I didn't have any of that fancy agave nectar.  So I just used honey, no problemo.

The last problem was that my oven is old and only goes down to 170 degrees, not the 150 recommended.  So I just stuck a spoon in the door to prop it open, baked it for a few hours, and then left it to coast overnight.  Oh, and then promptly forgot about it for a few days.

But it turned out fine.

So here they are, our nosh for this weekend.  Banana Oat Breakfast Cookies, Blueberry Fruit Leather, and of course my famous Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies.  (Which basically consist of peanut butter, sugar, more peanut butter, more sugar, an egg, and some baking soda).

I'm guesstimating that the fruit leather is about 50 calories a strip, the oat cookies are about 90 calories a piece, and the peanut butter cookies are about 150 each.

Looks like the PB Cookies are the win.  Eek for the Fruit Leather.  This is what happens when you can only find organic frozen berries...

For Death March, I'm planning two cookies an hour (one each PB and Banana Oat), plus gatorade and water, and a fruit leather whenever I feel like it.  We will also bring peanut butter and banana sandwiches in case we decide to stop and eat a real lunch.  I'm a bit surprised at how many calories I can pack into a cookie, compared to a Clif Bar.  Two small cookies seems like a lot less to eat per hour than a whole bar - so the only thing left is to see how my stomach likes them while working hard.