It was somewhere around the summit when my metabolism began to kick in. My gut was saying, feed me, feed me in a low, persistent growl. Settle down, I told my stomach. You’ll get your calories soon enough. It snarled back, and that’s when I knew that ultra training had officially gotten serious.
For the next few weeks, I’m either going to be eating food or thinking about the food I’m going to eat later. Roughly every hour, on the hour, there will be some form of caloric consumption happening from the time I wake up until a few hours before I go to bed.
This is not nearly as much fun as it sounds. For one thing, eating this much can get expensive. For another, preparing meals and snacks can be a massive time commitment on top of all the other time commitments that come from training for an ultra. Here’s how I try to feed the beast without breaking the bank.