Gardening Club, Sustainability Discussion Group, Recipe Sharing, and Oh Yeah, Triathlon Training

As our little group of aspiring triathletes is warming up for a training run, the conversation inevitably turns to topics like.....

... whether or not to mulch the tomatoes against a potential frost, best designs for backyard chicken coops, books like Food Not Lawns, or  In Defense of Food, recipes for flour-free muffins, seed saving, or what we want to can, freeze, and store food-wise this summer.

I bet you thought I was going to say heart rate zones, tempo vs. long runs, brick training, and nutritional periodization! For many athletes, sports are a distinct thing that they do, separate from their regular life. And perhaps they eat a little more nutritiously to fuel their workouts, or perhaps they just buy more power bars and binge on pizza. For many of us (and I have definitely been in this camp before) we work out so we can pig out. I used to love the fact that I could eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's because I'd done a 15 mile run that day. Don't get me wrong, it's a definite advantage of the multi-sport lifestyle that we can afford a few more nutritional indulgences since we burn so many more calories. And there's definitely nothing wrong with a pint of B&J's. Especially if it's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch......yummmmmmm

But these days I'm seeing a synergy starting to develop between my athletic pursuits, my passion for sustainability, and my interest in good nutrition starting at the ground level with my garden. When I started blogging several years ago, I created three blogs: one for triathlon training, one for sustainability/gardening, and one for our homeschooling and parenting. As the years have gone by, I've found it harder and harder to figure out where to put many of my blog posts. Is eating directly from my garden an offshoot of the Paleo eating that I'm doing to fuel my body for sports and thus should be posted here? Or is it related to my Urban Farm blog because of its environmental sustainability and ties to local eating, or is it something I do to bring better nutrition to my family and to raise healthier kids and thus should be covered on my Blue Skies blog?  I've toyed with the idea of combining blogs, but I think most of the time it works better to keep them separate because people interested in backyard chickens probably don't want to read my swim workouts and vice versa.

Yet an increasing number of my triathlete friends, both online and in person are planting gardens, getting chickens, buying local meats and produce, and moving toward a position of food sustainability and locavore eating. It makes sense that if you're going to work your body to the maximum, you should fuel it with the best possible sources. So we'll probably be having BRiCk workouts this summer. That's Bike, Run, and Canning green beans!