If I'm not busy with other pressing matters, then you will find me either eating, looking for food or lost deep in thought about food. So, you can imagine that the prospect of having to inhale calories like King Henry the Eighth on his birthday just to fuel training and not waste away - was incredibly welcome. However, these opportunities would come when one is in the comfort of ones home, or in a restaurant of sorts (preferably the all-you-can-eat kind) and traditionally after a gruelling training session when hunger strikes most fearsomely, but what about when that's 10 miles in with another 10 more to go, in the middle of bloody nowhere?
At this stage during a longer training run, I'd stop for 10-15 minutes - rehydrate, stretch, get the weight off my feet and most importantly - refuel. Expedition meals sit far too heavily if you're having nothing more than a quarter-hour turn-around, yet a simple gel, banana or other carbohydrate based source of sustenance would vaporise on swallowing and within half-an-hour I'd be praying that a local had dropped a freshly-baked pain au chocolat on his morning walk to some nearby, desolate 'boules' lawn. Balance was the key.
I love animals, big and small, and I especially like eating them. as a young man playing rugby you are constantly reminded of protein's necessity and soon grow accustomed to it in your diet. Your body needs protein to recover, and the chewing of meat is satisfying, it tells your brain that you're receiving food and in turn you feel sustained in ways that gels simply cannot provide. However, whipping out a fine, fresh, fillet of bovine's finest, char-grilling and chowing down is impractical both on the go and in the Sahara. So I tried the next best thing, beef jerky.
Now, I have a personal gripe with the way most beef jerky seems to resemble maroon strips of translucent plastic, the walkers equivalent of a fine baked potato - we needed the posh stuff for this job. In walks Texas Joe. Quite literally; tender, dried but juicy, ever so slightly spicy, fruity steak in a bag. It passed its test in the heat of battle (mid-run) despite being an untraditional go-to snack for the endurance athlete. Combined with a banana, it has become a staple for mid-run, post-workout and occasionally breakfast (it really is that good). A resounding and eager thumbs-up from the rest of the team (all rugby-playing blokes with apex-predator diets) means we will be looking forward to tearing into a bag daily on our Marathon des Sables challenge.
