The weather today has not been great by any means. Apparently this is some sort of Nor'easter. It's a little early for that, if you ask me, but I'm not mother nature, so what do I know. Anyways, it's been raining and windy all day. Not a terrible, frost bitingly cold rain, but not a nice warm rain either. Just the kind of miserable rain that makes you not want to do anything except eat. Alas, it's Wednesday, and since I took Monday off and ate a ton of bad food over the past few days, I had to do something. Sunday and Tuesday this week I did some speed work to make up for the weeks I missed. So today had to be some actual running. Most of the time my speed doesn't go past the 2 mile mark. After looking at the weather, I decided it was best to just suck it up and run on the treadmill at Title. Every now and again I get the idea that maybe the treadmill won't be so bad. After all, I only wanted to do 4 miles. Immediately after getting on the stupid thing, I realized it was a terrible idea. First, I tried reading a book. Unfortunately the only book available was a Paleo Cookbook. Definitely not ideal running reading material. I read the introduction, learned a little bit about Paleo, decided that it seemed a little to far-fetched for me, and gave that up. That took me to about 1.3 miles. Then I toughed out the last .7 on the treadmill, gave up totally, and went outside for the last 2 miles. Rain and wind definitely beat that damn machine. Seriously, those two treadmill miles were two of the most boring miles of my life. At least outside I felt like I was getting somewhere. Plus, it seemed faster and somehow, a lot shorter. In the end, I got my 4 miles in, but I am 100% over treadmills. I will never be able to understand how people can run long distances on those things. Give me a regular old road any day of the week.
Back to the Paleo thing for a minute now. In regards to the author of the cookbook, whose name I didn't bother to check, you are a crazy person. Of course I have no idea if this is the Paleo way, or just the authors view, but it seems a little too out there. I get the idea of going back to caveman roots and I'm sure that much of that food is better for you. But I just couldn't get past the no legumes part of the diet. Listen, I'm not a huge bean lover. I don't eat them on the reg, and I certainly don't go out of my way to add them into my diet. However, if I'm eating at a Mexican (or Mexican inspired) place, and they offer me beans, I say, load 'em up. Nothing goes better with a burrito than a giant spoonful of frijoles negros. It's not so much that the legume family isn't allowed in Paleo, or at least in this Paleo cookbook, it's that the author made it sound like beans were not around in caveman days. As if some regular Joe one day mechanically engineered a plant and it turned into a bean. Surprise! Legumes all around. Alright, let's be honest, I don't know the history of beans, but I am fairly certain that this is a naturally occurring plant. And isn't the whole point of Paleo to eat things that occur naturally in this world? Seems to me that whoever created this diet just really had a vendetta against beans. All I picture is some little kid sitting at his dinner table, going all Pinky and the Brain over taking over the world by eliminating legumes. Clearly someone did this person harm with a bad bean over the course of his/her life, and now it's being taken out on legumes across the world.
Then again, I'm not going Paleo, so it doesn't matter one lick what I think about this diet. You want to give up beans? You go ahead and do it. Enjoy your legume free diet.
By the way; I'm all about those hills, 'bout those hills, no flats.
