The Doctor's Journey

Beans, Ironman Arizona Superfood?

• By admin
• November 15, 2014
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Welcome to Ironman Village, the Healthiest Place on Earth!

Welcome Nimble readers. I appreciate you for being such faithful followers of this adventure. You may have noticed as we get closer to race day the length of my postings might be getting a tad shorter. With more logistics happening as the big day approaches means less time for creative prose and satirical quips. Okay, I’m not really sure what that means, but just know that I’m dedicated to giving you the inside story, just as if you were Nimble’s wingman through all of this.

Friday was the first day without an early morning work out. We’ll be saving ourselves for a group ride with the Go Mitch Go Team later today on part of the Ironman bike course. Instead, this morning we were treated to Mama Nimble huevos ranchers and refried beans. I grew up on this stuff, especially the beans, and sometimes wonder if that’s my secret sauce. And just to reinforce some widespread stereotypes, growing up in a traditional Mexican family, we ate refried pinto beans EVERY single day, except maybe Christmas. It was a side dish for everything in my home. Aside from complementing traditional main dishes on heavy rotation like enchiladas and tacos, some of our less tradition meals would be hamburgers with homemade fries and refried beans. When we rarely had pizza (a true luxury for me as a kid) mom would add a side of beans. And beans would be served at breakfast, lunch and dinner. What about a snack, bean burritos or a bean sandwich. I am not making this up, ask my Nimble siblings! Okay, so that was a major tangent, but it’s always go to reminisce. I did say I was going to giving you a unique insight into being Nimble.

Beans Beans Good for the Heart.

The Barber with Mad Skills.

Fresh and Faded!

After breakfast, I traveled to downtown Tempe to start a new race day tradition for me, the pre-race fade. Since Ironman is such a big event for me, I needed a fresh haircut, and luckily I stumbled onto probably the best barber shop and barber in all of Arizona. After 45 minutes of clippers, trimming and shaving, my smooth Race day hair do has me ready to toe the line. Thanks and a big shout out to Elite Cuts and Clothes on Mill Ave in Tempe.

Feeling truly refreshed without my previous locks of obsidian colored hair, I headed over to the Harkins Valley Theater, to hear a talk on race day execution. My unofficial coach for Ironman Arizona, Rich Strauss from Endurance Nation, was giving a presentation and I wanted to show my support. It’s always a good thing when your coach is part of the race day official’s team. He will be driving around the head referee for the race on (in the words of Napoleon Dynamite) his “sweet bike!”.

Sweet Bike.

After a quick lunch, without beans this time, it was time to get together with the Go Mitch Go Team for a recon bike ride of the course. This was going to be our last group ride together until race day. I have truly enjoyed getting to know this fine group of men and women. It is a true honor to have them as teammates and race with them on Sunday!

Together We Ride, Go Mitch Go.

After a long day, I still had to return back to Nimble HQ and pack everything for the race bags (everything you will be needing on race day) check-in for Saturday morning. It’s a horrible process, and one in which you always feel that your forgetting to pack something. Hope I didn’t.

So many bags!

Nimble is totally wiped out. Good night! -N