Re: [pct-l] When to eat dinner

["Brett Tucker" <blisterfree@hotmail.com>]

Eskie user wrote:
>I noticed a posting about eating dinner about 2pm. What I saw lots of the
>thruhikers doing was this:
>
>Breakfast -- if cooking, do it before crawling out of the cold sleeping
>bag.
>
>Snack/lunches -- all day long
>
>Dinner -- set up the tent, crawl inside the door, cook while SITTING out
>of the rain.

I'd have to agree with the all-day-long approach to snacking. A big dinner 
in mid-afternoon I would find to be overkill, in terms of energy needs at 
that time of day. And it would leave me rather unsatisfied as evening rolled 
around, with only snacks allotted to the late-day menu. If the thru-hiker's 
day could be equated to a marathon-like event, then I would continue the 
analogy by following the marathoner's food plan - plenty of nutritious food 
(no white flour or chem-dinners) the evening before competition, raising the 
glycogen stores within the muscles well in advance. A reasonably hefty 
breakfast, or several breakfasts spaced out over the morning for immediate 
energy. And then pick-me-up's throughout the "event," nothing so filling as 
to interfere with the activity, nor so lacking in energy that the event 
comes to a sudden halt.

Running even-keel throughout the day would help me make the most distance. 
About the only variance from the marathon analogy would be to make dinner a 
few hours before the end of each day's event. Late evening. At this time, 
dinner would serve two purposes - mostly to assist with the following day's 
exertions, but also to propel me a few more miles down trail in the evening, 
as desired.

- Blisterfree

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