automammophobia

My wife Tania turned 46 this year and is about 6 minutes from breaking the 3 hour mark in the marathon. Despite the normal tendency for elite female runners to get slower after their 37th birthdays, Tania has strung together a series of personal bests in those 9 years. She's not supposed to be getting faster, but she is.

This January we hired the sports nutritionist that works with my partner Aly's husband Jeff Pain, the 2006 olympic silver medalist in the skeleton. For the past six weeks tania has cut every bit of sugar and flour out of her diet, among other things. As lean as she was, she has already come down 6 pounds and will drop another 6 before she's done.

When she runs the New York marathon this December, she will do it 12 pounds lighter. Each pound translates into 1 to 2 seconds off her per mile time. Twelve pounds could mean anywhere from 12 to 24 seconds per mile or over the 26 mile course or 5 to 10 minutes off her total time. It's the simple math of biomechanics.

When I was a teenager and my dad used to barbecue in the backyard without a shirt on, I saw my future: man breasts. I think breasts look great on my wife regardless of her weight but I think us men can do without.

In the same 9 years my wife was shedding time from her runs, I was beginning to ever so slightly take on my father's genetic heritage. Not so good.

In January I began virtually the same diet and have leaned right out in my chest and stomach area. The culprit? Flour and sugar. I've had almost none in the past six weeks, even though I'm not as strict as Tania is with her diet. And we eat way more vegetables, healthy snacks and appropriate portions. Combined with our generally active lifestyles, we are hitting our marks.