Hog Jowl: It Makes You Fast

You may have on a foolish whim once or twice attempted to run a long distance. You'll find that not only do you not resemble a Kenyan in anyway when you run. If you stick with it awhile, you also discover that you might want to change the way you eat, since drinking a whole bottle of wine and downing a bag of Doritos makes running 15 miles far harder than it already is.

Unless you're Joe Bastianich (pictured), a name you know by association if not specifically. He is the business partner of Mario Batali, the ginormous red-headed Italian chef, restaurateur, and Food Network star. Bastianich is training for a marathon, something he previously trained for as an endurance eater in late night meals with Batali. (In the Bill Buford's book Heat, Bastianich and Batali split an entire case of wine at a single meal.)

In an obvious case of living to win, though, Bastianich is changing little about what he eats, which for lack of a better word ... rules. His mid-day "snack" is a pizza, described in the following passage:

Topped with mozzarella, parmesan, an egg and translucent slices of guanciale (cured pig jowl, a sort of face bacon), the pie emerged bubbling hot two minutes later from an 800-degree wood-fired oven. As if cheese, egg and pork were not decadent enough, the pie was then given a smattering of black truffles. Bastianich poked the yolk, letting it ooze over the pie like a rich dipping sauce, before he savored a slice.

Hog jowl: an important part of any athlete's diet. (Ryan Howard would like to know what the big deal is, since he's been on this diet for years, and no one's writing articles about him eating a whole pizza as a snack.)

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.