Gird up your loins with the 'Carb-Load Seder'

Jewish marathon runners are in a quandary. This year, Passover begins just two days before the Boston Marathon April 21. The holiday's strict dietary rules mean Jewish runners can't eat bread and pasta, the normal staples in the days before the big race.

For Jonah Pesner, the answer is matzoh, the unleavened bread used in the Passover ceremony. Besides matzoh, Pesner plans to pound down foods such as potatoes during a rare "carb-load seder" the night before the race.

The "carb-load seder" might strike some as strange, but it sort of fits with the historical circumstances of the Exodus. The Jews had to high-tail it out of Egypt into the desert carrying all their stuff. Things went well until they hit "the wall," which for marathoners occurs about 20 miles into the race when the carbs run out, glycogen runs low, and the body starts burning fat instead.

For the Israelites, "hitting the wall" meant running into the Red Sea with Pharoah's chariots closing in fast. Something had to give. For Moses & Co. it took a miracle. For some of the Jewish marathoners, it simply means breaking the religious restrictions. One Jewish runner says he'll eat some oatmeal and maybe a bagel on race day.

"It's not like I've been perfect in my religious beliefs. I'm beyond that," he said.

The question he needs to ask is: What would Charleton Heston do?


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