Oat Flour Power and the Athens' Half-Marathon

For the third year in a row I have completed the Athens' Half-Marathon. The first year I ran it almost on a whim. I had hurt my knee by over-training for the Cleveland Marathon (which I did not end up running) and was cripplingly depressed with being in grad school. Fittingly, it was pouring rain and bleak. I ran it in 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Last year I was in much better spirits. I had just finished my thesis, I had no more classes to take or teach, and the English department was still paying me my stipend. Pap was well enough to make the drive down to watch me finish; it was sunny and 65. I ran it in 2 hours and 4 minutes.

This year it was again sunny and in the 60's. Despite some strained ligaments in my ankle which necessitated almost 4 weeks off in the middle of my training cycle, I was in high spirits. My mom, sister, and roommate were there to see me off, my i-pod was on shuffle. I ran it in 1 hour and 54 minutes.

To say I was pretty f-ing pleased with myself would be an understatement.

But what, you might ask, do I attribute my PR-shattering run this year (other than, of course, my traditional, night-before-the-race Vegan Werewolf pizza from Avalanche)?

Two words: OAT FLOUR.

Ok, ok. So it probably wasn't entirely due to oat flour. But oat flour did feature prominently in my pre-half-marathon baking. There's always a lot of baking (or reading, or movie watching, or arts&crafts) the week before the big race because the training cycle tapers off. Gotta do something when there isn't as much running to do.

Wednesday before the race (30 minute tempo run) I decided that the bananas in my fruit bowl were black enough. Honestly, they were probably half schnapps at that point. I wanted to make banana bread but I was really not in the mood for walnuts. I'm not a huge fan of walnuts. I l-o-v-e love them on salads and they make a cheap pesto in a pinch, but mostly they're just too soft and oily. I like my nuts to crunch. Almonds to the rescue!

So I found me a basic banana bread recipe from one of my vegan cookbooks and set about bad-assing it up with some crunchy nuts. Further bad-assery was acheived by reducing the sugar, using oat flour, and subbing out all the soy.

Bad-Ass Banana Oat Bread

1 cup all-purpose white flour
1 cup oat flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp Stevia powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp egg replacer powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped almonds (I only had slivered on hand, but I still ran them through my nut-chopper to make them smaller)
2 almost-liquid ripe bananas
1/4 cup almond milk
1 tbs flax seed meal mixed into 3 tbs warm water
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp vanilla

Sift together all the dry ingredients (including the nuts) into a large bowl. Set aside.
With a hand-mixer or blender, whip together the bananas, milk, flax, oil, and vanilla until very smooth.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just combined.
Pour batter into an oiled loaf pan and bake for 45-55 minutes at 350F.


This was a light, crumbly bread. The almonds gave it crunch while the flax kept it airy. I really liked the way the oat flour made it taste. Less like a quick bread dessert and more like the memory of a plain-flavored packet of Quaker instant oatmeal to which my Pap would add whole milk and very thinly sliced bananas; eaten out of brown, plastic, non-microwave-safe bowls while using binoculars to watch the groundhogs through the kitchen window. That's a lot for one loaf to accomplish but this bread ain't called badass for nothing.

Thursday before the race (3 mile easy run), my pre-half-marathon jitters demanded cookies. Preferably cookies with some chocolate in them. Enter the Veganomicon and its recipe for "Wheat-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies." It's a fairly straighforward cookie recipe but with flax instead of eggs, and oat flour. And of course, vegan chocolate chips. Whole Foods sells an excellent dairy-free chocolate chip under its "360" label. I would be exponentially more broke than I am if I lived any closer to a Whole Foods.

I absolutely ate half-dozen of these as dessert the night before the race. They were crunchy and crumbly - a little bit like generic Chips Ahoy! or those giant Pepperidge Farm cookies in the white bag. Normally I can't eat chocolate chip cookies. Once upon a time, I got sick at the Cleveland Airport on Mrs. Field's Chocolate Chip Cookies and Diet Pepsi. I was not a particularly health conscious child. These, however, even smell better than regular chocolate chip cookies and as such, I was able to choke them down :)


The moral of the story? Oat flour is delicious and half-marathons are really fun. Put them together and you too might set some personal records.


Even if it is just for most oat cookies/bread eaten in a single sitting.