Bike Nutrition

I had my first long ride today after Ironman Louisville. My coach told me specifically to remember to eat like race day. I had forgotten how important this is on long rides! I had to run off the bike, so I wanted to be especially careful. I use a mix of powerbar bars, and gels. I stick to gels in the middle of hard efforts, and towards the end of the ride. This is so that my stomach is ready to run. Caffeine works for me, so I use the double latte gels. It is a personal preference, but I like the caffeine, and the flavor! I was able to end my ride strong, and run well off the bike. It is amazing what proper fueling can do! Thanks coach for reminding me of things I should know, and thanks powerbar for digesting so well. Rides like that give me the confidence I need to know I can ride hard at Ironman Arizona, and be fueled up to run fast.

The Road to Kona 2011 ~ Race Schedule

14-Feb	Dutchman half marathon
21-Feb	Desert Classic Duathlon
11-Apr	New Orleans 70.3
2-May	ST GEORGE Ironman
16-May	Tempe International
6-Jun	Boise 70.3
20-Jun	Coeur D'Alene Ironman
4-Jul	Boulder Peak
11-Jul	Vineman 70.3
1-Aug	Boulder 70.3
15-Aug	Timberman 70.3
12-Sep	Syracuse 70.3
5-Oct	KONA Ironman

Lifestyle Part 1: Nutrition

Everyone knows the foods that are ‘good’ and ‘should’ be eaten. Everyone knows the quantities of these foods are also important. Allowing the occasional treat is also a great way to stay sane and maintain an adequate caloric intake during heavy training. I started out my triathlon career with an extremely disciplined lifestyle. I still have maintained may of those priciples but gone way off track. Because of this my body composition has done the same. From being too lean to race well all the way to the other side of the coin.

In setting goals for 2011, I have my eye on Kona. That is no joke. For me to qualify for Kona I will need to be on the top of my game, and race well many times during the season. I have decided that in order to know that I am taking this season as seriously as I can to qualify I need to make some lifestyle changes. Why blog about this? Putting this in writing makes it much more real. So this is my attempt at making REAL lifestyle changes. The Irony is, I am writing this over a beer. Here is my nutrition strategy:

The best way to start out a strategy is to give your self an out right off the bat. I am going with the 90% of the time rule here, so may eat out once a week, grab pint of Ben and Jerry’s another night, and go out for quite a few drinks after a great race. Now that I have some exceptions here is the plan. The basic principle is to eat fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, and lean meat. Avoid all proceed foods, all flour, dairy, and most chemicals. I am going to limit my coffee intake, and pretty much cut out alcohol.

This diet may seem too strict at first, but they have breads, cereals, tortillas made from sprouted grain, not flour. Milk and cheese can be supplemented with almond milk, and almond cheese (the pepper jack is delicious!) I will also do my eating early in the day, so no foods after 8pm. This rule will be broken on regularity because of the exception that if I finish a workout after eight, I will eat some sort of recovery food before going to bed.

Another point to mention is that this type of lifestyle sometimes eliminates tubers, and legumes from your diet. I will not be doing that. I enjoy sweet potatoes too much! They will be a regular part of my diet in order to eat enough carbs to train well. The important thing about any lifestyle change is to make sure you are eating enough for recovery after workouts. I plan on going to the blender and recovery drinks to help that.

The final exception is during exercise. Then I can eat the fuels I will be racing with even if they contain flour and are highly processed. This crosses over into recovery drinks as well. If I lived in a perfect world and had the time and energy to make these myself, then I would. But here in the real world…I will just eat a Powerbar. Part one of the 2011 Kona push has begun. Back to a strict lifestyle, and dreams of Kona constantly rolling around in my head!

Ironman Louisville

After a 5 week rest, with just a touch of training, it was time for another Ironman. Ironman Louisville. The day topped out at 96 degrees with a ton of humidity. Not the most pleasant day. It was a bit of a sufferfest through an 85 degree river swim. super hot bike coarse, and deadly run. I was able to grunt it out for a rather slow IM finish, but I still managed to slide into 7th place. That happens to be my best finish at an Ironman event, so I was pretty jazzed up about that. My new hair cut and I enjoyed the finishing shoot this time ( I asked if anybody was coming behind me first!) then it was back to medical for me. It was a hot race, but a good trip! Now it is a little down time before deciding what is next.

IRONMAN LAKE PLACID

Race Report. Lake Placid 2010

9^th Place! Awesome result, season goals check.

The report for the coach: aka a detailed play by play –

Swim - Minus a huge speedsuit glitch, resulting in me borrowing a women’s medium PZ3 (fits great!) a perfect swim. I stayed with a good group and swam comfortably on feet for pretty much the entire swim. The beginning was a bit crazy as usual. But I stayed in a pretty good spot and faired ok.

Long ass run to T1! But T1 went fine, not crazy fast but I do not feel like I lost time to anyone there.

Bike – hhmmm

Lap 1 – Woah! Holy nice first lap. So, I exited the water in 10^th, and quickly rode into 7^th place. I caught Justin Daerr and new I was riding in a good position. I tried to hang with him as long as I could. It felt hard but manageable. Then we hit the turn around, and I saw how close I was to Ben, and got really excited, I took the lead from Daerr and set pace for a bit. Maybe a little too hard. After the first lap he gapped me and I got passed and slowed way down, I was pretty gassed on lap 2. Also the wind picked up, and that combo was deadly. I was on target for a 4:50, 4:55 bike split until the second half of lap 2 when my legs were shot.

Nutrition was tough, It wasn’t too hot, but I could not do gels. I tried once and almost tossed my cookies. I ate some bars but felt a little under fueled going into the run.

RUN –

I was off the bike in 8^th place, feeling good and knowing that I have the potential to run people down. Well it turns out when you are already in 8^th the people you are dealing with are all solid athletes and running them down is a bit more challenging. And it also turns out if you bike fairly well, some good runners are behind you and can run you down! At about mile 13 Brad Seng, and Tim Snow flew around me and I could not match them. I had just put on the fuel belt, and was sucking on Redbull, but it did not give me the wings to run with them. I feel like I had a good run, I did not kill it at the beginning, or die too much at the end. It was hard and I had to run my own race, but it was a marathon PR on a tough coarse, and I did finish 9^th so it turned out pretty well

Here we have myself, my mother,Ben, Molly, Brenden, women in a red hat, and guy who only ran 6.5 miles!

Boise 70.3

Windy Windy Windy. What a tough day out there! The weekend started out great, a 12 hour drive with five friends from Durango! Then we met up with one more friend, his parents and my mother in Boise. What an awesome crowd we had. They were able to squelch my pre-race nerves with over the top kindness, even when I was being completely irrational. The race itself was a success, I came in 12th in a strong field. This race had a lot of firsts in it. It was my first time racing in my Blue Seventy Axis wetsuit. I had a good swim, and was able to stay with a group most of the swim. The start was a bit crazy, per usual but for the first time I held together and stayed with some guys. A good start to race day. T-1 was a bit of a nightmare. Somehow I decided that volunteers were going to hand us our transition bags, so I placed mine in a box FAR away from my bike rack. When no volunteers handed me my bag I had to run all the way over to the box and find it myself. Oops! On to the windy bike coarse.
I had just received my new ride two days before, a Ceepo Viper. It took both days to get it built, I had about 50 miles on it for race day. That left me a little nervous, but it rode great despite the CRAZY wind we all faced on the course. Coming from a swim/run background my bike handling skills are still a little bit questionable. I still decided to borrow my friends disc. I was getting knocked around like a rag doll for the entire ride. Not the smartest idea, but now handling a disc anywhere else will feel easy, right? That left me physically exhausted and mentally drained for the run. I was so excited to get off the bike, the first three miles felt great. I ran down Julie Dibens, (few!) and that gave me a mental boost. Then the harshness of the day started to build. Luckily at the turn around my friend Molly and my mom were there to give me a boost heading out on lap 2. I saw a few guys in front of me that I was putting time into, so I tried to pick a few of them off. My last boost came at about mile 11. I saw my roommate Ben Hoffman running down Crowie as they headed to the finish. The excitement helped me finish out the race.
For the entire Durango gang, Boise was a success. Five great races, and a few awesome fans. Next up, time to build for Ironman Lake Placid. Buffalo Springs 70.3 is going to happen as well, but as of now, all eyes on Placid.

Narrow Gauge Triathlon

My first triathlon of the year took place a few months ago, and put me on the injured list for quite some time. I am finally back in action and started out the season, for real this time! I was able to snag a second place finish in the Narrow Gauge Triathlon. It was a stage triathlon, based on cumulative time over three days. The first was a 50 mile road race over two mountain passes. I am no road racer, but it was a beautiful day, and fun to try something new. My legs were trashed for the ten mile run the following day. I managed a PR, but not by much, and the legs felt heavy! The last day was a 1500 meter swim. I was also racing a Time Trial that day, which made me miss my heat, and do the swim solo with no warm up. Not the ideal race conditions, but again I narrowly managed a PR. The three combined made up the triathlon. It was a tough three days, but a great way to kick off summer, and the tri season!