A Few Words of Advice

Don’t eat a couple handfuls of triscuits, 3 cheese stuffed pasta shells, 2 Luna bars and some toast before a tempo/aerobic run workout. However, this little experience made me think about my race day (s) nutrition plan. Your nutrition leading up to an endurance event as well as during is just as important as your training. I have had more than a few friends train so diligently for Ironmans and then at the last minute, usually due to nerves and all the hype, change everything, each of them had bad races. I know that by the time I get to the run, I will still be burning calories from the bike and swim and due to the distance and heat, my stomach will not be all that welcoming of food. So my plan over the next 5 1/2 months (yikes where did the last month and a half go??) is to figure out/test different foods under different training situations.

My swim on race day will be around 3 hours short (think positive!); I will need to eat 2 x’s which is something I have never done before. I have a couple challenges here, most pools don’t allow you to eat at the pool and my swim workouts right now are right around an hour. For the next couple of months I will sneak a Hammer Gel (http://www.hammernutrition.com/) in the middle of my swim workouts and right after a hard set. This should get me used to digesting food in the water as well as help me figure out which foods work best.

Eating on the bike has never been an issue for me, hamburger, peanut butter-honey and banana sandwich, bring it on!

My hard runs are on Thursdays around 4:00pm. So on Thursdays, I will eat a normal breakfast, some toast and fruit, and then a good lunch no later than 11:30. After that, I will experiment with foods that I could eat on race day. Those foods are likely to be cold and salted roasted red potatoes, red grapefruit cups, bars, cookies (the healthy kind of course!) and bread. Then after my workout I will balance out with a high protein meal.

This routine for the next 5 ½ months should result in a well thought out race day (s) nutrition plan. During the race, one of my support crew gurus will be in charge of my nutrition, possibly the toughest job of all. This person (probably Coach D) will be making sure I get in enough calories, salt and fluid for the 30+ hours of the race.

I have had a few people ask me what a typical day looks like so I thought I would share that:

Friday 2/06/09
05:15: Rise and shine! Get the swimsuit on, eat some toast, drink a cup of tea, love on the dogs and board the 05:45 ferry
6:35: in the water, swim 2900yds, with the main/tempo set consisting of 3 pyramids equaling 1400 yds.
8:00: on my way to work, drinking Recoverite – another Hammer product
8:30: arrive at the office where I had meetings from 09:00-10:00 and from 1:00-4:30.
5:15pm- 6:15pm: on the rollers in our office gym (this means on my bike that spins on a set of rollers)
6:30pm: head to the ferry
7:20pm: on the ferry
7:25 pm: napping on the ferry
7:45 pm: home and eating a delicious spaghetti and sausage meal that my greatest husband in the world had waiting for me.
8:15 pm: loving on our 3 dogs while they tell me about their day and all the treats they got from dad and Cadie loves to give me the “that’s right, we went for a run WITHOUT YOU, ” look.

My days vary with my workouts but the duration is pretty much the same, with the exception of the weekends, long workouts but NO meetings J

My overall training time this week equaled about 17hours and consisted of:
3 swims: some nice pyramids including speed and pulling drills.

3 bikes: although I was able to get one road ride in, by the time Sunday rolled around it was cold and wet again, which resulted in a 4:15 mountain bike ride, very fun but by far the toughest workout of all.

3 runs: my long run felt great, I only heard bears 2x’s, the ground was soft and there was lots of bright colored green moss, fern and grass. I went through all of my fluid towards the end so I will need to come up with a plan for additional hydration as these runs get longer.

2 strength training sessions: I’m really feeling the benefits of the strength training. I can feel the strength in my legs as my feet hit the ground, the snappiness of my core as I flip turn in the pool and the smooth and high cadence while on my bike.

One of the highlights of my week was seeing my friend Frank who is battling cancer. He was wearing a hat and has lost some weight but his smile is the same. Its people like him, that show such strength that give others the power to search for our own.

If you pray, please add Frank into your prayers, he has had a tough 7 months but we expect him to be back in action this September.

That’s all for now, have a great week and thank you so much for reading.

See you next week,

Beth