The 4th Discipline: NUTRITION

Hey guess what! I'm training for something!! Just wanted to be sure we all knew that. (more for me than you!) I realized the other day that I need to really spend some time dialing my nutrition. I've been swimming and riding (and have started running), but I haven't done any bricks.. no running off the bike. So what? Well I don't do a very good job of fueling on the bike. I've dropped some 60 - 70 mile rides over the last 8 weeks and for each of those rides here's what I've eaten on the bike (usually w/ breakfast in my belly, but sometimes just w/ a banana to start it off)... ONE bottle of EFS (mix per directions), ONE Gel, and maybe some dried fruit and almonds.... Did you know you burn anywhere from 3000 to 4000 calories on a ride like that.... uh, hey Laura, that's a lot. You should maybe consider EATING SOMETHING!! Especially if you plan to run - um - a HALF MARATHON afterward.

So my first point of contact was COACH. He instructed 350 - 500 calories/hour MINIMUM! HUH? Uh, seriously? OK. (I tried.. really I did.. more on that) That's a 'few' more than I had been having. Let's see I had been averaging about 170/hour.. and that's being generous.

Next point of contact was of course TWITTER and my TEAM TRAKKERS. I got a lot of great advice.

I have two bottle cages on my bike so I decided to do one bottle of DOUBLE CONCENTRATED First Endurance EFS (Grape happens to be my favorite) and one bottle of water to (hopefully) be refilled out in the world somewhere. (Note my awesome pre-planning... I won't even tell you about how we got lost TWICE while following a pre-marked course or about how I registered for a race thinking I was registering for an Olympic only to realize (after paying) that it was indeed a sprint. I. AM. A. GENIUS.) I took one flask of First Endurance Liquid Shot. This stuff is GREAT! I love the flask and it's a bit thinner than other gels so it's easier to get 1. out of the flask and 2. down the hatch.

I knew from previous experiments (though I was running then) that mixing the EFS And LS didn't work too well for me. My plan was to start w/ the EFS about 30 mins in.. then 45 mins later to have some LS... continue with the LS every 45 mins and drink some EFS in between - with at least a 15 min space between the LS and the EFS.

This worked great. I had no issues at all. I also brought a banana to eat half way through. For what it's worth I had a boiled egg and a banana for breakfast... I did have a VERY big dinner and wasn't so hungry in the a.m. When I know I'm going to have a big workout in the morning I make sure to eat a decent sized dinner so that I'm not too hungry in the a.m. and can have just something small to top things off.

So all told I ended up with a total of about 900 calories for the ride which gave me just under the 350 basement number I got from coach, but comparatively to my previous nutrition I'd say this is a good step in the right direction.

I'm happy to report that I felt strong through the whole ride. Which is significant because we had an overall elevation LOSS the first half and a significant GAIN on the way home. It's always good to save the killer climbs for your return trip. The last 50 miler I did (very similar route) left me feeling pretty spent by the end. This one was much better. Probably largely due to the fact that I, um, ATE SOMETHING! :)

When I got home I fired up the blender and had a First Endurance Ultragen Smoothie (Cappuccino). Ice cold and so refreshing. I've gotten away from taking the recovery (Ultragen) shakes because I didn't feel my shorter workouts warranted it, but I gotta say with the nutrition on the bike and the recovery smoothie (w/ BOTH scoops ... sometimes I chintz out and have just ONE scoop after a shorter workout) I recovered much better. I wasn't EXHAUSTED and landed on the couch an hour after my ride. I carried on with my day as usual....

If you've never tried the First Endurance stuff... it's worth a try. Yes, I am sponsored by them, but believe me when I say they have received a good chunk of my cash on their products because they ARE good. Their website has a lot of great resources about endurance nutrition as well as information about how to use their products. You should check it out! www.firstendurance.com

I'll be testing out their PreRace product at my Olympic, er Sprint, race at Niantic Tri on 8/7/2011... first race of the season. Shut up... yes, I realize that it is AUGUST!!!

2011 Danbury Half Marathon

2nd race of the season... done.

Honestly I kept forgetting that I was doing this race. My TP wanted to run a half this year. I may have said I would do her first race with her. Then she said she wanted to do Danbury. UGH! My memory of Danbury from the previous year was almost two hours of torture on hills. Perhaps I had blown myself up a little training for Miami and was little "done before I started" as TP pointed out.

This year I was 'just running' I had no expectations on myself other than to join my friend in her first 1/2. Gotta say this approach works MUCH better for me. No pressure, just running. I loved it. This year was 1million zillion billion times better than last year. I loved it and was reminded that Oh, I do like this running thing.

On top of that my TP blew her "pie in the sky" goal out of the water by nearly 10 mins. That was lots of fun. She ran a smart run and pushed it beyond her comfort zone at the end. I'm so glad I was able to be there w/ her for her first race and such a great success! She should be so very proud of herself! :)

The day before the race I PIGGED OUT so by the morning of the race I wasn't really hungry (and frankly I've been eating later breakfast lately) and I wasn't sure what to do. I mean it's race morning don't I need to eat SOMETHING!? So I had my coffee and water and waited for the hunger to set in. This race has a late start (10:20am) so I figured I'd get hungry before then.... It was time to go... still not hungry. So I poured the remainder of my coffee over one scoop of First Endurance Cappuccino Ultragen in a flask, mixed a bottle of EFS and headed out.

I still wasn't really that hungry, but about an hour before the race I drank the Ultragen/coffee combo (which by the way tastes like a milkshake.. um, yum) and then wandered around a bit. I had been sipping on the EFS drink and had another swig right before heading to the start line. I didn't take anything with me.

We did the whole run and I didn't have one hunger pain the whole time. I didn't realize until we were done that I hadn't been hungry. SHOCKED really. I still wasn't that hungry. I am ALWAYS hungry.

I've been kinda holding out on using the First Endurance products thinking they were only "worthy" of longer / harder efforts, but man that stuff works... will need to put in in normal circulation.. anything longer than an hour to one and a half hours seems about right.

Race Report - Austin Marathon Part II

Up and at em at 5am to get some nutrition in and take care of 'business'. I had laid everything out the night before so it was quick and easy. First things first we had gotten some Starbucks Via to get our coffee in the a.m. then I made some oatmeal w/ chia seeds in the little coffee maker thing w/ the plan to put my banana and Justin's Almond butter (those little packets are awesome for when you are traveling) in it, but when I tried to eat the oatmeal it just seemed too heavy. I decided to eat just the banana and almond butter and a few bites of oatmeal. As I've mentioned before I have trouble in the bathroom department and didn't want to bog myself down even more with a big cup of oatmeal. I felt fine about this decision and just rolled with it.

I still wasn't real sure what to expect from this race, but I do know myself well enough to know that I easily get caught up in the moment and I didn't want to blow myself up in the first 5 miles so I busted out my trusty sharpie so I would be reminded EVERY TIME I checked my pace on my Garmin that I have BIGGER GOALS this year.

Another little trick I played on myself (that worked beautifully)... I changed my pace reading from Current Pace to AVERAGE pace. I have a tendency to freak out if I'm going 'TOO SLOW" (whatever that is) and then push myself too hard to get back to whatever I deem as a 'good' pace at that moment. Having it set on average saved me.

Ready to head down to the start.

We are both from colder climates and everyone had been saying how cold it would be waiting to start. When we walked out of the hotel we both braced ourselves to be hit in the face with a blanket of COLD. It was maybe 60. Not cold for us! Yea. Our hotel was really close to the start so we just strolled down. 

This is the least anxious I have ever been before a race. I'm not sure what it is... normally no matter how much I tell myself I 'don't care' about the outcome I'm a wreck. This isn't my first time at the rodeo and I had limited expectations so I'm sure that played into my lack of nerves.

Getting ready to go line up.

I wasn't sure where to start... I was hoping for a sub 4 hour race, but wasn't sure how the day would play out so I started with the 4:15 folks. Turns out with a race of 20,000 (okay any race really) it really didn't matter where I started. :) I think some of the walkers started at the gate.

It took us a solid 15 minutes just to get to the start.. no worries. I just ran comfortably. My race report is pretty much summed up in that one sentence. Well, comfortable is certainly not how I felt for most of the race.

I started out just running comfortably and was easily passing a lot of people. My average time stayed at 9:08-9:15 the entire race. It moved from the 9:10 to 9:15 range during the last 7 - 10 miles so I definitely slowed down toward the end.

At around mile 7 I started to feel some dull pain in my hammie/glute area (my 'injury') and was thinking.. uhoh.. it's EARLY for that, but just kept it nice and easy. I thought I would use this race to really contemplate some things in my life. Every time I tried to let my mind wander I would kind of fall apart so for the four hours I ran (w/ no music I might add) I just thought "nice and easy, nice and light" .... over and over. By the end of the race I was saying it under my breath out loud.

Since I started with triathlon I don't really race anything with my music. I considered using it this time because I anticipated a bit of a mental struggle at the end as I limped through the last miles, but decided that I didn't need it. On the first long slow incline (maybe mile 2) I started trying to kind of talk to and encourage people and NO ONE could hear me. They all had headphones on. I was bummed about that. How are we to support each other if we're all dead to each other by way of music in our ears? Then I wondered what marathons used to be like before hand held music devices. Was there more talking and encouragement amongst the racers. Okay so maybe there was SOME space for thoughts.

I took one flask of First Endurance Vanilla Liquid Shot with me. Man that stuff is delicious. I carried it in my free spy belt that I got from the expo.. kind of like an endurance athlete fanny pack. It served it's purpose.. I didn't have to carry the flask until it got to the bottom when I carried it upside down in my hand to have the gel ready to roll when I needed it. I ran out at mile 18 and was thinking the last 4 miles might be rough if I didn't find something else between now and the finish. (Remember my breakfast of a banana and almond butter?) I did meet one man that chatted with me a bit right around this time and he offered me a shot block which I greatfully inhaled. About a mile later I saw them like an Oasis in the sky the Honey Stinger Guys. I grabbed two gels from them and carried on. When the time came I took one... OMG they were SO strong in honey flavor I almost gagged. The FE had gone down so nice and smooth that this was a shock. And I kid you not... my belly started doing flips about 10 minutes later. I was thankful that it was late in the game and I would certainly be able to get to the end without incident... what's that about not doing anything new on race day? :D

At this point I was pretty certain that despite my obvious limp I would make it to the finish. My feet and ankles were killing me. They always hurt some at this point, but they were really hurting. And everytime I hit a hill (which seemed very often) my hammie/glute acted up. I think my foot and ankle pain could be attributed to two things 1. We walked a TON the day before and 2. my shoes were essentially brand new! I was wearing the Avia Rhythms that I bought and had run approximately 10 miles in. I ALMOST brought the Avia Quest Lites that I recieved the day before I left and only ran in about 20 mins because they are so beautiful, but decided that the Rhythms had been tested longer and caused zero problems while I could tell the Quest Lites needed some more breaking in.

I used some TriSlide on my feet because my shoes were so new and I was worried that I might get some blisters. It worked like a charm and I had not one hot spot during the race. Another bonus to the Rhythms... I still have ALL of my toe nails. Last year I lost 5 toe nails. I'm pretty darn excited about this!

The last part of the race was down hill. And while I expected this to be a much needed relief from the UP hills that seemed to take up most of the race (long slow uphills) it was actually quite challenging.

One turn left and I'M HOME!

Final time was 4:04 and I'm happy about that. I'm glad that I got it through my thick head that this year was not the year for a BQ! If I had tried to hold 8:34 for any given time I'm certain (as coach said) I would have BLOWN UP by mile 10. I feel like I accomplished my two main goals 1. Don't injure the leg any further and quite possibly my hardest goal 2. FOLLOW COACHES directions!

Thank you to all my friends and family and TEAM TRAKKERS for all your support. I'm off this week then easing back into it all over the next couple of weeks. Triathlon season is upon us! T-2 months to my first race! (er, second race)

Anyone wanna hit Austin Marathon/Half Marathon in 2012? I loved this city that much. I would go back again next year!

How do you feel about music during a race? Do you use it!? I have to say the only people that cut me off during the race had ear buds in. I honestly don't care if people use them... but I likely won't.

Pretty sure I could live on taco stand tacos - Austin Marathon 2/20/2011 Part I

First of all... I LOVE AUSTIN! This was the second time I had ever been there, but in all fairness I don't really remember the first time. It was a long time ago and I think it was only a quick overnight and there was a lot of drinking involved. Different kind of trip.

This vacation was EXACTLY what I needed THREE days with Mama Marie my BFF from Madison. It was like a little piece of home. We tooled around and were on the same page the whole trip. We wanted to see and do the same things... like rock the local co-op for big salad, sushi and kombucha.

 Yummy Co-Op salad.

 Locally brewed Kombucha... and it was the best I've had! Love it.

She just gets me. We both wanted to walk everywhere, use public transportation, visit the same little grocer/coffee shop EVERY SINGLE DAY and eat tacos and drink margaritas. Nothing says BFF like not even needing to compromise once. We walked all over Austin on Saturday, did the race on Sunday then walked all over again on Sunday just chatting away about life.

Some Austin sites...

 This happens to be a Crepe stand, but there were TACO stands everywhere. 

I forgot to take a pic of the stand where we got the BEST TACO in Austin.

 A cute little dog park right by the river.

 We had to stop by Mellow Johnny's Bike shop.

 I was told that this path was 10 miles. HEAVEN! Where do I sign my lease in this awesome town?

 A super cute hotel right on Congress in the heart of a really cool shopping area. 

Ironically called San Jose Hotel.

Check out this cool pedestrian bridge built a bit lower than the driving bridge.

Austin is so accessible. There are wonderful walking paths and side walks everywhere. The public transportation is stellar... $1 to get almost anywhere and the bus drivers were crazy nice and patient with our 'not from hereness'.

I think that when you sign a lease or buy a house in Austin they give you a card from the local tattoo parlor and tell you you have 30 days to get your first tattoo. And you all know I'm down with that! :)

The expo was huge and they did a pretty good job of hitting their 'green' goal. Our packets weren't stuffed full of GARBAGE that I end up just throwing away immediately.

After the expo we tooled around some more then met my parents, aunt and two cousins for some dinner and headed back to the hotel to get our stuff together and get to bed early.... Thanks to Trakkers, Avia, SBR TriSlide and First Endurance for your support of my race.... more to come on all of that tomorrow!

2011... are you really already awesome?

I'm working on my next installment of the "Injury Free" series, but in the mean time...

I am so amazed! You put something out there and it starts to come together. You open the door or window or whatever and things start to happen. I said this year was going to be AWESOME.. and I gotta tell ya at the end of 2010 I was doubtful, but it's all starting to come together!

First and foremost I'm still in awe/denial that I am a part of this Trakkers crew! Things are starting to happen, people are talking, Rev3 is ramping up and I just sit back and wonder how I got on the awesome train w/ this crew!

The pro team has been announced (click here to see video of them introducing themselves) and though obviously I've never met any of these people I've been watching them through the years and can't believe I will be part of it all. (we Trakkers Age Groupers really look up to our faster team mates!!!) And you can come out to the Rev3 race series and race with them ... oh and us age groupers too... though we might not have as much draw!

Hillary Biscay:  2008 Ironman Wisconsin Champion; 15-time top-three Ironman finisher
Courtenay Brown: Danskin Tri & Silverman Half winner; Inside Tri columnist
Kathleen Calkins: 2010 REV3 Cedar Point 3^rd place; Top Amateur Kona 2009
Richie Cunningham: 2x 70.3 Champion; 4x Top-Five 70.3 World Championships
Brian Fleischmann: 1^st World Team Champs; 2x 2^nd place USAT National Champs
Jacqui Gordon: Multiple Ironman and 70.3 Top-Ten finisher
Amanda Lovato: 2010 Pucón 70.3 Champion; Multiple Half Ironman Champion; Multiple Top-Five Ironman finisher
Michael Lovato: 2x Ironman Champion; 3x Top-Ten Kona; 3x National Champion
Chris McDonald: 3x Ironman Champion
Jessica Meyers: 2010 Augusta 70.3 Champ; US National Team; Armed Services Champion
Matt Sheeks: 2010 Duathlon Pro National Champion; 2009 Duathlon AG World Champion

Our sponsorships continue to come together. This part floors me too! I've never been a sponsored athlete and I gotta say it seems a little weird, but I couldn't be more appreciative of the time and effort that goes into it all and of the companies for providing us such wonderful product and service. As time goes by I will be talking about all of the products we use and know that what I say is truly how I feel about the product! Of course, all the companies and products are stellar so... well you know!

So far the line up is as follows

Rev3... have I talked about this race series enough? Click HERE to check out Rev3 radio with Bree Wee TONIGHT Wed 1/26/11 at 8pm Eastern time!
Kestrel Bicylces - I am currently awaiting my 4000 Pro Frame set. Tom will be hard at work putting her together ASAP! oh, is it snowing out. Crap. Okay, but I'll be on her as soon as the weather permits! After all... there is a race on the horizon.
Avia Shoes - my Avi Quest Lites should be here any day now. I can't wait. Mama is in need of some new shoes... BAD! :)
First Endurance - I've been super excited to try First Endurance since I first heard of it last year when I found Team Trakkers. I didn't pull the trigger bc I discovered it after I did my marathon and didn't do so much long stuff and didn't feel justified in purchasing it. I did go out and purchase some Ultragen the other day and OMG that stuff is so good I want to do an epic training session every single day so I can have one! I'm waiting for my EFS and liquid shot to come in.... there will definitely be more reviews on this awesome product!
TYR - if you've ever swum a lap you've likely used these products! We'll be sporting TYR wetsuits this year.. full sleeve or sleeveless that is the question!
SBR Sports/Triswim,Triglide,foggle - I've been using the triswim for a while now and it's fabulous! No chlorine smell and now chlorine itch. The product is smooth and luxurious with a nice fresh scent (nothing overpowering). If you can't even imagine that this is possible than I suggest you check it out ... click HERE and get some samples for your very own post swim spa experience. In addition to having a stellar product this company is run by a fantastic athlete and all around good person. I'm happy to be supporting a small business with good people and good products! Her company philosophy jives with Rev3s main goal of putting the athlete first!

To add to the general AWESOMENESS I've just landed a job with Rev3 as the local Volunteer Coordinator. This does mean that I can't race Quassy, but it also means that I get to be a little bit behind the scenes too! When we were going through the Trakkers process of deciding who was going to be on the team I had posed to Carole that I would love to work with Rev3 regardless of my making the team so when this opportunity came up I jumped on it! See... you put it out there in the universe and it all just finds you!

Plans are getting booked for all of my races and I'm once again blown away at how awesome my husband is. He is totally supportive of all this craziness and is on board to pick up any slack in the home front department.. ie watching kids while I go gallivanting around the country to race and represent Team Trakkers. With out his support NONE of this would be happening! Thanks babe! I love you!

I'm back to rockin on my workouts.. who knew switching to the treadmill would make me feel better? Weird. I'm still trying to find balance with three days straight of teaching spin ... over the weekend without frying my legs for my long run. I have a really hard time dogging it in class.

So all in all 2011 is off to a great start. And great is a gross understatement!