I see a lot of articles in triathlon magazine's detailing this pro or that pro's typical diet as they go through a day. Interestingly, I've noticed quite a few similarities in many of the foods that pros often eat, and thought it might be a good idea to give insight into what I've found to work quite well for me for not just nutrition but cost and convenience as well. So here is what a day will usually look like for me.
Breakfast 1- Oatmeal with fruit and usually some milk or peanut butter for protein. Cup of Japanese green tea.
Workout 1- Water if swimming, gatorade if running, gatorade plus Clifbars, EFS, and powerbars if biking 3 hours or more. Tea or caffeinated gels on longer, harder rides or when needed.
Post workout smoothie after the main workout of the day, whether it is morning or afternoon.
Lunch- Two eggs with cheddar cheese, spinach and mushrooms. Usually a side of toast with jam and fresh fruit and/or a thin slice of red meat depending on caloric needs for the day. An apple or pear is typically eaten as well. Sometimes, fried rice is made with the eggs instead by pan-searing the rice and egg with meat, carrots and soy sauce. More green tea.
Snack- Fresh fruit and yogurt with chopped nuts
Workout 2- If the morning was a bike ride, this might be swimming and running. The order is changed constantly based upon the focus of the day. If the afternoon swim session is longer, liquid calories such as gatorade will be taken.
Post workout (or late night snack depending on timing of workout 2)- Cereal with fresh fruit.
Dinner- Steak and mushrooms with asparagus and a baked potato or pan-seared fish with available vegetables.
Late night snack- nuts or other available proteins or fats. Carbs, especially sugars are typically avoided to a degree at this time.
Now the foods here aren't so important as the nutrional profile that is trying to be achieved. Early in the morning, my goal is to load up on as many carbs as possible for the day's workouts with a little bit of protein to support carbohydrate uptake.
As the day goes on, the amount of protein increases in order to give the body the nutrients it needs for muscle repair. Eggs are quite important here, as even if the day happens to be a vegetarian one (which happens occasionally), they provide a complete amino acid profile. After the days' last workout and the proper post workout carbs have been taken in, a higher protein dinner is usually preferred.
Most importanly though, before bed time, carbs are restricted somewhat, particularly high glycemic ones, in order to ensure maximum HGH release during the first hours of sleep. Since HGH release is inhibited by insulin response (to high glycemic carbs), it has been theorized that a low carb intake immediately before bed can aid in recovery.
Hopefully, some of this information can help you in designing your own convenient and inexpensive balanced diet!
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Functional Overreaching
As I sit here getting ready to leave Clermont, I can't help but feel good about all that I have accomplished over the last several weeks. Building off the big bike and swim mileage I had started in Gainesville, I progressively increased the volume and intensity with one purpose in mind. Not to get faster, but to get stronger. Transforming my body into the efficient machine it needs to be in order to handle the massive training loads that will be required to reach that professional level.
And for the majority of it, I was not getting any faster. I was steadily doing more and more than I ever had, yet my swimming was at times slowing down. And on the bike my legs always felt worn down, like they wouldn't have any power. Yet, they always did. And though I didn't know it, my swimming stroke was getting better and better each day.
Though since I didn't know it, I just had to trust that if I kept at it, I would see results in the form of speed increases. Even though I was already seeing the only results that really mattered for the moment in the increased ability to do work. And, on less and less calories and fluids. After awhile I noticed my body seemingly start to adapt to the training load. I got comfortable with the routine of working hard all day, (almost) every day. My overall food intake seemed to be back to a relatively normal level, and had even developed into a routine, designed to get as varied and complete a diet as possible each day.
I started to get a bit faster. If only just a bit. Then a slight change in my swim stroke from a Master's swim drill that kept me from overrating my hips. Big increase in speed! And with that the motivation that led to even faster swim workouts and more increases in speed.
On the bike I was starting to feel invincible. I was keeping up a lot better with the pro triathletes when I went riding with them, even doing an interval workout where I was able to stay on their wheels throughout each interval!
But as the training block was coming to a close, it was time for something big. It was time to keep pushing and see what was possible. It was time to attempt to bring my body into what some call "functional overreaching". Which is just a fancy name for being slightly overtrained. Just enough that a quick recovery will yield huge fitness gains, while avoiding accumulating too much long-term fatigue.
So for my last week, I simply continued to go as long and as hard as I could on the bike. Except there were no days off. Just a couple moderate days, just soft enough to allow me to keep going hard. The other 5 days were all extremely hard. The intent was to blow my legs up. The day before the last hard day I thought I had done just that.
Instead, my body responded. Adapted. Took up my challenge and one-upped me. It got stronger. Faster. Before I even gave it the recovery it needed. On the last day I was not only riding faster than I was at the beginning of the week, I was riding faster than ever before. For much longer too.
The week's totals hit 418 miles on the bike at an astounding average of around 20 miles per hour! Incredible! Considering how much of it was done alone and pulling, I couldn't believe it! Physically, I felt like I always did. Hurting like hell after each bike ride and always like my legs wouldn't be able to work. But they always did and now I knew that they would.
I even thought maybe I could keep going. That's when I realized how so many professional endurance athletes end up severely overtrained. Gradually, over time, your body can adapt and get used to anything and the symptoms of overtraining just become part of everyday life. Luckily though for my body, my mind was done.
Mentally, I couldn't take any more. I had hurt myself too much that week. Seemingly, my mind was more ready for that planned rest period than my body. And so as I leave Clermont for a quick stint at the beach and some downtime in the Tennessee country I will rest. Big time rest.
And for the majority of it, I was not getting any faster. I was steadily doing more and more than I ever had, yet my swimming was at times slowing down. And on the bike my legs always felt worn down, like they wouldn't have any power. Yet, they always did. And though I didn't know it, my swimming stroke was getting better and better each day.
Though since I didn't know it, I just had to trust that if I kept at it, I would see results in the form of speed increases. Even though I was already seeing the only results that really mattered for the moment in the increased ability to do work. And, on less and less calories and fluids. After awhile I noticed my body seemingly start to adapt to the training load. I got comfortable with the routine of working hard all day, (almost) every day. My overall food intake seemed to be back to a relatively normal level, and had even developed into a routine, designed to get as varied and complete a diet as possible each day.
I started to get a bit faster. If only just a bit. Then a slight change in my swim stroke from a Master's swim drill that kept me from overrating my hips. Big increase in speed! And with that the motivation that led to even faster swim workouts and more increases in speed.
On the bike I was starting to feel invincible. I was keeping up a lot better with the pro triathletes when I went riding with them, even doing an interval workout where I was able to stay on their wheels throughout each interval!
But as the training block was coming to a close, it was time for something big. It was time to keep pushing and see what was possible. It was time to attempt to bring my body into what some call "functional overreaching". Which is just a fancy name for being slightly overtrained. Just enough that a quick recovery will yield huge fitness gains, while avoiding accumulating too much long-term fatigue.
So for my last week, I simply continued to go as long and as hard as I could on the bike. Except there were no days off. Just a couple moderate days, just soft enough to allow me to keep going hard. The other 5 days were all extremely hard. The intent was to blow my legs up. The day before the last hard day I thought I had done just that.
Instead, my body responded. Adapted. Took up my challenge and one-upped me. It got stronger. Faster. Before I even gave it the recovery it needed. On the last day I was not only riding faster than I was at the beginning of the week, I was riding faster than ever before. For much longer too.
The week's totals hit 418 miles on the bike at an astounding average of around 20 miles per hour! Incredible! Considering how much of it was done alone and pulling, I couldn't believe it! Physically, I felt like I always did. Hurting like hell after each bike ride and always like my legs wouldn't be able to work. But they always did and now I knew that they would.
I even thought maybe I could keep going. That's when I realized how so many professional endurance athletes end up severely overtrained. Gradually, over time, your body can adapt and get used to anything and the symptoms of overtraining just become part of everyday life. Luckily though for my body, my mind was done.
Mentally, I couldn't take any more. I had hurt myself too much that week. Seemingly, my mind was more ready for that planned rest period than my body. And so as I leave Clermont for a quick stint at the beach and some downtime in the Tennessee country I will rest. Big time rest.
Monday, March 12, 2012
How to Train Like a Pro
There are several things I have learned and continue to learn here while training with several pro triathletes in the Clermont area. The first being how hard and how often they train. Many swim, bike, and run almost every day. The exception being the off day where it seems an easy swim or bike is the norm.
This, however, is not possible under the time constraints of the typical age group athlete. But what is quite applicable is the extremely high quality of each of these sessions. Each workout has a purpose and is completed without pause.
For example, during a swim, there is no sitting on the wall except when rest is really needed. If it is an easy swim to recover from a hard session earlier in the day or during a recovery day, it is done fairly continuous, utilizing different strokes in order to target different muscles, as the goal is active recovery. Fins are used quite often for these workouts as well in order to make it easier and yet still provide that feel for the water that they are looking to maintain.
Their main fitness building workouts are big and quite specific and of course, incorporate a proper warm-up, drills, and cool down as well. However, for the Ironman athletes who are very good swimmers and already have a front pack swim, many of their swims tend to focus on technique and strength work to simply maintain their feel for the water and ability to swim at the front with ease.
On the bike is where the professionalism really stands out. From the very start the pace is hot and fast and only gets faster as they warmup to the goal pace for the day, only slowing when traffic necessitates it. There is little to no soft-pedaling or coasting (unless it is interval day of course). There are no stops except for those quick ones for water and bathroom breaks on the longest of rides. Food is rarely eaten for rides of 3 hours or less. Their bodies are so efficient by this point that proper fueling before and after and a couple bottles full of gatorade or other carbohydrate/electrolyte drink are plenty to get through most rides. I've seen a snickers or two for the longer rides (I still take in a few more calories, but it is quite a bit less than what I needed just a couple months ago), but the calorie intake seems to be quite low unless specifically training the body to take in calories while exercising.
And the low calorie and fluid intake seems to be even more so for the run. This, however, I do not recommend. Likely you can probably stand to cut out a few calories from your rides and maybe even from your runs too, but if what you are doing is working here, don't change it. Bonking sucks.
Running, in general, the training seems to be quite similar. Endurance runs, tempo runs, interval runs, long runs, recovery runs, etc. Except for the post-run beer. There is none of that. And it's a good rule to follow if you're in the middle of big training and need maximum recovery. If you can, wait until your body has a chance to absorb and digest some post workout nutrition before imbibing that delicious mug of fire water.
In addition, they almost always ride and run from where they are (particularly the visiting athletes who do not have cars), thus cutting down on total workout time and adding to their total efficiency. A three hour ride usually takes just that, three hours, to complete. The rest of the time is spent refueling and resting up for the next workout.
So the big difference that really stands out is their efficiency in training. They get the most out of their swims, runs, and rides. And, with a few tweaks to how you complete your workouts, so can you.
This, however, is not possible under the time constraints of the typical age group athlete. But what is quite applicable is the extremely high quality of each of these sessions. Each workout has a purpose and is completed without pause.
For example, during a swim, there is no sitting on the wall except when rest is really needed. If it is an easy swim to recover from a hard session earlier in the day or during a recovery day, it is done fairly continuous, utilizing different strokes in order to target different muscles, as the goal is active recovery. Fins are used quite often for these workouts as well in order to make it easier and yet still provide that feel for the water that they are looking to maintain.
Their main fitness building workouts are big and quite specific and of course, incorporate a proper warm-up, drills, and cool down as well. However, for the Ironman athletes who are very good swimmers and already have a front pack swim, many of their swims tend to focus on technique and strength work to simply maintain their feel for the water and ability to swim at the front with ease.
On the bike is where the professionalism really stands out. From the very start the pace is hot and fast and only gets faster as they warmup to the goal pace for the day, only slowing when traffic necessitates it. There is little to no soft-pedaling or coasting (unless it is interval day of course). There are no stops except for those quick ones for water and bathroom breaks on the longest of rides. Food is rarely eaten for rides of 3 hours or less. Their bodies are so efficient by this point that proper fueling before and after and a couple bottles full of gatorade or other carbohydrate/electrolyte drink are plenty to get through most rides. I've seen a snickers or two for the longer rides (I still take in a few more calories, but it is quite a bit less than what I needed just a couple months ago), but the calorie intake seems to be quite low unless specifically training the body to take in calories while exercising.
And the low calorie and fluid intake seems to be even more so for the run. This, however, I do not recommend. Likely you can probably stand to cut out a few calories from your rides and maybe even from your runs too, but if what you are doing is working here, don't change it. Bonking sucks.
Running, in general, the training seems to be quite similar. Endurance runs, tempo runs, interval runs, long runs, recovery runs, etc. Except for the post-run beer. There is none of that. And it's a good rule to follow if you're in the middle of big training and need maximum recovery. If you can, wait until your body has a chance to absorb and digest some post workout nutrition before imbibing that delicious mug of fire water.
In addition, they almost always ride and run from where they are (particularly the visiting athletes who do not have cars), thus cutting down on total workout time and adding to their total efficiency. A three hour ride usually takes just that, three hours, to complete. The rest of the time is spent refueling and resting up for the next workout.
So the big difference that really stands out is their efficiency in training. They get the most out of their swims, runs, and rides. And, with a few tweaks to how you complete your workouts, so can you.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Typical Training Block
My training structure at the moment is typically three days on, one off, as planned. Though I rest depending on when I need it, so sometimes I don't always make it to three days before I have a rest day. Also, of note, is that I am still not running often, so you won't see the typical aerobic runs interspersed throughout. Likely a good thing though, as they might send me over the edge if added in. Also, this kind of work is only planned to be held for three weeks max. After that, I will have a recovery week. A VERY big recovery week. As this particular training block is meant to overload my body to a much deeper fatigue than one might normally attempt.
But, here is an example of what my last three day swim/bike block looked like:
Wed AM- 39 mile bike, very hard. First 45 minutes doing all that I could to stay on Andrey's (Russian Pro) wheel.
Wed PM- 2000yd swim. Main set: 2x200, 4x100 hard.
Thurs AM- 82 mile bike, hilly and hard. With Nina Kraft and Teemo. Cracked from dehydration near the end.
Thurs PM- 2500lcm swim. Lots of fluff, too tired to swim a hard pace.
Fri AM- 40 mile bike, solo, medium hard.
Fri PM- 28 mile bike, hilly, medium hard, with 3 x 3 minute all out intervals.
Fri PM- 4 mile run, 4x800 on track at 5k pace.
Fri PM- 600lcm swim, cool down from run.
As you can see, each day has quite a bit of intensity. At the end of this, I felt surprisingly good. However, it turned out I needed two relatively, short, easy days instead of one before I could get back to a hard workout again. This is fine. Broken down to simplicity, the way to get faster is to overload your body and let it recover. Again and again and again. For most, it will likely be one or two hard days before a recovery day, but with experience and fitness, the body becomes able to handle more and more. One of the pros I train with often goes four on, one off. His off day is usually only an easy swim or bike, but for his "on" days, he is swimming, biking AND running very fast and very hard for most of it. Very little is what most would consider relaxed or easy. Though since he is an Ironman athlete coming from an ITU background, for him most of his workouts are considered "not hard".
But, here is an example of what my last three day swim/bike block looked like:
Wed AM- 39 mile bike, very hard. First 45 minutes doing all that I could to stay on Andrey's (Russian Pro) wheel.
Wed PM- 2000yd swim. Main set: 2x200, 4x100 hard.
Thurs AM- 82 mile bike, hilly and hard. With Nina Kraft and Teemo. Cracked from dehydration near the end.
Thurs PM- 2500lcm swim. Lots of fluff, too tired to swim a hard pace.
Fri AM- 40 mile bike, solo, medium hard.
Fri PM- 28 mile bike, hilly, medium hard, with 3 x 3 minute all out intervals.
Fri PM- 4 mile run, 4x800 on track at 5k pace.
Fri PM- 600lcm swim, cool down from run.
As you can see, each day has quite a bit of intensity. At the end of this, I felt surprisingly good. However, it turned out I needed two relatively, short, easy days instead of one before I could get back to a hard workout again. This is fine. Broken down to simplicity, the way to get faster is to overload your body and let it recover. Again and again and again. For most, it will likely be one or two hard days before a recovery day, but with experience and fitness, the body becomes able to handle more and more. One of the pros I train with often goes four on, one off. His off day is usually only an easy swim or bike, but for his "on" days, he is swimming, biking AND running very fast and very hard for most of it. Very little is what most would consider relaxed or easy. Though since he is an Ironman athlete coming from an ITU background, for him most of his workouts are considered "not hard".
Clermont Draft Legal Challenge
This past weekend I was fortunate enough to schedule a nice recovery day on the same day as the Draft Legal Challenge here in Clermont. As far as I know this is the only age group draft legal event in the US and it also includes a professional ITU race as well. I had three friends to cheer on, each in a different race, so it made for an exciting day!
The race starts with a swim in shallow Lake Louisa which made the majority of the leg dolphin diving and high stepping, particularly for the pros. One pro, in particular, Peter Cook from Australia, gained a huge advantage out of the water from utilizing his height and high stepping early on. I can only imagine how heavy his legs must have felt running up that beach. My buddy from Oklahoma, Talbot Cox, racing in the Age Group Men's race, and my new friend from Clermont, Natalie Kirchoff, racing in the Female Pro race both came out of the water with solid mid-pack positions, while Derek Oskutis, from San Diego, had a great swim coming out near the very front in the Male Pro race.
Next was the bike leg, which stayed spread out into several smaller groups for the women and age group races, but quickly formed into one big group for the pro men after just one lap. With all the U-turns on the course though, it must have been brutal to deal with the accelerations for anyone hanging around the back of a large pack. Luckily, Derek, with his strong swim, had an easier time than most at the front of the pack. Natalie and Talbot, however, seemed to be redlining the whole way in their chase packs, trying to keep from losing too much time to the front groups.
Out on the run, though only a 5k, is where most really started to feel the heat of the day. With temps in the mid to high 80's and typical Florida humidity, those who were not adjusted, were soon struggling. Despite this, I was quite pleased to see all my friends come up with great races as I cheered them on from the sidelines. Talbot got his spot to race nationals, Derek came up with a very solid finish in the top third of the pro field (while working a full-time job in the Navy with little time to train at that!), and Natalie gutting it out for a solid first showing in her first pro race of the year. I was super proud of them all and highly motivated for more big training after seeing all those pros and age groupers flying around the course at such high speeds!
The race starts with a swim in shallow Lake Louisa which made the majority of the leg dolphin diving and high stepping, particularly for the pros. One pro, in particular, Peter Cook from Australia, gained a huge advantage out of the water from utilizing his height and high stepping early on. I can only imagine how heavy his legs must have felt running up that beach. My buddy from Oklahoma, Talbot Cox, racing in the Age Group Men's race, and my new friend from Clermont, Natalie Kirchoff, racing in the Female Pro race both came out of the water with solid mid-pack positions, while Derek Oskutis, from San Diego, had a great swim coming out near the very front in the Male Pro race.
Next was the bike leg, which stayed spread out into several smaller groups for the women and age group races, but quickly formed into one big group for the pro men after just one lap. With all the U-turns on the course though, it must have been brutal to deal with the accelerations for anyone hanging around the back of a large pack. Luckily, Derek, with his strong swim, had an easier time than most at the front of the pack. Natalie and Talbot, however, seemed to be redlining the whole way in their chase packs, trying to keep from losing too much time to the front groups.
Out on the run, though only a 5k, is where most really started to feel the heat of the day. With temps in the mid to high 80's and typical Florida humidity, those who were not adjusted, were soon struggling. Despite this, I was quite pleased to see all my friends come up with great races as I cheered them on from the sidelines. Talbot got his spot to race nationals, Derek came up with a very solid finish in the top third of the pro field (while working a full-time job in the Navy with little time to train at that!), and Natalie gutting it out for a solid first showing in her first pro race of the year. I was super proud of them all and highly motivated for more big training after seeing all those pros and age groupers flying around the course at such high speeds!
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