Thursday, January 28, 2010

Days 3 and 4

Thursday already? I swear, I am in time warp.

Here's Wednesday:
Breakfast smoothie: soy milk, strawberries, green powder
swam for 40 minutes
got out of pool STARVING
snack: fage yogurt with strawberries and walnuts, soy latte
lunch: pork tenderloin and coleslaw
snack: apple and string cheese
snack: another small smoothie like the one I had for breakfast
preworkout drink: protein powder and workout optimizer
Spin class...killer workout. All I could think about was english muffins and bread....
Dinner: scrambled eggs, salsa, avacado, small amount of cheese, brocolli.

after dinner I was still hungry so I ate some nuts. That seemed to fill me up.


Thursday so far....
Pre workout drink: protein/workout optimizer
3.5 mile run - really focused on my form. My muscles are sore from the week and this run was a bit of a slog....
Breakfast: Smoothie (like previous days)
snack: soy latte, apple, sunflower seed butter
lunch: repeat of dinner only in smaller amount (egg whites/egg, brocolli, salsa), added 1/4 cup fage and two strawberries with a handful of walnuts
snack: smoothie
snack: Lara bar (trying this out today to see how it feels)
Preworkout drink - protein and FBX (full blown extreme workout optimizer)
bootcamp
Dinner: Chicken with lettuce/tomatoe/cucumber/onion and blue cheese crumbles

The day isn't over yet, I am anxious to see how I feel during boot camp and afterwards. This food experiment is really interesting to me. Its going to take a bit to really figure it out. I am slso really anxious to see how my long run goes on Sunday (15 miles....am I allowed to say ugh?!)

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Day 1 and 2

Here is what we ate on Monday and Tuesday....

Breakfast: eggs and toast (we didn't really start until after breakfast!)
Snack: soy latte (Trevor had a non-fat latte), trial mix (nuts and raisins)
Lunch: awesome cobb salad - lettuce, tomatoe, onion, bacon, blue cheese, chicken. no dressing. So. good.
Snack: more trail mix (we were on a plane)
Dinner: salad with steak w/grilled tomatoes and peppers, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, salsa. Again...so. good.

Tuesday was the first real test day - we did strength training in the morning and ran 4.7 miles in the evening. First time without carbs in our pre and post workout shakes.

Breakfast: smoothie with soy milk, protein powder, strawberries (Trevor had milk, bananas, strawberries, flax oil)
Preworkout: protein powder/full blown extreme (workout optimizer with a bit of caffeine and B vitamines)
Post workout: Protein powder
Lunch: turkey burger, coleslaw
Snack: apple/string cheese
Snack: Walnuts/dates/almonds
Dinner: Same salad as last night.

I felt okay, I think its more mental than anything else. My workouts felt good and stong, I was not weak or tired. I stayed in target heart rate during the run and really focused on my form.

Slept better the last two nights than I have in a while.

Metabolic Efficiency

We heard a seminar this past weekend about nutrition for triathletes. The seminar was by Bob Seebohar and the focus was metabolic efficiency. The idea is that you can train your body to use fat instead of carbohydrate. This idea goes against everything that we know about endurance training. What about carb loading? What about gels and drinks and bars? As with any new idea, it can be immediately disputed because its new. I really wanted to keep an open mind and give this idea a chance.

Last year, I started to train by heart rate - the idea being that if I train in the correct heart rate zone, my body will burn fat instead of carbohydrate and that will allow me to go longer without hitting "the wall". I trained this way all last season and I would say it was a success. I did many triathlons, a half ironman (7 hours of movement) and a marathon and did not hit the wall a single time. Sure my body was tired and my muscles ached, but I did not feel like I was running on an empty tank. This really made me want to know more about this idea of training your body to burn fat with your nutrition.

The theory involves periodizing your nutrition to match your training - eating to train instead of training to eat. I like this idea, but it kind of takes the fun out of saying "I ran 13 miles today, I can eat as many cupcakes as I want". So, during your base phase of training, when you are training in lower intensity zones, buring fat as fuel, you do not eat whole grains...at all. You get your carbs from fruits and veggies. The, as your intensity increases during the next phases of training, you add back some whole graings but just around your training, not the rest of the day. You also add in some supplements - gels/bars/etc during your runs/rides, etc.

Most issues in Ironman come from intestinal distress - vomitting, bloating, etc. I want to do whatever I can to avoid these things, so we decided to give this new way of thinking about nutrition a shot.

On Monday, we started to put this into practice. My next few blogs will have my meals for the last two days and some feedback. It is an interesting experiment.

I must say that I am not recommending this type of diet for everyone. I still believe that complex carbs play a very important role in your diet. We are trying this type of diet out as a way to improve our performance for a specific event. This is just an experiment, we'll see how it goes....

USA Trithlon Level 1 Coaches Certification

Last weekend, Trevor, myself and our friend Doug attended the USAT Coaches Certification Class in Colorado Springs. We had a great time and learned a ton. We are really excited to put the things we learned into practice with ourselves and others.

We flew into Denver on Thursday afternoon and drove to Colorado Springs. I lived in Boulder for 8 years and spent plenty of time driving between there and the Springs. It felt very familiar and I was looking forward to being back there.

Classes started on Friday and it was non-stop lectures. I would say I had average expectations for the weekend. Wow....was I blown away....the lectures were top notch and the presenters were very high level - Olympic coaches, elite athlete coaches, PhDs. Great stuff.

Here is a list of presenters and what was covered:

Periodization and Planning - Justin Trolle, USAT Athlete Development manager - this was a full morning of learning how to put together a training plan....in detail.

Nutrition and Strength Training for triathletes - Bob Seebohar - USAT Elite Coach - a full afternoon of information on nutrition and strength training - much of this information was cutting edge, challenging many long held beliefs. We are putting into practice what we learned here and I will be blogging about that in a future blog.

How to recognize and Avoid overtraining/Exercise Physiology - Krista Austin - one of the coaches of the 2009 New York City Marathon.

Swimming skills and economy training - Kim Matz, USA Swimming National Team coach. What I don't know about swimming is a lot.

Cycling Skills - Abby Rudy - what I don't know about cycling is a lot.

Running Skills and Economy Training - Bobby McGee, Expert and elite coach. I learned more about running in this 90 minute seminar than in my entire life of running.

Sports Psychology/Mental Skills - Bobby McGee - Last year, I started doing some of the stuff discussed in this seminar and had great success. It was a good reminder to continue.

Also covered were Triathlon Specific Training and Ethics/Risk Management.

My mind is so overloaded right now. I am working to focus on just a few things to start with and then move my focus to a few more things. It was a lot to take in. One of the things discussed was that triathlon is its own sport - it is not just swimming, biking, running....it is a sport that requires all those things. This is a really important point when thinking about training and performance.

I could list a thousand interesting things learned during the weekend, but I won't!! I am starting to put some of these things into practice and will keep you posted on the results.

Our intent is to coach other athletes. We have two triathlons that we are organizing and promoting this summer and we are going to include training programs. Our other intent is to improve our own training, especially with Ironman coming up in August.

We have a test to take and it is a doozie!! Once that is done, we will be certified coaches....woohooo....

We had a great time during the whole weekend. We got in a few runs. I am just getting over a sinus infection and back injury due to a sneeze! Running at altitude at 5 am either made me better or worse - we'll have to wait a few days to see which!

We capped the weekend off with a quick visit to see my family. Here we are with our three Richards nephews.


Thursday, January 14, 2010

End of a streak....

When I first moved to Portland, 10 years ago, my body went into shock. The damp, dreary weather was just too much. I had sinus infection after sinus infection. I was sick at least three times per year. As time went on, I would get increasingly sick each year. About three years ago, I went to a naturopath who helped me strenghten my immune system and flush out my sinuses with a nightly nose spray.

Two years ago, we started looking at opening our Max Muscle store and I improved my nutrition and supplementation of things like gluatmine, vitamin D and greens. I have not been sick with a cold in over two years. I take a wellness booster when I feel my system is compromised, whether I am tired or others around me are sick, it has always come through.

I have also worked out at home, alone for the last several years. So no germs to be caught from others. I have been so proud of the fact that I just don't get sick. Its been so nice.

Last week, Trevor and I went to a new gym to take a spin class. The gym had just remodeled. Before class, one of the other members was up talking to the instructor and I heard her say something about how she hoped they fixed the ventilation because she had been sick for two weeks after her last class. I didn't really think another of it, in fact I probably thought "maybe she should take a wellness booster".

The class got under way and after a bit, the mirrors started to fog up and the floor was covered with condensation. There were 35 sweaty people in the room, all breathing that in. Again, I didn't think too much of that....until Monday morning....when I woke up with a scratchy throat.

I threw the book at it....mega dose Vitamin A, increased my gluatamine intake, wellness booster, lots of water, extra greens, electrolyte tabs, mega dose Vitamin D....then I moved to sudafed and nyquil (which has high fructose corn syrup in it....WHY????). Now, I find myself in a full blown conjested, sore throat state.

I am so sad that my well streak is over. I've gone over 600 days without a cold. I feel like I'm at a factory and we've just had our first accident...you know how they have signs that say "21 days accident free" and the turn the numbers until there is an accident and then it goes back to "1 days accident free".

The thing that gets me is that I do all these things to keep from getting sick, I always wash my hands and then use a paper towel to turn off the water and to open the door. I can't help but wonder if I do all these things and I still get sick, how is there hope for people who don't eat well, don't strengthen their immune system and don't take care to avoid germs.

Its almost embarassing to me to have customers come into the store and I sound like I have a frog in my throat....I want to tell them my story....that I haven't been sick for so long....but now the counter has gone back to zero and I can't tell them that anymore. All I can do it douse myself in hand sanitizer and talk to them from a distance. It doesn't seem fair. I think I am delirious....Its probably the High Fructose Corn syrup in the Nyquil that is getting to me.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

First post of the New Year...

I can't believe its the 9th and I am finally posting. The past few weeks have been really busy, which is good. The stores are really picking up right now - New Year's resolutions and all. I'm getting back on track with things. Ironman training started on the 4th, this means a regular rotation of swimming, biking, running and strength training.

We have a marathon on April 11th, that is our closest goal event. I am excited for that. Which is a strange thing to say, but true!!

We've been taking some classes and new gyms and meeting lots of new people. Its so interesting how a spin class at one gym can be so different from a spin class at another gym. We've also been taking a great bootcamp class that totally kicks our ass. Its every Thursday night and I am always mixed with excitement and dread!

Of course there is our running group that meets every Sunday morning - they are just nuts.

We've been talking to alot of people about how they eat and I am about ready to beat someone up!! If I hear one more person say something about a soup diet, a no carb diet, a 1200 calorie diet ("I think 1500 is too high for me"), a Special K diet.....it will be bad news for everyone involved. I have come to the conclusion that we are a nation of mal-nourished obese people. Lots of fat people who don't eat nearly enough. Their bodies are starving because they aren't feeding them and when they do feed them it is nutrtionally void crap.

To top things off, Taco Bell is running a campaign now called the "drive thru diet" and showing their low calorie menu items like a single taco. Have you ever had A SINGLE taco from there? Why bother. The thing that makes me sad is that there is an entire group of people out there who should know that Taco Bell is not healthy who now are allowing themselves to be convinced that it IS healthy. Great marketing, thanks alot.

The gyms are super packed and all the regulars are complaining about all the "new" people. Every one of us was a new person at one time. I can only hope that the new people stick around and the gym is always that busy. I'd rather complain about that than about the amount of unhealthy people out there draining our healthcare system.

Happy New Year, looks like it will be more of the same this year!