Archive for the 'fitness' Category

16
Jan
12

Let’s rock it!

By Feerlessfood 12 Comments
Categories: Workouts, Races, fitness and Motivation
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2012 is off to a fast start and it’s not messing around!  My life has been plenty busy, and while fun, I’m still trying to keep my head above water… and keep my head held high at the same time.  Tampa is good, although it actually got a bit cold here for past couple days, I mean, the high was only in like the 60s!  I don’t know how you guys survive up north!

Before I talk about anything else, I some cool news and a big announcement.

After a pretty successful 2011 triathlon racing season, I applied and have been offered a spot the Elite Triathlon Team of Wattie Ink and will be Rockin’ The W in 2012! I am really stoked for this, as the team only accepted 50 athletes from across the country and I feel really honored to be able to race as a member of this team.  This means I’ll be racing in the K-Swiss Wattie Ink uniform (check them out on the site) as well as be able to work with a bunch of great sponsors!

My second piece of triathlon news is that I will be coached by Felipe Bastos this year, a triathlon world champion, many times over, from Brazil.  Not only does Felipe know triathlon more than I can ever imagine, he won’t take any my crap excuses and is going to push me this year. Already I’m beginning to focus on going to bed earlier!  This year is going to be focused on my training and building a strong base.  As Felipe has outlined, I will still have a very successful 2012, but this year is really meant to set me up for 2013 and later years. Triathlon is based on a multi-year planning and putting in the work early to be successful later.  Make sure to check out my race schedule for 2012 here.

Felipe Bastos

So I’m stoked for 2012!

In other news, since my family decided to put off a vacation to somewhere fun until March, when the waters get warm enough to swim in, they decided to come here instead which was pretty cool. They flew into Orlando and spent 2 days there before coming over to Tampa and seeing me.  I joined them on their first day and we went to Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, which included going to Harry Potter World!  Haha, it was a lot of fun. Having grown up reading the books, it was cool to see.

Hogwarts

I also grabbed a picture with Rogue from the X-Men… ; )

Hey girl...

Then they went to Universal Studios the next day…

My little brother with the Blues Brothers... that kid would fit right in

…While I had to work…

Keepin' it fresh

On Thursday, we all went to see the Bolts play the Hurricanes! The Lightning lost, surprise, but it was a lot of fun

Me and the Lightning Bug!

That’s all I got! I’ll be back again soon- remember to follow me on Twitter @Chuckfeerick and let me know if you have any fitness, nutrition, or triathlon questions that I can answer.  In future posts I am going to be talking about the importance of sleep and about why I eat paleo.

  1. How is your 2012 starting?
  2. Tell me some GOOD news about you!

 

 

17
Dec
11

Leap

By Feerlessfood 8 Comments
Categories: Eating disorders/ recovery, fitness, Motivation, Nutrition and Workouts
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Leap: that term can be met with one of two answers:

  1. Skepticism and what are you talking about? Leap? What??
  2. How high?

I find myself being on both sides of this answer depending on who the direction is coming from.  And I think this is the simplest factor in success of your goals and overcoming your fears and restraints.
For years I’ve been struggling with eating right, exercising correctly for my goals, and devoting more time and brain power to thoughts about food and workouts than to the people who matter most in my life.

That’s where the skepticism occurs.  I can do research all day online about the best ways to eat or exercise, listen to different experts in the industry speak on health and nutrition, or have intense conversations with loved ones about how much more I could be getting out of life.  But if you don’t truly BUY IN to this, and are willing to Leap, you won’t meet your goals if you’re the one holding yourself back.

I’ve spent years meeting with different registered dietitians trying to find the right ones.  The majority I haven’t been able to make progress with.  Either they didn’t understand me and my goals, or they were completely wrong about nutrition and the sessions were spent with me educating them!  I’ve had a few who have been amazing—they knew what they were talking about, I believed them,  I respected them, and most importantly, I trusted them and looked up to them—almost like a boss or celebrity.

These are the ones where they told me to “Leap” and I respond “how high?”  Maybe you don’t have this problem with your goals.  I have no problem doing many things where I trust myself, but nutrition and exercise are the points in my life that I need the most guidance on.  Currently, I am putting my team together to help get my life in order.

  • I have an amazing family who I trust and love and who I know will always be there for me
  • I finally have a doctor who understand the implications of what disordered eating and strenuous exercise can do to your health and is keeping tabs on me
  • I have a great triathlon coach and friend who is helping me with my plan and racing who I really trust, and I also have a number of close friends in the triathlon community who support me
  • Finally, I have a new Dietician who is incredible.  Not only does she know far more than I do, she GETS me and she has been through the same struggles I have.  She is also extremely responsive and I can tell she actually cares!  I’m sure you all know what I am talking about—when someone truly cares, their input makes a world of difference.  She was straight up with me and said “do exactly what I’ve told you to do—I will not get you fat, I promise!”

So what do I think one the keys to success and change is?  Trust.  You must buy into the commitment you are making and trust those who are there to help you.  This goes for all goals—if you’re trying to lose weight or gain weight, you need to find a nutritionist you can trust.  Find a personal trainer who cares about you and wants to see you succeed and buys into that goal WITH you.  Finally, connect with your family and friends and get them on your team.

Thus, I’m ready to embrace this change heading into 2012.  But I’m not waiting until January 1st to start—instead I am already embracing next year and the ones to come after that.  After all, health and happiness aren’t annual  entities—they are life long.

My nutrition is improving too and I’m making the adjustments that my nutritionist and I have planned.  I’m eating much more fat from natural sources than I ever have in my life.  It really is so much more satiating and makes you feel so much better—grass fed meats, avocados, coconut butter and coconut oil, olive oil, nut butters, eggs, and raw organic full-fat dairy like whole milk, whole yogurt and cheese, and real butter.

Cedar plank salmon... Yeah I did light the plank on fire at the very end- shut up

Grilled chicken, raw cheddar, and avocado on corn tortilla

Paleo banana, pumpkin, peanut butter, coconut pancakes!

Paleo Energy Cookies

Recipes coming soon!

I’m also focused on eating better around my workouts and during my workouts!  I made my first batch of paleo energy cookies last weekend and I’ll start posting some of those recipes.  The biggest limiter for me is sleep.  What do you mean 4 hours isn’t enough?  I know, I know… Amy, my nutritionist has also given me guidance on my strength training as well and her number 1 rule is, if less than 6 hours of sleep, not allowed to workout.  You won’t have the energy and your body will instead just secrete more Cortisol which can lower testosterone and other factors of increasing fat storage and hampering muscle gain.

My triathlon support team is also making progress.  I want to have my most successful year to date in 2012 and know I can improve when pairing a better diet and sleep with better training.  I looked at a few of my results this morning and I noticed that I have gotten faster, and raced longer, but not substantially from when I was a new triathlete to now.

So, 2012 goals—besides being healthier, happier, and a better friend and family member!

  • Do a full muscle-up!  Check out the video—basically a full pull-up into a dip (Means I’ve got to get stronger!)
  • Break 3 hours at the Boston marathon and possibly at another marathon later in the year
  • Qualify for ITU Long Course Duathlon Worlds
  • Qualify for ITU Long Course Triathlon Worlds
  • PR in every distance race
  • Break 4:50:00 in a half ironman race
  • What else?  I know I’ve got more that aren’t so result oriented and I’ll add them as I think of them

Speaking of change, I’m thinking about changing the name of my blog… the content wouldn’t change, but being that I write about more than just recipes, I’m considering the change.

Vote here and let me know what you think!

  1. What are your goals for 2012?  How are you going to achieve them- do you have a plan?
  2. Merry Christmas!
17
Oct
11

Mile 6.5 got really dark…

By Feerlessfood 11 Comments
Categories: Dinners, Eating disorders/ recovery, fitness, Nutrition, Races and Workouts
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Disney World Wine and Dine Half Marathon was last week… on Saturday NIGHT, starting at 10:00PM.  It was cool, but makes for a really hard day to plan for?

My parents were in Orlando visiting–my aunt got some rooms so they came down to stay.  Kind of cool that the race fell on the same weekend!

I did a short run and dip in the pool in the morning then ate and headed to Disney… what a magical place

I made the expo cut off by about 10 minutes since it somehow ended at 4 and I guess I didn’t even think about that.  I then checked into the hotel and saw my parents before taking a HARD nap lol.

The busses took a while to load, but I got the start line eventually no problem.  The gun went of and we were serenading with music, fireworks, and Mickey and Minnie.

Not the actual Mickey that sent us off, but I'm sure this guy was around somewhere

Fireworks over Epcot

I started strong, running at about the pace I wanted to. The course was “flat” but a lot of it was on the roads that connect all the Disney Parks so we had a lot of On and Off ramps on the highways to climb as well as bridges.  Honestly, my favorite part was running through different parks and actually sped up. Everything was going great till I got to about mile 6.5…

Something hit me… not a bonk but just that odd feelings of “this is kind of hard… am I enjoying this? Do I have to run 18 miles in the hills of Las Vegas next month? Am I ready? What am I doing with my life?”

Finish Line

Like, for a while I just felt …unhappy? May that’s not the word I’m looking for but I can’t put my finger on it.  I continued to push through the race and my overall pace was not where I wanted, but I ran hard.  I ended up doing like 1:29:21 for 13.3 miles which came out to a 1:28:00 even for 13.1.

Classic picture

Nowhere near a Personal Best but it was ok, especially running at night.  I finished 32 of 8300+ and won my age group. But I didn’t feel right.  I felt bloated and fat, which I know I looked, but had no idea why.


I drove back to Tampa that night with the plan of a good dinner (since I wasn’t going to eat a true dinner before the race) and getting a long ride in the morning.

Wild salmon with mushroom, onions, and steamed broccoli

I ended up going to bed too late and knew I couldn’t ride far on that little sleep.  I slept in a little and did a medium length ride with a solid brick run!  I then headed back to Disney and spent an awesome day in Epcot with my family!  I stayed the night and we went to Animal Kingdom in the morning.  That’s kind of where the trouble started for me.

Uh oh, trouble...

I just didn’t feel good.  All I could think about was that I was tired, hadn’t worked out, and didn’t know when I would be able to.  At about noon, I decided I was going to go home so I could eat food that didn’t make me anxious, get a nap and get a workout.

I got home and ate, but then couldn’t drag myself up to get a good workout.  I barely did a bike workout and realized how freaking upset and mad I was at myself- I had a horrible training day and basically bailed on my family who I had no idea when I would see again.  Things sucked.

The following day, I smashed a workout which was good, but I still felt bad about leaving my family.  When you have problems like that- suck that shit up and find your priorities.  I decided to clear my schedule and take one more day off from work Wednesday.  I had a great workout in the morning then headed back (AGAIN) to Disney to spend one more full day me family.  Just me, my mom, my dad, all day in the Magic Kingdom.  It was seriously one of the best days I’ve had in so so long and it was so amazing to see them again.

Magic Kingdom!

Buzz Lightyear ride- my score on the left, beating my dad. He didn't say anything, but he was pissed ha!

This brought me out of that dark place I went into on Saturday night.  I know this sounds like it was just me feeling sorry for myself, but it’s not.  Take every moment you get to do some magical and savor it.  Tell your family you love them, prioritize your life, avoid things that aren’t moving you in a positive direction.  I am so glad I made that decision to go back and spend the day with them- the weather was gorgeous and I basically got to re-live some childhood memories on Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, and Space Mountain.

Put ya hands up

I’m in a much better place now, but there were parts of that week that were still tough.  Suck it up, learn from it, move forward, live life, enjoy life!

Make sure you know where your priorities are and tell those who you love just how much you love them.  Tell your friends how much you appreciate them.  A lot of you guys I have never met, but the impact you play in my life is without match.  Thank you all.

Right now I am in Chicago and in the morning will be running the Urbanathlon!  I’ll be sure to post on this next week so stay tuned.
Thank you all

  1. How do you overcome a tough struggle?
  2. Are you excited for fall?? (Ever made fries from pumpkin?)
05
Oct
11

“Racing Weight”- My take

By Feerlessfood 7 Comments
Categories: fitness, Nutrition and Workouts
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Being that this will be read by many athletes and especially endurance athletes, I know a lot of you may be familiar with Matt Fitzgerald and books such as Racing Weight as well as his other articles.  The focus of these books and articles are about being at the ideal weight for you to race at where you will your fastest.  However, having been there myself, a number of us, ignoring the principles the Matt clearly lays out in his book, take the wrong approach to getting down to what we define arbitrarily to ourselves to be our “Racing weight”.  We often assume that if we weigh as little as possible, we will automatically be faster, but this is not always the case.  Here are my considerations for your Racing Weight and ways that approaching this in the wrong fashion can actually hurt your performance.

First off, weight loss is often assumed to with a caloric decrease, a calories burned increase, of a combination of the two.  I don’t believe that to be the whole story, but that’s for another article.  This being said, we assume that if we eat less and exercise more, then we will lose weight.  This is likely, but if you are not doing it intelligently, your performance will decrease.  If you cut out too many calories, you are not going to have the energy or the stamina to complete the hard workouts you engage in with the hope of getting faster.  To become a better athlete,  you must train smart, and this means pushing yourself through a focused workout which takes fuel.  If you can’t make it through a workout due to a lack of nutrition, you aren’t going to become a faster athlete.

On the flip side, by skipping post-workout nutrition, your body is not going to recover from a tough workout and you’re going to experience the same lack of results described above, not to mention perpetuating the cycle of not having reserves for your next workout.

Your Race Weight is also not the lowest weight you can achieve.  It’s where you are the fastest.  If you are already lean and strong, losing any more weight could be a really harmful idea.  Let’s take the example of a triathlon: if you think losing 5 more pounds will help you be faster for your bike and run, maybe you’re right to an extent.  Let’s say that by losing 5 pounds you decrease your bike by 4 minutes and run by 1 minute.  So you’ve saved 5 minutes from the weight loss.

But let’s think about where that weight is coming from—likely muscles and your fuel stores which you REQUIRE to help get through a race.  Thus, in our example, this loss of muscle costs you 8 extra minutes on the bike due to being underfed and a loss of muscle, making it so you can’t reach the speed you are capable on the bike.  This fatigue carries over to the run and costs you and additional 4 minutes on your run time.  This adds up to a 12 minute disadvantage.

If we add the 12 minute gain to the 5 minute decrease, you’re still 7 minutes slower overall.

You may completely bonk all together.  You are expending way more energy on race day than in your training and, thus, your body may not be able to handle the increased workload if it is not fueled properly.

So instead of focusing on losing weight to get to my “race weight” what should I focus on, you say?

Wild salmon with mushroom, onions, and steamed broccoli

I say, take the time when you would focus on getting to racing weight, and instead focus on eating “race nutrition”.  If you had planned to try to lose a little weight in the last 2 weeks before the race, instead focus on eating a very clean, unprocessed, high-octane diet.  This can mean no processed food, cooking all your own meals, not skipping any meals, and eating appropriately around your workouts.  This becomes extremely important as recovery and “pre-covery” are key.  Making sure you have proper fuel to begin a workout will help you get through it, but also aid in buffering some of the muscle breakdown that the workout will cause.  Along with the solid snack, this is where taking something like an amino acid can help.

"Kona Punch"

After the workout is even more important, so that as your muscles breakdown during exercise, they are immediately built back up with solid nutrition.  Doing this will ensure your muscles and body have the fuel stores they need on race day.

HoneyMilk

With proper nutrition, you in fact lose a few pounds, who knows.  Your body will find the weight it wants to race at, and to try and manipulate that is not a good idea, especially for a more taxing event.

So the key takeaway I leave you with- focus on race nutrition, not race weight.  Proper fueling is the key to success not being as light as possible!

These are just my thoughts so take it for what you will, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.  If you have any questions or opinions, please let me know and I’d love to discuss with you!

Also, thank you to everyone who saw some of my Tweets earlier this week and sent me encouraging messages!  I was going through a rough time and I will be blogging about it later this week, but wanted to say thank you.  I would write that post now, but I really wanted to get this out there first.  Hope everyone is having an amazing week!

  1. Thoughts on “racing weight”?
28
Sep
11

Welcome to Augusta

By Feerlessfood 7 Comments
Categories: fitness, Motivation, Races and Workouts
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Swim 1.2 miles, bike 56 miles, run 13.1 miles…. Spend countless hours getting people to understand this was only a HALF Ironman…

Done

Without a doubt, IRONMAN put on amazing events.  A half Ironman (70.3) triathlon is going to be the same distance wherever you go, but each is put on by a different company.  IRONMAN is basically the gold standard (the overall company that holds the infamous Ironman Championships in Kona) of triathlon.  This was my 2nd Ironman event (I raced in Austin 70.3 last year) and the set up was once again top-notch.  This was my first Ironman racing in for Team Apex which was cool.

This was the biggest half Iron man ever put on according to the race directors and there were about 3,180 finishers!  That’s a ton of people to organize… not to mention the friends and family that came with them!

The race went well for me.  The conditions were overcast and humid to start, and then the sun came out in full force right at the time I started the run.

Sunday morning transition

I set a PR on the swim, but honestly I just have to chalk it up and maybe compare it next year—the swim was in a river with the current and was literally just straight.  My stroke felt good, although I did not feel as fast as I would have liked, but it felt better than it ever has in the past.  Really tried to focus on having my arms reach straight out instead of crossing over and also focused on shoulder and hip rotation.  Making progress!  My swim time was around 31:00.

The river

Before I knew it, the swim was over and I was running up a steep dock to the transition area.  There were wetsuit strippers at the top waiting for us (no, unfortunately  this was not strippers in wetsuit like I thought when I first heard of this a year ago in Austin) and they helped me rip my wetsuit off.  I also used to tips I saw at Wildflower and stripped my goggles and cap and shoved them in my sleeve.

Transition went smooth, hopped on the bike and was off.  The ride was relatively rolling with no major hills, but a constant smattering of them.  Talking with my coaches, I’m considering pounding harder on the bike and trying to gain ground there and seeing what it does to my run.  The bike was perfectly measures and I finished in 2:50:00, averaging 19.7mph, which is alright.

The run was rough!  I set out at 6:30-ish min/mile pace but for some reason it was just hard.  It began to get hot and there were a lot of people on the course.  I spent most of my time passing people, but it was one of those races I spent yelling at myself to run faster and couldn’t wait to be done.  The fans were great though, and I was never so zoned out that I couldn’t wink at a few cute Georgia girls along the course.

I slowly watched my pace slow even though I felt like I was pushing harder than ever.  I ended up running a 1:30:08 (not sub 1:30, damnit!) which comes out to a 6:53 min/mile pace.  Not good enough for me, I’ll be honest.  It’s funny when you tell your mom that and she says, “Oh, that is slow for you.”  Lol thanks mom ; )

Finish strong

Crossing the line

Overall I was happy.  I went sub 5 hours and did a 4:59:27. I finished 150th of 3,179 overall, and 29/189 in my age group.  Even with the 1:30:08 run, I still had the 30th fastest run split which was better than many of the pros so that was cool to know I was still fast RELATIVE to the other times.

You know I had to strike "The Pose"

Tons of improvement room, but and awesome race!

Post race, there was a massage school and I got an awesome rub down.  This was good since I now I had an 8 hour drive ahead of me back to Tampa.  I hopped in the car, slammed a HoneyMilk, picked my bike up and hit the long drive home bundled up in all my Zensah recovery gear lol.

The rest of this year is filled with pretty high-profile races.  After the Nations Tri 2 weeks ago, the Ironman 70.3 this week, I am racing the Disney World Half marathon on Saturday NIGHT (10PM?!), then HalfRev3 in South Carolina the next week (another huge race production company), and to end the 5 weeks, the Men’s Health Urbanathlon Chicago!

Anyone going to be at or NEAR any of these races?  Especially Disney World this week—anyone know of any Sunday cycling groups?

Again, this all culminates with ITU Worlds on November 5th.  I found a pretty baller triathlete here in Tampa and am making him get me ready for the hills on the bike between now and then ha.

Thanks for reading guys!  I’ll have some more actually interesting posts later this week!

  1. Have you been to Disney World?  If so, favorite resort, ride, and restaurant?
  2. What  have you found to be positive about this week?
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