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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?
23
Sep
11

3 days!

By Feerlessfood 6 Comments
Categories: fitness, Motivation, Nutrition, Races and sweet potato
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Ironman Augusta is now only 3 days away!  I’m feeling an absolutely crazy mix healthy anxiety and excitement for this race. I know I’m ready and hella excited to try out the work I’ve doing with my swim stroke in a real race, but I’m also just nervous due to the fact that this is my first half Ironman since June and 3rd for the year.  It’s also going to be a great way to get in some intense training and racing to get me closer to Las Vegas ITU Worlds in November.

"Kona Punch"... someday baby, someday!

Whatever, my head is going nuts right now and had to get something out there!  I’ll update you guys after the race!

Good luck to the other members of the Apex Endurance team racing this weekend!

And this is what it looks like when a Paleo triathlete packs for multiple days of travel…

That's a lot of sweet potatoes... Regular eating, and then 1 at each meal on Saturday and 1 Sunday morning pre race

Yikes.  I won’t want any sweet potatoes for a few days after this race, I can assure you that!

  1. What’s your pre-race dinner?  If you’ve ever done a race long enough to Carb-load for, how did you do it?
I’ll discuss my art of a modified carb-load next week!
Happy weekend!
19
Sep
11

The Nations Triathlon: Dry-land in DC

By Feerlessfood 11 Comments
Categories: Chicken, Eggs, fitness, Nutrition, Races, Recipe, Side dishes and sweet potato
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My first mug shot

No really—I wanted to swim!  As shocking as that sounds coming from me, I was incredibly bummed when I found out the swim portion of the Nations Tri this past Sunday would be cancelled.  Due to the hurricane, the second hurricane that kept the aforementioned hurricane stuck on land pounding DC, and the earthquake, the Potomac River was a mess of debris and runoff.  I have been working weekly with my swim coach though, and wanted to see what kind of changes this may have on my stroke.

I was so bummed, I almost backed out of this race and thought about heading down to Williamsburg to race the Patriots Half Ironman.  However, I would have had to figure out how to get my bike there, how to get it back, all the other travel arrangements, but the biggest reason I didn’t was that the Half Ironman was on Saturday not Sunday and I just didn’t have time to work everything out.

Race Morning

Transition overlooking the Mall... Pretty moving

But I’m really glad I stuck with the Nations Tri, and Olympic distance race—it was a blast.  Over 3,900 people were in the race and the entire event was huge.  The format was done in the same way as the swim waves would start—every 15 seconds letting about 15 people run into transition based on your age group.  It was a mess of corrals, but when my group went off, we sprinted into transition, grabbed our bikes and gear, and headed out.  My new tri shoes and pedals from Exustar are awesome and made a huge difference in my transition time!

The bike was pretty fast with some rolling hills and was very crowded due to the starting format.  It made the course much like an Ironman race where there are just so many people.  I wouldn’t say that there was any drafting, but definitely a lot passing and riding near people.  I felt like the entire “out” portion of the course was downhill and was nervous that the entire return would be uphill… but I guess I was mistaken since coming back was just as fast if not better!  My overall bike split for the 40k was 1:06:17, which was over 22 mph.  I was really pleased with this—love that Felt!

**Scary side note—proceed reading with discretion: On the way back on the bike, there was an ambulance on the side of the road.  I look over and saw the EMTs performing CPR on a guy laying on the ground.  I’ve never felt so sick as I did then and it was all I could think about for the rest of the bike.  Most of the time spent riding after that was praying for this guy hoping he would be ok.  Unfortunately, I found out the next day that man actually died.  So please say a prayer for him.

Run Finish

I can’t tell you how motivating it was to see my mom and dad cheering for me as I left T2 and headed out on the run.  They don’t get to make it to a lot of races, so to get up at 4:45 to drive me to the course means so much to me.  Ha, apparently my dad wasn’t too pleased that I “couldn’t even smile at them” when I ran by, but sorry pops, I don’t smile at all on the course.  It’s business.  But my dad is such an awesome guy- He wanted “sun protection” and snagged this hat from another family.  Yes… we recycled a hat from the Dollar Store…

Too bad I wear this

The run was a fun one and was relatively flat except for a long hill at the beginning..  Or I think that was the only hill… I dunno, I just kind of get in my zone as run.  I’m always cognizant of everything and am very focused on how hard I’m pushing and I always remember how much it hurt.  However, if you asked me to recall the whole course, I wouldn’t be able to do it… although I could probably remember all the funny things I thought while running.  I spent most of time passing people and had no real issues at all.  I felt good and just get repeating my mantra to myself that I always using during races: “Speed, Strength, Fluidity”.  This helps me keep focused on the most important aspects of the run.  Coming down the home stretch, I saw my mom screaming and just turned on the afterburners and passed a few more people as I broke the finish line.

My run time was a 38:46, although I “think” the course may have been a bit short—however, as a sanctioned race, it should officially be the required 10k, so I’ll have to believe the Race Directors.  This was a pace of 6:15 minutes/mile.  But if it were a bit short, it may have been close to 6:20.  I was happy with this regardless!!

Overall, I finished 34th of 362 in my age group (top 9.4%), and 265th of 3884 overall (top 6.8%) and my final time was 1:49:38, sans the swim.  Overall this was a great race and could definitely see myself doing it again next year.  It was so incredible.

Done!

Then I went home, ate, changed, and was back on a plane for Tampa by 5:00.  Nothing like meetings  at work to cut a trip short.

Dueces DC

From here on out I’m basically racing every weekend: THIS WEEK!! 9/25 Ironman 70.3 Augusta (half Ironman), 10/1 Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon, 10/09 Rev3 South Carolina (Half Ironman), 10/15 Men’s Health Chicago Urbanathlon!  It’s gonna be a blast!

Then ITU Worlds on 11/05 to end the triathlon year.  However, I would like to do a marathon if there is a convenient one by the end of the year.  I also want to do the Tough Mudder in Tampa!  A hella-crazy 12-mile adventure race on 12/03.

If anyone is doing any of these races, let me know and lets meet up! Or if you live between Tampa and South Carolina/Georgia and can house me for a night, lol, let me know!

Yo check out my new kicks

LunarGlide+ 3

And to do fuel this, I’ve tried out a few new spur of the moment recipes this past week!  Also, I tried to focus my nutrition very well in the days leading up to this race: check out my pre-race day lunch:

Grass-Fed buffalo steak- had this with a sweet potato chips in coconut oil

Here is what I should have had for my pre-race breakfast…

Yup, ostrich eggs. Nice work Whole Foods

Earlier his week I made Blackberry jam and goat cheese stuffed chicken breast.  I coated a breast in some coconut flour, then filled it and just baked it.  Very good!  But don’t overcook the chicken:

Pre-baked

Final Result

 

And gotta love coconut parmesan sweet potato fries

Later this week there are definitely a few topics I want to talk about mostly.  Mostly about living what I say, “racing weight”, and self-sabotage which I am becoming very guilty of.  I think I could have even better results if I treated my body and mind better.  Goals?  I think so.

I know this comes over a week after it all happened and a lot has gone in between, but I figured I would pare it down and keep it basic so this doesn’t turn into a novel.  More to come soon!

  1. What was the best part of your weekend?
  2. What do you have planned between now and the end of the year that you are excited about? (Anything!)
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