Archive for the 'Races' Category

15
Feb
12

Rants and Raves

By Feerlessfood 14 Comments
Categories: Chicken, Dinners, Eating disorders/ recovery, Motivation, Nutrition, Podcast, Races, Restaurants and Vegetables/ Vegetarian
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I know I haven’t done a written post in a while, but that’s because I’ve been putting together some podcasts that I hope you all can listen to!

First I want to talk about a few things that have been awesome lately… and then a couple rants I have- one being really important.

So- things I’m loving:

  • As I’ve said before, that my computer can read articles to me–but this time, the WAY it reads some words. My favorite is “Paleo”, which it reads “Pahh-lee-oh”.  Also, if anyones types “xoxo” it reads it as “Sockza”  Haha, explain that to me.  And just to let you know, I imagine you all in real life sounding like a computer robot since I have the computer speak your blog posts lol.
  • Brussell Sprouts.  Really! I love vegetables and they are a new way to incorporate more variety.
  • Full fat coconut milk: Check it out- here I mixed it with spaghetti squash and cinnamon… so bomb:

Coconut milk, spaghetti squash, and cinnamon

  • The fact that I still got some high-intensity workouts while I was traveling to Nashville last week. Also met up with my man JC there, who owns www.JCDfitness.com.

Inside of the Gaylord Hotel in Nashville

  • My swims the week before last–I swam over 15,000yds! Hoping to repeat that this week
  • I signed up for 2 races next month- The Gasparilla half marathon on March 4th and the Ocala HITS Half Ironman triathlon on March 25th!  I really need these to test my readiness for Boston so I’m really looking forward to it!  Not thrilled that I have to race against my coach though… but at least he’s not in my age group!
  • FEARLESS NUTRITION RADIO! The podcast I have started with a friend of mine.  We did our bios in the first episode and had an interview with expert Sean Croxton last week.  Pretty cool that we’ve been able to line up some VERY acclaimed and esteemed guests to interview!
  • I ate bacon.. no really!  For the first in my life and all on my own!  Here I made bacon wrapped chicken:

Bacon?!

  • I went to Disney last weekend and rode the Rock n’ Roll coaster for the first time… fun picture:

Ahhhh!

  • New threads: Fly?
  • I downloaded Instagram

First picture My baby

  • Joined Pintrest.. not a bad way to collect recipes and workouts I want to try

Now a couple rants!

  • First, I don’t know if any of you have listened to the podcasts!  We haven’t had many questions come on or any comments.  These take a lot to work and I really want to bring you guys a lot of benefit!  Please let me know if you have any questions that we can answer and guests you’d like to see.  I’ve got nutritionists, pro athletes, and health gurus lined up and I really want to keep this up!
  • Next- I was watching the show “Fat Chef” on Food Network.  I love Food Network and I appreciate what they are doing but it just highlights again to me how many (I didn’t say all!) “Registered Dietitians” really have no idea what they are doing.  The nutritionist wanted to put a 340 pound woman on an 1,800 calorie diet. Clearly she had no idea about the actual laws of thermogenisis where that woman’s metabolism is actually going to be HIGHER than an average-weight person. Not to mention she’s probably burns twice as many calories as the average person as rest due to the fact of supporting and moving all that weight around and the calories needed to maintain it. The right way to do this is to lower calories below maintenance, but this is still going to be a significant amount of calories which will slowly be tapered down as the woman’s weight decreases proportionately.  Sorry, but that just drives me crazy, same with the Biggest Loser, that these “Celebrity dietitians” don’t know things such as this.  Sorry.

Ok, if you read one, read this one.  My dad sent me an email last week asking if the changes I had made in my life lately were truly benefitting me.  And he was asking completely earnestly.  I took this back to my nutritionist as she has been helping me with a lot of things- prioritizing nutrition, sleep, and all that etc. Basically, she called me out real hard.  I had to be honest with myself and my dad and to her!  Have I done any of the plan that I’ve time, money, and focus on doing?  NO!  Not really.  Yeah, I’ve changed my diet for the better, but what good is that if I am not sleeping enough and not making the lifestyle changes that will allow this better, healthier paleo diet to actually work!

How can I expect to increase my testosterone, beat the iron deficiency that has caused me to become anemic, and to release my fears and comforts with foods if I don’t take the first steps to get me there? So basically, I need to harden the fuck up and step it up.  If I can focus so hard on the other things in my life like working out and eating, why can’t I put the remaining piece of the puzzle into place? I am committing to do (I’m sure you’re laughing and saying “gee Chuck, you’ve only said that a MILLION times!”) but now, the harsh reality that my nutritionist has brought to light has got me focused.

Thank you all for reading.  Now go listen to my podcast!

Questions:

  1. What questions do you have for the podcast?  What guests would you like Max and I to have on the show?  We really can get some “famous” people on there!
  2. Do you have any tasty recipes or ideas using coconut milk?
  3. What are you ranting and raving about this week
16
Jan
12

Let’s rock it!

By Feerlessfood 12 Comments
Categories: Workouts, Races, fitness and Motivation
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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
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?)
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!
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