Posts Tagged ‘felipe bastos

22
May
12

North Florida Olympic Triathlon

By Feerlessfood 6 Comments
Categories: Personal Bests and Races
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

First true Olympic race in a while!  My last was the Nations Tri in DC, but the swim was cancelled, so that race became a Bike, Run—a theme for me and qualifying races, ha.

This past weekend, the XP Multisport Team and I went up to Madison, Florida (basically freaking Georgia) to do this race on Saturday.  It was about 3-4 hour drive, but the venue was nice and the town was countryyy—but those make for the best places to race—no cars!

Transition

The race began at 7:30 and the water was wetsuit legal—barely—by .01 degrees.  I opted to wear the wetsuit, and at 7:33, the age group men dove into the water.  This was my first opportunity to try and work on the swim work I’ve been in—anything better than previous races would be an improvement!  The swim was a simple enough “rectangle” and the water was perfect.  I also had a pair of new goggles that were amazing compared to my old ones!  They didn’t fog up at all and remained clear the entire race!  The swim went ok and I exited the water in a little over 32 minutes.  Not good, but improving.  I definitely pushed it more on this swim than I have in the past!

After a quick change it was on to the bike.  I was expecting a flatter course, but it was actually surprisingly hilly with some rollers, but nothing major by any means.  I really focused on pushing hard, knowing it was only a 40k and to work through the burn in my quads.  I realize this wasn’t my full potential though and will push even more next time.  It’s a race damnit!  Thinking back, though, I don’t recall being passed at any point..  Well one chick passed me after I passed her, but then I caught here and she never got close again.

My final time on the bike was a 1:09:00—which is possibly a PR for me, although I want to break 1:08 (and then 1:05, and then 1:00 haha).  That came out to an average of 21.5 miles per hour which I think is fairly solid.

The race director quoted the run, before the race, as being “fast and flat”.  He was a liar.  It was hilly.

I started the run in 11th and knew I had a little work to do as I didn’t catch the fastest riders on the bike, and certainly had ground to gain on the swim.  My coach had me racing this run portion very specifically—“run till it hurts. Then run harder.  And then run even harder.”  I also wasn’t allowed to look at my Garmin to know my pace at all.  I put it on the HR screen, which wasn’t working, and never thought about it again.  And then ran hard.

“Chuck, run hard.” “Yes sir.”

I caught all the people in front of me that I could see pretty quickly, and moved up to 6th by mile 4.  Unfortunately, the 6 ahead of me had a far enough lead that I couldn’t catch them, but only 2 of them ran faster than I did.  I definitely made this run hurt and finished the 10k in 39:09, resulting in a 6:18 min/mile pace.  I’m happy with this being that it was such a hilly course and I still broke 40 minutes easily.

My final finish time was 2:24:43.5.  6th OA, 1st Male 25-29

After the race we hung out for a while before getting our awards and heading back.  The XP Multisport racers took 2nd overall male, and 3rd overall woman which was awesome!  I was the only Wattie Ink Athlete at this race, as well, and took 6th overall in first in my age group.  Props to all the Watties from north Florida who were in Texas for the Ironman!  DRC Sports put on a fun event and after awards there was a push up contest… which I was obligated to participate in, of course.  I got second here, but my push ups were damnnnnn good, but I can’t say what the winner’s looked like.

“4001, 4002…”

After the long drive back, it was good to have that feeling of being spent!  I was surprised on Sunday not being more sore in my legs as I was anticipating, however, my arms and back were feeling that swim!  I think that says good things about my form!  I’ve also been using Xteme Endurance supplements and have noticed a reduction in soreness from that.  I think using a drink during the bike that had protein and carbs, made by UR, prevented some of that muscle breakdown as well.

Overall I’m proud of the effort I gave in this race and can’t wait to go again!  Next Saturday I am doing a sprint, another race put on by DRC, called Crystal River and am stoked to absolutely obliterate the pain haha!  Then the week after that is Duathlon Nationals in Maryland!  Then another big training block will commence!

Rock the W

Rock the W and have an awesome week.

  1. Any races coming up?
  2. What’s your favorite type of course? Urban, trails, hilly, flat, beach?
10
May
12

Do you know how to hurt?

By Feerlessfood 16 Comments
Categories: fitness, Motivation, Personal Bests and Workouts
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I was mentally reviewing past seasons of triathlons and racing, and while I’ve gotten much better, I noticed that many of my times have been consistently good, but that’s it.  Just good.  I’m not happy with good.  Not only do I want to be great, I want to see improvement from “good”.  Good is fine if it’s continually improving.  For example, if your run a 1:30 half marathon and year over year decrease that to 1:29, 1:28, 1:27, etc, that’s awesome because you are getting faster!  But if you stay 1:30, 1:30, 1:30, year after year, you’re not making any progress in your training.

That’s when it hit me—I workout hard and I know what it’s like to hurt… but I know how to hurt jusssst enough. I’ve said it before—you’ve got be comfortable with being uncomfortable.  If I want to get better, I’ve got to realize that there are going to be some workouts where I collapse at the end of my run or hang onto the side of pool gasping and panting thinking it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever breathed in Oxygen.

And the same goes for racing—at the end of that half Ironman, I need to be able to kick into black-out mode for that last 5k of the run—and not have been holding back for that leading up to it.  I always try to currently, but when I try to go fast, it’s maybe 1 or 2 seconds faster per mile.  Insignificant.

So what’s the point here?  If you want to get faster, you’ve got to embrace the hurt (and also the recovery!)  I’ve been adhering to my coaches plan and we have been swimming as a group a couple times a week

Swim squad! Me on the far right

It’s amazing what having your coach watching you and having competition will do to your effort levels.  I’ve set PRs each practice… and also almost drown.  Using paddles while having my ankles bound together with an old bike tube?  Not fun.  I enjoy breathing, actually.  Or 50m kickboard races against someone who is faster than you and seeing black as you try to catch them.

I love it.

Rest and repeat.  If you want to get better, hurt a lot, occasionally, go easy a bit, recover correctly, and know exactly what you are looking to achieve!

I’ve got a race next weekend so I’m stoked to see how it’s going to go!

  1. Do you agree with me?
  2. What do you want to get better in?
26
Mar
12

HITS Ocala Half Ironman Race Report

By Feerlessfood 14 Comments
Categories: Nutrition, Podcast, Races and Workouts
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Not my greatest race, but certainly a solid result and a confidence booster heading into this season!  This Sunday I raced the HITS Half Ironman in Ocala, about 2 hours from my house in Tampa.  While the race wasn’t huge, it still had a solid turnout and was very well run.  They actually had every distance possible—sprint and Olympic Saturday and a half and full Ironman on Sunday.

Leading up to the race, I was a little bit anxious—I’ve been training well, but no huge bike-run bricks to this point.  This was a great way to open the season, see how my body reacted, test my fitness and skills, and race my first triathlon as a member of the Wattie Ink Elite Team and an XPMultisport coached Athlete.

Rock the Wattie Ink W

The week prior to the race, volume was still the same until 3-days before, where I began the “Felipe no-taper taper” which isn’t really that “taper-ific” ha.  Saturday I did the AM workout, then ate, and headed up to Ocala where I got my packet, checked out the scene then headed to the hotel when I kicked it and tried to relax.  The damn people in the room next door were so loud—I have no idea what they were doing, but it was alternating between loud TV and loud music… or yelling at the kids.  Luckily, they went to bed early I guess.  It also rained pretty hard Saturday night, thus I was very glad I opted not to rack my bike the day before.

Sunday morning came fast and early.  I packed up everything and headed out the site which was about 30 minutes away and ate in the car.  I’ve been trying new pre-race meals, since a bagel is now out as carb source being that it’s not paleo by any means.  What I’ve been doing and really liking is white rice mixed with full fat coconut milk and some protein powder.  I guess that’s basically rice pudding, but seems to sit well in my stomach thus far.  Once at the race, I racked my bike and met up with 3 other Wattie Ink Athletes who were racing as well.  These guys are beasts—I think they finished overall 1st, 4th, and 7th.  Not to mention Felipe, my coach, was racing too.  Honestly a pretty stacked field!

The swim venue

The water was wetsuit legal and gorgeous.  It was a straight out and back swim.  I’m pretty sure looking through the finishing times that it was longer than 1900m (1.2 miles).  It’s all relative though, and to not go into too much detail, let’s just say my swim sucked.  Lots of work to still do here.  When I finally exited the water, I grabbed all my stuff and headed out on the bike.

Out of T1... with a lot of ground to make up

The bike  was a big loop, mostly, so it was different the entire time.  If you remember, this is where I got lost about a month ago, so it was nice to see where I should have been riding lol.  I passed a fair number of people and finished the bike in 2:43:00, which came out to a little better than 20.5 miles per hour.  The course was mildly hilly and had some wind here and there so I was pretty happy with that split.  I also focused on eating more that I previously had in my races and focused more on the timing of the nutrition. Or one split I used some Chomps, which I like to break up the monotony of gels, but this cost me a little time trying to open those little packs and squeeze each one out.  The little Larabar that I had was crucial though—definitely a good call.  I also had UR in the water bottles which was a good calorie source and has some protein in it as well, which is really important as you get into longer distance races.

Felipe, not me, coming in on the bike

I rode back into transition, threw on my shoes and headed out of the run.  Felipe had given me very specific instructions- first 6 miles at 7:00 min/mile pace and then I was allowed to race.  I pretty much nailed this, but it felt so weird!  It was so hard to hold back in the beginning.  The first 3.1 miles were on trails, in the woods, basically running on sand which was not easy and not fast.  The rest of the run was on hot roads in the Florida sun and was basically rolling hills the entire time with heavy winds.

At mile 6 I was able to let go and began to average around 6:40s for the rest.  The fatigue of the sand and heat had me hurting but I kept repeating my mantras to myself and basically said “don’t be a bitch, run harder”.  I was able to pass a lot of people on the run…which is no surprise considering where I came out of the water haha.  I cranked out the last .8 miles at around 5:40 pace and flew across the finish line- pain looked as always.  Surprisingly, I finished a lot better than I was expecting relatively.  I didn’t realize how many people I had passed.  My final run time was a 1:28:00 flat—not bad for being forced to run 7:00’s for the first 6 miles.  Only about 1:20 slower than my half marathon 3 weeks ago.  Solid, solid.

Finish line hurt

I ended up finishing 16th overall and first in my age group.  But my stress wasn’t over.  Not only was I to eat more during this race, Felipe made it very clear that when I crossed the finish line, I would have a Coke.  No questions asked.  Intuitively, this makes sense.  Your body is so F-ing trashed after an intense race like this, that those incredibly concentrated sugar sources are actually a GOOD thing to have.  Tell that to someone who hasn’t had a real soda in like 3 years.  Luckily, he gave me a couple days heads up to prepare mentally, and ya know what?  We sat in chairs at the finish line, smashed, and enjoyed a cold, glass bottle, of Coke (well, it was like Feipe’s 8th.)  It was good—although I feel good in saying it didn’t make me at all want to sit and drink an entire 2-liter.  One was fine and then I moved on to real food.

Age division winner

Overall it was a good race.  I finished in 5:04:00 overall—I wanted to go sub 5 , but with that swim, that was going to be impossible.  Plus this race was a “feeler-outer” to see where I stood to start the season.  Congrats to the Wattie guys and Felipe who all freaking beasted this race.  I’m pretty happy with 16th and can’t wait for Ironman 70.3 Florida in a couple months!

But I need to get through the Boston Marathon next month first…

ALSO- The newest Episode of Fearless Nutrition Radio is out!  Listen to it here on Itunes.  This week we had a listener Q&A and an interview with pro triathlete James Cotter!  Please check it out and let us know what you think and leave your questions for the show! http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/fearless-nutrition-episode-3/id497895841?i=112194060

Thanks for reading guys!  Let me know if you have any questions about the race!

  1. What’s your next race?
  2. Ever enjoyed a coke after a race? Or what is your immediate psot-race go-to choice?
21
Mar
12

N = 1

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

An experiment of one.  What works for one person may not work for another.  People are different and thus respond differently to different stimuli.  Some may be incredibly healthy on a vegan diet and some may thrive on a paleo style diet.  It’s all about what makes you look, feel, and perform better.

So beginning last week, I have been seriously trying to be better about my eating plan the my nutritionist has helped me design.  Yes, Chuck, embracing eating a little more and seeing what my performance does.  Now, granted, I’ve only been doing this for about a week, and my sleep hasn’t been on point, but I have felt good, especially amid a big training week.  I have been focusing on workout recovery, even when it comes to the times when I know dinner will be coming soon after the workout, I am still eating.  And it’s good, because it always turns out the dinner never actually occurs soon after the workout, ha!  Why does it take me so long to prepare it every night?  Damn squash fries…

The  biggest changes are just working on being more consistent, even on lower volume days, knowing that I’ve created a deficit during the big days.  I’ve been reading a lot from some of the top pro athletes who have experimented with optimizing recovery and eating more, better, quality foods.  We’re not talking Snickers bars that I’m shoving down, but sweet potatoes, coconut milk and oil, grass-fed meat, chicken, etc…. even all natural, organic bacon! (Yes, me!)

As Robb Wolf says, “try it for 30 days” and if I don’t like it better, I can go back to the way I was before… but we all know that wasn’t getting me anywhere.  I’m RACING this weekend!!

Will be the Rockin The W in my new kit and helmet

And I’m determined to focus on eating appropriate calories during this race so that I perform optimally.  I usually just try and eat “just enough to get me through” so that I can “save up” calories for my post-race dinner.  This is moronic.  If I want to be great, I need to fuel that, plus that deficit is going to be so big all of it will be used (including that dinner) to fuel me and help me recover.

Speaking of previous race, I’m realizing that I’m good, but I’m not great.  I’m stuck maintain habits that have kept me “good” as well.  I have a world champion coach with 16 years of experience who is asking me to change a few things.  If I want to be great, wouldn’t listening make sense? Clearly, my way is adequate, but not ideal.  So embracing this, I am ready to move forward.

Look at the new toy Felipe got me... thanks. Yay.

We had a great training day at Fort DeSoto this weekend and it was a lot of fun to just hang out and enjoy the beach afterward.  Can’t complain about having this in my backyard:

North Beach at Fort DeSoto

And speaking of good food—here were some delicious, however, not very appetizing (and I’ll admit to that) meals from the past weeks!

Coconut milk cheddar cheese sauce

Meatloaf topped with the cheese sauce! Like I said, not really appetizing from my iPhone camera, but so delicious

So I can’t wait for the half ironman Sunday!  Wish me luck!

  1. Have you made any big changes in your life lately?
  2. What’s your n=1 for 30 days?
  3. Anyone racing this week??

Get it

 

06
Mar
12

So I looked at my buddy and said…

By Feerlessfood 6 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Race time!

“…I’ll bail if you bail?”  We both gave a fake laugh, and both knew it. There was a shared feeling of “F that, it’s time to throw down.”

We were waiting at the start line of Gasparilla Half Marathon in the dark with a light mist and wild winds.  It was 5:50AM and had been mid 80s the day before, but about 45 minutes before the race started, a mini monsoon rolled through Tampa and let down a 10 minute torrential downpour bringing 60 degree temperatures and gusty winds.

I needed this race.  I needed to know where I stood in terms of my training, my readiness for my half ironman in 3 weeks and for the Boston Marathon in about 6 weeks. I needed to mentally know that I could still overcome feelings of not wanting to run and vicious cycle of sleeping all weekend.

The gun sounded and we were off.  It was very windy. The first 3 miles were good, running with a neutral wind onto Davis Island, my usual short bike ride route, but the back side of the Island was right into the wind until about mile 5.  From there, it was a straight, probably 4.5 miles, directly down Bayshore.  Then turnaround and straight shot to the finish. There was a lot more into the wind on the backside though, which I was not expecting.

I pushed this race pretty hard and could always tell when I hit wind when I looked at my watch and realized I was about 10 seconds off my goal pace.  I had been running with a guy for about 6 miles, but as we hit the backside, he started to drop off and I to commit to maintaining pace on my own.  When it came down to the final mile, I was kicking as hard as I could. Always fun when you realize you have farther to go than you think… which is probably good because it forced me to hold that pace for longer.  I didn’t gel during this race- didn’t need to- but nor did I have any water or Gatorade at any aid station… I was too focused on trying to break the goal time we had set for me.
This was my first race a Wattie Ink Athlete and was rocking my W tats- but they ended up being covered by the sleeves I ended up wearing lol. I got pictures afterward though.

Rock the Wattie Ink W

I would say the “Coach Felipe no-taper taper” worked pretty well.  I was pretty stiff on Saturday but I loosened up by Sunday morning.  Felipe has had me swimming a lot as I mentioned before and I’ve had to put my faith in him, and rightfully so, that his plan would still have me fit to run. It did.

The winners time was about 1:12:00 I think, so I ended up 48th overall of 4,747 and 9th of 282 in my age group. I did a 1:26:57 and was 13.19 miles by my Garmin.

Medal, Award, and Rock the W tat!

This was not a PR, about 20 seconds slower, but I was very happy with the result and more faith than ever in my coach and myself.  Overall it was a great race and it was fun to see a lot of people I know or seen on blogs, out there running.

So thanks for reading and thanks for inspiring me!

Remember to send any podcast questions soon as we are recording this week!

  1. Do you have a race coming up?
  2. What’s your go to pre-race meal?
  3. Favorite post race meal?

Rock The W

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