Nutrition-Bonk-Rebound

I want to talk briefly about nutrition. Recently my coach has emphasized the importance of my nutrition and hydration during training and racing. She said my biggest challenge will be working out a nutrition plan that works for me and sticking to it. I am a good listener and generally do what she tells me to do. She said I should shoot for at least 250 calories an hour on the bike. Last weekend, we did a 2+ hour ride and I managed almost 1000 calories and felt pretty good. I have a few things still to experiment with but I am getting it dialed in. So far, I am working with Vanilla Hammer Gels, Clif Shot Bloks, Honey Stinger Waffles, Hammer Endurolytes, and HEED. I may add some different things as my training progresses. Of course, I am still keen on the preride smoothy of bananas, frozen berries, almond milk, Udos Oil, Jarrow plant based protein powder and the magic of chia seeds.

As I am learning what works for me, I also know what does not work. After our Saturday ride, I did about 40 minutes in the pool. I was pretty pooped. I think more bananas would have helped. The next day, Melissa and I rode the "I Love the Tavern" triathlon bike course. It was an organized group ride to allow racers the chance to get to know the course. I awoke on Sunday under-bananaed. I had one banana and a HS Waffle and some Shot Bloks. It was not enough. I was hungry for all 18 miles of the ride. After the ride, we dilly dallied a bit and then went to lunch. Lunch was good but as I would later find out, did not fuel me well for my afternoon 1.5 hour run I had planned. At 3:30 I set out to run the downtown trails. My poor nutrition plus the intense heat and humidity lead me to bonk. I ran for about 30 minutes and then walked the rest back to my car.

The bonk really wiped me out. The bonk headache I got lasted through Monday. After work Monday, I skipped my biking interval workout and tried to rest up. When things like this happen, I always worry that I am getting behind on my training. This creates a little anxiety as I worry a bit that I might not be up to the task.

Tuesday after work, we had a team practice as usual. At lunch before practice, I decided to go ahead and eat a lunch of Drunken Noodles with shrimp so that I would have plenty of fuel in my body. It is risky eating a heavy, spicy meal before a hard workout but I have done it in the past and avoided puking although sometimes my stomach was not happy with me. But it never kept me from having a successful workout.

On this particular Tuesday, we were running hills. We had done hill workouts before but this time the hills were longer and it was hot and there was 90 percent humidity. Without going into all the details, I felt like I had a great workout. We ended up with 6 miles total with about 4 miles of hills bookmarked between the warm-up and cool down. I was drenched afterwards but felt great. Sure I almost puked but overall I felt like I had an extremely successful workout. As a bonus, my anxiety about being under trained went away and I feel like I am on track. Bouncing back from a bonk always feels good.

Now I have done it!

A lot has happened since my last blog post. Melissa and I had a wonderful trip to the beach where we relaxed, trained, ate lots of fresh fish, and really enjoyed being on vacation. We did race a 5K while were down there. I just could not resist and Melissa is such a good sport, she joined in. It was hot but fun.

After our beach trip to the Outer Banks, we went to Philadelphia for the Pro Cycling Tour. We worked registration on Saturday and then rode in the technical directors car during the multi-lap pro cycling race on Sunday. It was a great experience to be behind the scenes and see all the players from Motos and UCI officials to feed station workers to the racers themselves. We saw it all.

Finally, perhaps the most significant thing that I have done since last writing involves a race I signed up for. I signed up for an Ironman. Yes, I will be racing the "Beach to Battleship" in Willmington, North Carolina on October 21st. From what I read, the 2.4 mile swim for this race will be the "easiest" one might find in the Ironman distance. The race is not a Ford Ironman branded race but it is a big race with lots of support that comes close to a Ford Ironman. I heard the 112 mile bike course is relatively flat although wind can play a big factor. The 26.2 mile run course is also mostly flat.

So now the real training begins. Fortunately, many of the folks I am training with are doing Ironman Florida which is roughly the same time of year so I have people with which to train.  I have a good base and as long as I stay healthy, I should be successful at the race. Since the race was so expensive, I will not be doing any more races leading up to this one. Although I would not rule out the 2 mile sand dune race in the Outer Banks on the 4th of July.

Needless to say, I am going to be busy. I hope to keep blogging about my training although fitting in all the training, plus work, all the various chores, not to mention the extra rest I will need may find me with less time to write. But I will try to make shorter updates so I can chronicle my training.

So stay tuned for my saga. Thanks for reading.