Nutrition: The Game Plan!

Nutrition!  It's the fourth event of the Ironman.  My goal is to be able to eat this for my post race meal. I tried to get it to rotate, but realize I could be lying down while I eat so it seems fitting to have it on its side!

I've been having alot of GI issues lately dealing with my Olympic Race, longer training runs and bike rides. Getting nauseated and not feeling so hot in the recovery stage where I can't get in the nutrition I need for recovery. And recovery is very important for achieving my goals. 

So The Game Plan:  I plan to do an overhaul on my nutrition in the next month . I have lots of reading material (as noted below) to assist me with my goals.  And if all goes well.....

This will not be my post race food for the week following my Ironman! 

Hoo Ha Ride Glide

The title speaks for itself. I tried out my sample of Hoo Ha Ride Glide today for my long 3 plus hour ride. Let's just say my girlie parts were very thankful. They were still a bit tender, as any rider, male or female will tell you. But it was no where near the discomfort without it! I'm even proud to say, the menthol cooling effect was quite nice too! LOL

Deuces Wild Olympic Triathlon

My first "training" race of the season in prep for AZ Ironman in November.  I did Deuces Wild Olympic Triathlon in Show Low, AZ. It was one for the books, and I've learned a lot from this race for Ironman. Here is a recap of the day.

Swim- 1500 meters. It was in Fools Hollow Lake, which is beautiful. It was a water start at the boat ramp. The water was a cool 62 degrees. I was only really cold before we started moving, after that it was ok. It was a triangle swim and the out part was against waves, that I was able to handle. But my slight panic attack of not being able to get my head down in the water, led me to once again to do backstroke most of the race. In addition to this, I got my first experience with vertigo while swimming, that was an interesting experience as I would rotate to flip on my back to swim, then back on my front to see the buoy.And along with that, I was nauseated because, I am pretty sure I swallowed at least half the lake, as near the last 1/3 of the race, the wind picked up and white caps appeared on the water, right before the wave crashed into my face and caused some bouts of choking.  I swam into one guy, who was obviously having a tough time, since all the women were passing him, ironically he yells out at me (out of panic I'm sure), "you know there is a whole lake to swim in here!"   I think I manged to get in at least 100 meters swimming freestyle. Lessons from the Swim:  1. Need to do more open water swims, LOTS OF OPEN WATER SWIMS. 2.  Share the lake...don't hog the space where one guy is doggy paddling   3.  Own your swim, and put your damm head in the water a swim...Jaws isn't going to get you! ( although that thought did not cross my mind, as I was in the "Holy crap these waves are going to drown my ass"  mode). I exited the lake...happy to be out, and enjoyed having the wetsuit strippers yank off my suit, sit me down, pull it off my feet, and help me up!  then it was off to the bike.


BIKE- 24.8 miles. So...I drove the course the day before, losing count of all the hills after the 15th one.

  As you can see by the photos, there were alot.  I had a good smooth transition. I ran my bike to the mount line, and had a bit of trouble getting into my bike, I clipped in my right okay, but the left was not so nice, thankfully the mesh chutes  and fence pole held me up as I ran into it, and then held on while I clipped in! Hey, I was going up hill and I still had not gotton all the blood back in my legs, not to mention all the lake water I was burping up!   So I took the first few miles pretty easy and finally got into a good pace. Then wind was pretty wild and just a nasty, as I turned out on 260, and ambulance when flying by. Only to see it about 2 miles later, picking up a rider who had crashed.  I then slowed down just a bit for the safety factor, as images of my previous crash on the mtn bike floated in my head. The ride overall was nice, very scenic, except for the wind. I'm guessing it was upwards of 20 mph? I will say that I am grateful for my training rides with Stacy every Sunday, as those were even more windy, and it helped make the ride not so hard. The hills were more the issue for me. I did mention that there were over 15? Well, luckily I was good with my gears, and most weren't to bad. I was about 45 min in when I turned onto 77 and had to make a pit stop and pee out the lake that I swallowed. Here I got help from a nice police officer, who came over to help me stand my bike back up. It took me a good 20 times before I was able to get my stinkin shoe clipped into the pedal. All I could do was laugh.  On the way up 77, we had several major hills to climb. On one, I almost became a witness to a major accident. A racer (We will call him idiot 1) was passing another biker and went out over the white line. There were a good 10 riders at that area.  Now this is a two lane highway mind you and they go 65 mph. And at the same time, in the far left lane was a semi and a car who were keeping over cause of the riders, then a truck (I'm gonna call him idiot 2) decided to pass the semi on the right. In the lane where the idiot 1 was passing. As the trunk was up next to the semi, he finally realized that idiot 1 was over the white line. He slammed on his brakes, fishtailed, and smoke was flying. he barely missed the guy by a foot. I can only imagine if he would of swearved right into the line of riders, or left into the semi, It wouldn't have been pretty.  So, I'm going 50/50 on who's fault it is, cause you don't pass on the right, especially with that many riders on the road, and you don't cross over the white line with that much traffic. I'm just glad the driver did some quick thinkin and managed to stop in time.    The wind made it pretty challanging to ride in aerobars too, spent alot of time in the drops.  Overall, I felt good on the bike. My body felt like I could go more, so I felt like I had some "left in the tank" for the run.  Except my heartrate was high in the 150s-160s  So...lessons learned on the bike:  1.  Keep training in PV wind. Embrace it!  now matter how much it sucks...it helped.  2. Clipless pedals...got to get some that aren't so hard to manipulate for easier access. 3.  Ride in the BIKE LANE...oh wait, I do that already, nevermind.  4.  Heart rate training...do more. 5. Cadence..it was avg. 89 rpm.

Run: 6.2 miles of trail and pavement running around beautiful Fools Hollow Lake and Park. I had a nice quick transtition of 1:08 seconds. I started my run around the lake, and knew I was going out to fast as my pace was in the 9:30s which I knew I couldn't hold for the entire time, I slowed down to a manageable 10:30 for the first three miles. Then several things happen. My guts started to revolt,  my back was talking to me, the heat took it's toll, and I got a "stitch". LOL, now I knew it was a stitch this time, cause there is no more gallbladder, so I was able to run through that. The heat? I dumped water on me every aid station, front, back, arms (of course, I'm paying for it with my burn today). By mile 4, the back said no more, I walked up the hills, and was able to stretch out some and get back to running the downhills and straightaways. I managed to get back into a slower pace by mile 5 and 6 and only walked one more hill. Then I came around the corner and down through the finishline shoot.  What a great feeling!! It was a hard race!!!  My time wasn't what I expected, but then neither were most peoples, as through many conversations with other triathletes, I heared that this race was pretty nasty and worse then most years. People on the 1/2 were crashing all over the place with the wind.  Some even DNFed. Who had raced here before and it just wasn't their day. Lessons from the Run:  1. Sunscreen...put more on, you can never have enough.  2.  Nutrition..keep working on it cause it wasn't your friend today! 3. Keep smiling!!

So my gut? Yeah nutrition was the name of the game for this race, I still need to work on it. I was feeling so crappy with my gut that I wasn't able to get anything into my stomach until 8 pm that night. and even now, the next day, a bowl of ckn soup is giving me trouble. I need to re assess: I took a Gu at the start of the swim, then another at the start of the ride, with two chews, two more chews near the middle of the ride, small sips of gatorade. On the run I took one more gu with some water, then when my gut shut down after this, I swished with gatorade and water.   I couldn't eat my lunch when I was done, managed to get down some more water and a fruit ice pop they handed out. But i still had trouble figuring out what my body needed.     I finally rode back to my Escape, slowly in the wind.  Got to the campsite, took a hot shower, and headed over to the raffle.  I ended up winning a grab bag full of 70$ worth of tri books. And ironically, it's what I need to work on, my swim workouts, and recovery! 

So Overall results:

Swim    48:19 min
T1         5:01  min
Bike   1:47:54 hr/min
T2         1:08 min
Run    1:16:09 hr/min

Total  3:57:24


Can't complain, I've got just want I wanted, some good training info for my next race.  Aug. 14th. Mountain Man Half Ironman. 70.3 miles.  Here we go!