So training - Wow! The weather has been incredible, incredibly challenging that is! It has certainly been testing my mental strength. Getting out for the long cycles, runs and brick sessions has been tough and to be honest I have not achieved as many brick sessions as I would have liked and getting out on the Tri bike was delayed by a week due to the snow. That weeks long ride was refined to the turbo in the garage where a training partner Ollie and I rode the Lanzarote bike course! How we did this was by using the course profile to estimate the hill difficulty, length and consequently time it would take to climb and descend each hill. We rode low cadence heavy gears up the hills and spun out in the aero position on the downhills. We did half the course on the Saturday and half on the Sunday. I can't speak for Ollie but I found the session very effective and felt it built some strength. I certainly found my first outdoor cycle on the Tri bike which I did on the Easter weekend much easier than I have in previous years, I felt very comfortable and strong on the bike, perhaps this is due to the hours logged on the turbo, either way it was great to get some km's in on the Tri bike, I love my road bike but I enjoy my Tri bike more. In my next post I am going to go through my bike set up for Lanzarote which is pretty much dialled in unless I feel I need to make any tweaks after the long training weekend I have there shortly. Really looking forward to it, when in Lanzarote I plan to get some photos and videos to share.
My wife mentioned to me that my last post was long and on reflection I agreed. A humble thank you to those that take the time to read it. However on reading it back I realised there is SO much I did not share due to the vast amount of things there are to consider with nutrition. Truth be known I barely scratched the surface on many things. I suspect this post on fuelling will be similar. Perhaps in future posts I can elaborate more on different specifics. Okay so lets talk about fuelling for Ironman training and racing. What I share here will not be all of what I do and will certainly not cover every eventuality and as I mentioned in my last post it is specific to me and others may well do it different, I don't believe in one size fits all. That said I am happy to share the what, how and why's of many of my fuelling choices, if these insights help inspire you to make some choices and changes that lead to better results then great. I would also like to mention here that the main books I have drawn inspiration from for my nutrition strategies are:
- Paleo diet for Athletes by Joe Friel and Loren Cordain. I have also found the information
- I'm here to Win by Chis McCormack (2x Ironman World Champion)
- The 150 most effective ways to boost your energy by Jonny Bowden
Carbohydrate and protein
So Carbohydrate loading, do I do this? Well not in the sense that I gorge on pasta etc or feel the need to a week or so before a race. However I am conscious to ensure I do consume enough carbohydrate in the lead up to a race or big training session to ensure my body is 'well stocked'. A lot of the recent sports nutrition literature I have read suggests that it does not take nearly as much carbohydrate as people think to achieve this or as long. The body can only really store about 350g-500g (1500-2000kcal) carbohydrate in the liver and skeletal muscles and replenishment can often be achieved in 2-3 days, I have found this way works best for me. Loading a week from a race is something I have tried and on the two occasions I have tried it I have felt like I was putting weight on (and was) and started to feel lethargic/sluggish.
Here is how I typically load: Approximately 3 days prior to races I start to reduce my fibre intake and will tend to eat less vegetables and high fibre fruit. Rather I opt for lower fibre carbohydrate options such as strawberries, raspberries, melon, banana's, sweet potato, parsnips and carrots and perhaps a touch more gluten free granola, essentially I remove the high fibre greens. I increase my portion sizes by 10-20% also. I lower my fibre intake as this can cause stomach distress if too high. This is probably not as much of an issue for short races but for events such as Ironman too much fibre in the lead up can be problematic, certainly for me anyhow!
Before training or races I aim to consume my pre workout/race meal 2-3hrs before. If I eat 2hrs before I will have around 400kcal and if 3hrs around 600kcal, this allows for adequate digestion and goes a long way in topping up the carbohydrate stores. Around 15mins before a training session I may have a banana to top up the blood with glucose making it immediately accessible. Having the banana 15mins before does not give the body time to convert the blood glucose into glycogen. If the body has low blood glucose you can feel sluggish at the beginning of a workout. In triathlon there is a syndrome called heavy arms, often this is attributed to getting the meal timing wrong leaving the blood glucose levels low or food inadequately digested.
In races or long training sessions, 90mins +, I aim to consume approximately 0.8-1g carbohydrate/kg body weight/per hour. At race weight for me that works out to be 54g - 68g carbohydrate per hour.
Following races truth be know I don't eat well and have quite a few cheat meals! This is celebration time and the body is toasted anyhow and as such I have time off to start the recovery process. After long training sessions though my goals are as follows:
1. Restock carbohydrate
2. Provide amino acids for resynthesis of muscle
3. Rehydrate - including electrolytes
4. Lower the bodies acidity
I achieve goals 1&2 from a simple recovery shake that contains around 30g protein, the protein will have a good amount of branch chain amino acids in. The amount of carbohydrate is dependant on the length of the session but as an example I will have around 50g for a 3hr session and 100g for a 6hr session. I'll have this recovery shake within 20mins of completing the session. I then clean up and will have a meal an hour later.
The meal will be a normal Paleo meal, lean protein with lots of vegetables both dark greens and some higher glycemic load foods that provide more carbohydrate such as sweet potato, parsnips and carrots.Hydration is simply achieved through water intake, after long sessions I tend to consume 500ml an hour until I feel hydrated.
I also try to lower the bodies acidity levels from the intake of fruits that influence a net alkaline effect. I will have these for dessert after my meal. Excessive acidity can slow down tissue recover and can lead to wastage of muscle and bone as the body breaks it down to release calcium into the system in an attempt to lower the acidity if nothing else is doing that job!
Caffeine
I wanted to mention caffeine in this blog post as it is something I use as an ergogenic aid. I did not touch caffeine until I was 30, I did not drink tea or coffee, in fact I recall taking a sip of 'Dad's' coffee when around 8 and having a 'gag' reflex, I suppose that stuck with me because I never tried it again until I was 30! The reason I did try it was because of its supposed performance benefits. I was reading lots on it so thought I would try it. Here is what I found many say on caffeine intake and some of my experiences and findings in relation to Ironman.
- 3-6mg/kg body weight is what is required for a performance benefit. You can of course get a mental kick of less and personally I find if I have this amount I am so jittery it undermines the benefits. I seem to do best on around 2mg/kg body weight, perhaps this is due to my low tolerance to it!
- Plasma concentrations peak 1hr post ingestion.
- Too much can give bad guts - it does me!
- I will get a BIG crash on it!
- If I drink consistently it masks tiredness and fatigue and I lose a true sense of how tired I am. Therefore I only tend to have 4 coffees per week before big training sessions and I tend to take regular breaks from it to get back in touch with my fatigue levels.
- I drink prior to 12.00 in the day as caffeine can linger in the system for around 12hrs, this undoubtedly impacts my ability to get to sleep and the quality of my sleep, my wife will testify to this, she can spot a mile away if I have had a coffee close to 12.00 in the day because I turn into a chatterbox at bedtime! Because of this I will preferably have caffeine as early as possible in the day, the exception is race day where I careful consume caffeine throughout the race.
I don't take many supplements but here are the ones I do
- Fish oil capsules - I follow the guidelines Rob Wolfe suggest in the Paleo Solution and have .25g per 10lb body weight which means I have 4x 1g capsules par day, typically 2x with breakfast and 2x with my evening meal. Why do I take these? Simply because the Omega 3 is anti-inflammatory which helps healing. There are also many other benefits to Fish oil but perhaps this is a specific I may go into in a future post.
- Vitamin C - I take more than is recommended by most. I take 2x 1g tablets per day. 1x with breakfast and 1x with my evening meal. Why do I take these? I have been doing this years and believe it has significantly helped keep my immune system in good health. It is well reported that following tough training sessions the immune system gets compromised, a common occurrence in endurance athletes because of this is upper respiratory tract infections. It is believed Vitamin C can help combat this and it seems to in me! Additionally vitamin C can combat free radicals from oxidative stress that is obviously high in endurance athletes.
Lanzarote Nutrition Plan
What follows is my current nutrition plan, I will test some of this when there next week and tweak anything I feel necessary.
Breakfast - 04.30 (approx 2.5hrs prior to start to allow for digestion)
- 2x Starbuck mocha drinks each contains 70mg caffeine.
- 2x bananas with peanut butter (smooth & organic of course)
- 2x 1g Fish oil capsules and 1x 1g Vitamin C
- 1x Cliff protein bar
15mins before the start - 06.45
1x Cliff or GU energy gel - Espresso flavour with caffeine, washed down with a small amount of water. I do not like electrolyte or energy drinks at this point as I have found they make my mouth stick/syruppy (not sure that is a word).
Swim
Take nothing until on the bike except perhaps a small gulp water at T1 aid station if I get an open take.
Bike nutrition.
Main Goal - consume 1g carbohydrate per kg body weight each hour. (68kg x 5.5hrs = 374g). 200g of this will be from cytomax. 225g possible from gels. (1x 600ml extra bottle in special needs bag incase I am getting through it quick, this will provide a back up 100g carb, also this is insurance incase I drop a bottle)- Only small sips of water for first 15-20mins as body adjusts to cycling, then I start the feeding routine.
- 2x 600ml bottles of cytomax. 100g powder in each giving approx 200g carbohydrate
- 200-300ml each hour
- Water - will drink at least 500ml each hour.
- Salt capsules (contains a range of electrolytes). 1 every 45mins.
- 9x Energy gels (1 more than normal due to tough bike course, also allows for dropping one or not managing to squeeze down full amount) 25g carb in each. 225g Carb total.
- Gel 1 at 20mins
- Gel 2 at 1hr
- Gel 3 at 1hr 40mins
- Gel 4 at 2hrs 20mins
- Gel 5 at 3 hrs
- Gel 6 at 3hrs 40mins
- Gel 7 at 4hrs 20mins
- Gel 8 at 5hrs
- Gel 9 - 10mins from the end of the bike anticipated for around 5hrs 30mins
Main Goal - consume 1g carbohydrate per kg body weight each hour. (68kg x 3.5hrs = 238g). 200g will come from Cliff shot bloks, the rest will be coke in the back end of the marathon.
- 8x 3 Cliff shot bloks. 3 shot blok provides the same energy as a gel which is approximately 25g carbohydrate. Will feed every 20-30mins by having 3 shot bloks, will space out eating each blok by a minute or so to minimise gastric stress.
- Salt capsules. (contains a range of electrolytes) 1 every 45mins.
- Water at each aid station
- Will start coke at 25km if fatigue is kicking in deep.
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