Corrective Actions Taken

Last week was a tough one…  Last week was the second week in a tough 3 week block that is a key block in getting ready for Las Vegas.  The first week of the block was executed perfectly – or so I thought.  Little did I know that during this whole week the train was going off the track little by little.  I nailed all of my key workouts, culminating with the biggest day of the year so far on Saturday March 3.  Cody, Chris and I started the day with masters swim at 6:30, joined by Jaime and Kathy.  Then the three of us rode down to do the hour of power rides at 9 and 10 with some other EPC’ers.  These are fast group rides with quite a lot of race efforts in them.   After about 3.5 hours in the saddle fighting the wind, we ran for an hour through Bear Creek Park with some hard 6 minute efforts.  I made it through the day, but it took its toll.

I felt fine on Sunday, getting a 4km swim in and then on Monday I nailed my hard hill run.  Tuesday is when the wheels sort of came off.  I just had no energy, so I skipped my AM swim and barely made it through the trainer class Tuesday night.   I didn’t sleep will Sunday or Monday night, so that didn’t help.  The bigger problem, I think, was a macronutrient deficiency.  The great thing about the Paleo diet is that you are eating food that your body has evolved to eat.  That naturally means it is higher in protein and healthy fats due to a caveman’s tendency to hunt and kill animals as opposed to grow crops.  It also means that it is naturally lower in carbohydrates than the typical American diet.  This generally is a healthier approach.  However for an endurance athlete it means you have to make a concerted effort to get, natural, minimally processed carbohydrates into your diet.

When I went back and analyzed my diet, I had been getting about 0.6 gram/kg of protein, 1 gram/kg of fat and about 3-3.5 grams/kg of carbohydrate.  At a minimum I should be getting 5-7 grams/kg of carbohydrates every day and 10-12 grams/kg on big days like Saturday. 

The net result of all of this is that I had to take Wednesday completely off, only do an easy spin on Thursday, and an easy strength session and stretch cords on Friday.  I was back to my normal energy levels on Saturday and was able to hit the masters swim and hour of power ride again.  On Sunday I had a really good race simulating run of 4.3 miles averaging 6:40/mile. 

Lots of fruits, both fresh and dried (apricots, dates and raisins are best since they usually don’t have sugar added, which would make them definitely not Paleo) are being added back to my diet.  I also started taking First Endurance Optygen which helps with energy among other things.  I have already noticed a difference and I’m going to make sure to monitor things much more closely in terms of my macronutrient balance in addition to the overall caloric intake. 

Paleo diet carbo loading!  Yum!

I’m really looking forward to hard work this week before a recovery week next week.  I always hate missing workouts, but had I pushed through last week there is a good chance I would have ended up in a hole that would have been really difficult to dig out of and may have missed more than 2 key days.  Sometimes you have to listen to your body rather than fight it.

Jaime was also feeling run down, so we are adjusting her program down a bit since she really needs to build her aerobic base more than add intensity.  Broad bases make for higher peaks!  She also needed to be getting more carbs, hence the massive amounts of bananas and other fruits.

Best song this week...well it happened to be on the radio on my way to the first 6:30 masters class.  Jack Johnson's Banana Pancakes came on, which reminded me of Hawaii, which is why I"m working so hard - to make it to the Xterra World Championships in Maui.

The first crack at qualifying is just over 1 month away at the West Championships in Las Vegas.  Jaime is going to race the sprint race for her first tri in 2+ years!  Can't wait to make the trip!  Also on tap is a weekend in Fruita at the end of the month.  I'm very ready to get in some riding on dirt!

Train smart

NS

Base Training Week 1

Week one of the my first block of base training is in the books! This past week was around 11.5 hours of training broken out as follows:

4 swims; main set/focus for each workout respectively: race pace 5x200 yard intervals, 3x400 at medium effort, pulling the last 400, 400-300-200-100 finishing last half of each at race pace, 1,000 straight at medium to low intensity for endurance. 8,200 yards total

3 bikes; main set/focus for each workout respectively: tempo effort for 35 mins followed by endurance effort for 10 mins, 2x10 mins at threshold effort, 2 hour endurance ride with varying intensity. 4.5 hours and about 80 miles - all on the trainer = boring.

3 Runs; mid distance, threshold run and long run. 17.5 miles total.

3 strength training sessions.

All in all it was a good first week. I'm looking forward to an easier day tomorrow with a short recovery ride and recovery run followed by lots of stretching and some foam roll work, then I get back at it on Tuesday. Including Monday's recovery workouts, next week will increase to 13 hours. I will try to increase my time at intensities close to threshold as well. It looks like this coming week has much better weather than last week, so hopefully I can get some of the runs and bikes outside. Jaime also watched some of my swim practice on Saturday and found some key things to fix, which will take some time, but I think will really help improve my swim times, so I'm really excited about that.

As excited as I am about training, I'm even more excited about a big nutritional change I've made. I have been hearing more and more about the Paleo diet from a wide variety of places, so I decided to look into it. I bought the book "The Paleo Diet for Athletes". One of the authors is Joe Friel, whom I've mentioned in this blog a few times. Basically, the diet is to eat only the foods that our stone age ancestors ate. The really means lots of lean animal and fish protein, fruits, vegetables and nuts. Without plagiarising the book here, I will quickly try to sum up the benefits of the diet. First and foremost it is much higher in vitamins, minerals, healthy fats, and protein than the typical endurance athlete's diet. It also leads to a much healthier pH balance in your blood. If diet leads to an acidic environment in your boduy, as most non-paleo diets do, then your body has to attack muscle and bone to get the nutrients it needs to balance the pH. The net effect is that you have less energy, recovery is impaired, etc. The diet also has a much lower overall glycemic index due to the absence of all grains.

So, what can and can't you eat? Well, just ask yourself the question, could a caveman eat it, or make it with minimal processing? So, general rules of thumb are that you can't eat any dairy or any grains, no legumes (this includes peanuts - more on that later), nothing processed, minimal sugar, maple syrup, honey, etc, as those would only be available in small quantities at specific times during the year.

I will be honest, it isn't the easiest thing to follow, but you certainly can make excellent meals given the restrictions. It will force you to branch out and add flavor to foods using natural ingredients, and that honestly produces much better flavoring anyways. Peanut butter is the toughest for me to give up, but Almond butter is right there to help out thankfully.

So, have I noticed any difference? Well, it has been about 8 or 9 days, but I do seem to not get ravenously hungry like I did before. I also have recovered better in my first week of hard training than I recall recovering last year. I also have better energy levels, especially after work, which is when I usually would skip a workout due to feeling tired. Most importantly, it helped my shed a pound of fat in the first week. It is still early, but I think I'm a believer and will follow it as closely as possible going forward. As with anything, there will be times when you have to make an exception, such as a dinner out, or a special event, etc. I would encourage anyone to try it if you get upset stomachs often, seem to always be tired, or aren't seeing the results you want from your training.

Hopefully everyone has had a good start to the season, or is getting ready and excited to start their season soon. If you need a little motivation to hop on the bike, check out the videos here. http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=670022

Happy training!

NS