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Half Ironman Triathlon Nutrition Plan

Friday, June 4th, 2010

This weekend I’ve got some revenge planned for the Rev3 triathlon half course. And it all started with a completely reworked half ironman nutrition plan.

Last year I came unprepared and suffered. The short story is that while my training was pretty solid, I started off the race drained and with not nearly enough water in me. Starting a race already in the red is a great way to spend the day in a 70.3 mile triathlon suffer fest.

This year, everything is different. Ditched the coach, got a whole new ironman plan, a fancy new carbon bike, a whole new race nutrition setup and I have a whole mess of nutrition lessons learned from painful race mistakes to hopefully get me to the finish line a little faster and a whole lot happier on Sunday.

Here is the plan.

The Day Before:

Bring my full Camelbak with me while I volunteer at the Oly run course aid station with two scoops of EFS. Slurp away slowly all day to have plenty of water in my system at all times.

Morning:

Glass of juice
Cereal
Fruit
Bottle of EFS when I wake up
Bottle of EFS while hanging out in transition
First Endurance MultiV
First Endurance OptygenHP

Swim:

Avoid getting kicked in the face and chomping on people’s toenails
Suck down cup of water on my way to T1

Bike:

Drink one bottle of Liquid Shot mixed with water in the first 40 minutes (400 Cal)
Drink two more bottles of a weak EFS mix (~100 calories) every 40-45 minutes after that
Continually suck from another 400 calorie Liquid Shot flask throughout the rest of the bike.
Grab another water bottle from an aid station and polish that off 10-15 minutes before rolling in to T2

Run:

Slurp down water at every aid station
Mix it with a sip from a new EFS flask (400 Cal total)that I’ll pick up in T2

Post-Race:

I’ll have a bottle with two scoops of cappuccino Ultragen recovery goodness waiting for me back at transition. I’m leaving it without water, so that I can just grab the bottle, fill it up with water somewhere at the expo and suck it down and hope that it helps me be able to walk normally on Monday morning. I love that stuff and it hasn’t let me down yet.

That is the plan that I’ve tested and seems to work pretty well in training. I’m pretty confident that it will work on race day, but there is only one way to find out.

Training wise? I think my bike is a LOT stronger than my run lately, but as long as I can get to mile 5 of the run feeling good, I should be able to bring it all home feeling good.

UPDATE:

Note, I’ve tweaked the order of what I consumed on the bike. Instead of starting with a heavily concentrated water bottle on the bike, I decided to start with a more diluted drink to let my heart rate settle before increasing my caloric intake. More information behind that decision can be found HERE.

Tags: 70.3 nutrition plan, efs, first endurance, half ironman nutrition, half ironman nutrition plan, nutrition plan for half ironman, optygen, quassy, rev3, ultragen | Posted in Ironman, Nutrition, Training Log, Triathlon, Videos | 3 Comments »

The Base-Build Trasition

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

It is that time of the year people!

For most people, the triathlon racing season is just kicking off, but that isn’t what I’m talking about. For this guy whose main focus is on that big 140.6 mile race in September, the base training season is OVER.

Time to ratchet up the training volume and intensity to see exactly what my body can handle.

Besides just cranking out more hours and more hard intervals, I’ve got a bunch of other training goals that I’m trying to hit along the way.

Focus on recovery just as much as training.

Going hard one day isn’t worth much if you are so wasted that you can’t hit your workout targets for the next three days. I’ve been addicted to Ultragen after all of my hard workouts and I’ve been liking it a lot. I was big into chocolate milk as a recovery drink last year. Ultragen is obviously a little pricier than a glass of chocolate milk, but there is no sense doing all this training if I’m not fueling with some top quality stuff, so I think it is worth it so far. Plus, the cappuccino flavor is so freaking delicious it is something great to look forward to as a reward after beating up my body for a few hours on the weekend.

I’ve also been pretty awful about stretching, except when something starts to bother me. No excuses here. I just gotta make it a more regular part of my post-workout routine to keep me healthy and loose.

Anticipate raging food cravings so I can make responsible choices

The hunger is already coming. I feel like I have only seen the beginning of the ironman food cravings. The one major thing that I learned from my #i8this challenge is that the easiest way to eat healthy is to simply stock your fridge and pantry with healthy godies. If you have crap in the house, it will get eaten. Or even if you don’t have anything good in the house and need food fast, you are probably going to make some bad choices.

Start my experimentation with OptygenHP.

So far I’ve loved everything that I’ve tried from my new nutrition sponsor, First Endurance. Beyond killer race nutrition and recovery stuff, I really wanted to test out their OptygenHP supplement. All their stuff is based on tons of research, so I trust ‘em. They haven’t let me down yet. You can check out their site for details on it, but it has some special goodies in it that Tibetian sherpas use for climbing Everest and helps increase oxygen utilization, reduce lactic acid buildup and helps adapt to high levels of physical stress.

For the first two days, it did give me this strange tingling all over my body, especially on my face and ears. The site says that this is caused by one of the ingredients (Beta-Alanine) activating some neurons or something like that. All this time they were just hitching a ride and not carrying their own weight?! Shenanigans! Their whole explanation is over here.

I’ve only been taking it for six days so far, so it is too early to tell how effective it is, but I’ll definitely report back if I feel that it helps me get through hard training days (and ultimately race day) any easier.

Get my legs smooth n’ race ready.

Nuff said. Soon it will be time to lather up and get these doggies race-day smooth!

Balance both my training and social calendars

Except for a few hiccups, I think I’ve been doing pretty good about keeping a relatively normal social life during my base training. Keeping Sam posted on when my long workouts will be, having a shared Google calendar and doing lots of pre-dawn workouts has helped to keep things pretty sane. It isn’t going to get any easier now that the weekly training hours will be jumping up, but definitely something I need to keep my attention on.

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I’m not going to lie. I was thinking about this blog post while doing hill repeats the other morning and was singing this song to myself (in my head).

Happy training kiddos. More training stories from the road to come.

Tags: base phase, build phase, first endurance, ironman traiing, leg shaving, on like donkey kong, OptygenHP | Posted in Ironman, Life, Nutrition, Training Log, Triathlon | 2 Comments »

First Endurance Joins The Trakkers Family

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

With the offseason in full swing, lots of 2010 planning is still in motion. A major part of that is making plans for my involvement with Rev3 and Trakkers for 2010. There is more news in the works that I will share when the time is ready, but I just got the green light being able to make our first big announcement.

First Endurance signed on to Team Trakkers as our official nutrition nutrition sponsor!

I’m brand new to the company, but I’m digging their philosophy: “Our goal is to have 100% of our members finish Ironman with no cramps, no bonk and no gastric distress.”AKA: Get to the finish line happy.

The last two years, I’ve primarily been using a mix of a custom Infinit blend and GU and Clif products. Except for a few bumps in the road, I’ve gotten it down pretty well, but still recognize that I still have a ton to learn.

Going through a lot of the resources they have online tonight has already learned a ton. (I had the idea that caffeine is a diuretic drilled in to my head a million times during cross country practice way back in high school, that that idea will be a tough one to kick.) They have a whole mini social network that is completely focused on athletes educating each other on nutrition. Sweet, right?

Part of that is a whole series of programs, tests and surveys to help you better understand what works for you. That was one of the reasons why I came to love my Infinit blend so much. It was made just how I wanted it and I proved its worth on the course. It is also one of the biggest principles that I learned from Holistic Guru. Bio-individuality. We are all built pretty much the same, but our bodies can react to nutrition plans very differently.

I’m especially psyched to do the caffeine test once I get back into training. Except for some herbal tea one or twice a day and a regular diet of chocolate in any form that I can consume it, I don’t take in much compared to the average American. I’ve always been wary of using it in training/racing since I have such a low tolerance, but am amped to see what their test says.

If you want to check ‘em out, here are some places to start.

main: www.firstendurance.com
social/research: www.team.firstendurance.com
Blog: www.blog.firstendurance.com

Once I get my hands on the goods and put them to a test, expect an honest review coming your way.

Tags: endurance nutrition, first endurance, team trakkers, trakkers gps, triathlon nutrition | Posted in Ironman, Triathlon | No Comments »