Sports Nutrition: Are You Using Racing Fuel...or is it "Garbage in, Garbage out?"

Would you put cheap, pump gas in an Indy Car? ~by Andy Blasquez



Speedy Dan Clarke ~ Not just fast on 4 wheels, 
but on his road bike as well.

I can't help but be reminded of the old data-entry adage, "Garbage In! Garbage Out!" Well the same can be said about how nutrition directly influence your physical performance: Garbage in! Garbage out! 
So, would you put pump gas in an Indy Car? Of course not!  High performance cars require high performance fuels.  With the wrong fuel in your Indy Car, I doubt you could even get the thing started.  If, by some miracle, you could could, you'd never get it out of pit lane.  Racing cars just don't run on garbage, and neither do our bodies; not optimally anyway.  
The "fuel" that is required to produce optimal physical performance is not just different in quantity, but different in kind.  Assuming that you will perform at your best when your diet (your fuel) consists of pizza, beer, and Big Macs, is a mistake, plain and simply.  Why take my word for it?  Because I learned the hard way.  Now, I don't need a dozen really fast age-groupers commenting, "DUDE! I eat 4 Quarter-Pounders before every ride and I can SMOKE you, fool!"  Sir, ma'am...I'm sure you do, and I'm sure you can.  That's not the point.  The question is this: Is your performance optimal? I'm here to stress the fact that in endurance sports, especially to beginning triathletes, runners, and cyclists,  the fuel you use...all day...every day...really does matter.

IMCA 70.3 ~ 2013

A brief background, as it applies to my own nutrition an fitness.  I, since college, have considered myself overweight.  I'm 5'8" (1.73m) and in the past weighed in at about 200lbs. (90k) for most of the last 20 years.  In spite of that, and often unaware of it...I've always been really active.  I suppose folks could say, euphemistically, that I have an 'athletic' build.  To me, that simply means.. I'm far from lean; built more for MMA or rugby than churning out half-marathons and 100k weekend rides.  In fact, I often wonder why I'm not more attracted to those activities in the first place. 

15 months ago, After a bit of training in the end of 2012 and a bit more at the beginning of 2013, I did my first triathlon: the Accenture Ironman California 70.3 in Oceanside, CA.  I really, really enjoyed it.  It was everything I expected: Brutal. I crossed the finish line in 6:55.25, a whopping 3 hours after the top pros.  I also crossed the finish line at 193 lbs. (87kg). Not pretty.  Not pretty at all.

For me, this is the key to both smiles AND speed!

That was then. This is now.  With guidance from Rich Roll's program on MindBodyGreen.Com, I'm now tipping the scale at a much healthier 174 lbs. (78kg.), on my way to 165-170 lbs. on race day.  Q: Why the weight range, rather than a specific weight for race day?  A: I've never raced this lean before, and I don't want to find out, 90 miles into Ironman Lake Tahoe, that I'm actually below my ideal race weight. Never try on race-day what you haven't succeeded with in training.

Please keep in mind that I'm not writing this post as a former top-level college athlete who simply lost his way.  I'm writing it from the point of view of, "Damn!  Finally I get it!"  Truth be told, I have lost decades (yes, decades) of performance possibilities by kidding myself  and believing that my being a vegetarian is going to improve my athletic performance, that calories are calories, that avoiding certain food types...on certain occasions...sometimes...is going to be enough to take me to my dream.  As an avid athlete, you may understand this already.  If you don't, I'm hear to assure you that, food matters; fuel matters.  What you put into your body is as important to achieving your goals as your training.  

To perform at your prime; at your very best, there is a virtual laundry list nutritional principles that are...just that: principles; physical laws that cannot be broken.

1) When you refuel is as vital as what you refuel with.

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  There's NO WAY that this is optimal nutrition

  If you fuel up too early you won't have immediate access to the fuel you took on.  You may not know that, however, until it's too late to make a difference.
• If you fuel up too late, too near to your session or race, you may experience digestive discomfort as your body takes energy and blood away from your digestive system in order to focus on the larger muscle groups being taxed elsewhere.
• If you are training for more than 90-120 minutes (on average), you've got to keep fueling throughout or you'll find yourself 'bonking'.  Not only does this lead to a sub-optimal session or event, it can also delay recovery and preparation for your next session.
• If you wait too long after your session, when your systems are all begging for nutrient rich roods, your brain may tell your body, "Guess what!  We're not getting anything!" and your recovery systems go into 'damage control' rather than 'rebuild and improve' mode!
• If you eat, as opposed to drink, a lot of nutrient rich foods within the first 30-45 minutes after finishing a tough session, you run two risks.
• 1) Your large muscle groups are still requiring attention and energy that your digestive system needs to digest solids, so you may find yourself not feeling well after eating too soon.
• 2) You may over eat as your body is screaming for anything and everything.  This often leads to eating too much...of the wrong foods...at the wrong time.

2) Be methodical. Be consistent:
Look at your nutrition choices, before, during, and after your sessions as a sort-of...science experiment. Actually it is literally a science experiment. There is only one "you". If you're at the beginning of your athletic lifestyle, you will probably make coarse adjustments in your nutrition as you don't have much background to reference. That's understandable. However, if you're a couple of years or seasons into endurance sports you'll more easily be able to narrow down what works for you.  You'll want to start pin-pointing what always works and what never does, scientifically. Only change your nutritional variables one at a time!  
As cumbersome as this may sound, it's profoundly effective. Keep a detailed log. 
Document your nutrition on a calendar: 

• What you ate/drank the night before. 
• What you ate/drank immediately before your race or session. 
• What you ate/drank during your race or session. 
• What you ate/drank immediately after your race or session. 

Document your results as well: 

• What was your session? 
• What was its specific purpose? 
• How did it feel? 
• Note your distance, pace, time, max HR, average HR, etc. 

You can keep your notes and remarks as brief as you'd like.  Even simply drawing a smiley-face or a sad-face next to you session. I guarantee that you will start noticing trends in your ‘feel’ as well as in your performance data. There really is no short-cut.


 3) Food; "fuel" affects all aspects of your body and being:

• Digestive System ~ Organs that break down food into, vitamins,  minerals, proteins, fats, & carbohydrates. All of which the body needs for energy, growth, rest, and repair. 
  

  • Q: Are you giving your body a balance of all of these?
• Skeletal System ~ Made up of bones, ligaments and tendons. Remember too that marrow (a soft, fatty tissue) produces red blood cells, many white blood cells, and other immune system cells.   
  

  • Q: Who knew that a compromised skeletal system could affect red blood cells, or your immune system?
• Nervous System ~ The brain, the spinal cord, and nerves.  Emotion, mood, attitude, etc., all reside in the nervous system.  
  

  • Q: Have you ever felt burned out?
• Respiratory System ~ Brings air into the body and removes carbon dioxide. For an athlete, often at rate that is 3 to 4 times as high as resting respiratory rate, compounding any respiratory issues an athlete may have. 
  

  • Q: Do you suffer from "Athletically Induced Asthma?"
• Endocrine System ~ Glands produce hormones; chemicals that control bodily functions such as metabolism and growth.
• Immune System ~ Our body's defense system against infections and diseases. 
  

  • Q: Have you ever gotten into a real rhythm in your training, only to find it interrupted by illness?
• Lymphatic System ~ Also a defense system for the body, filters out organisms that cause disease, produces white blood cells, and generates disease fighting antibodies. It also distributes nutrients throughout the body, and eliminates unwanted fluids that may cause swelling.
• Muscular System ~ Tissues that work with the skeletal system to control movement of the body. Some muscles, such as your arms and legs, are voluntary.  Others, like the ones in your heart, stomach, digestive muscles and organs, are involuntary. These are automatic. Controlled by the nervous system and hormones so you often aren’t aware of if…or how well they are working.
• Urinary System ~ Eliminates waste from the body, in the form of urine.

  
  
  

  

  None of these systems stand alone.  Each system is interdependent. Keeping your body fueled up with the proper kind of fuel, in the proper amounts, at the right times will guarantee that you will be the best 'you' possible.

  
  

  Now bring on that guy with the 4 Quarter-Pounders.  I'm ready for a ride!

  
  Hugs

  

  Diabloman Triathlon 2013

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Put it on the Calendar, then Be Inspired.

Beginning triathlon tip of the week:

"Put it on the calendar!"

Nothing helps keep my diet in line, my training on track, and my life in balance, more than registering for a couple of events.  The bigger the event, the more strictly I adhere to my nutrition plan and training schedule. The nearer the event, the same stands true.  If I've got a half marathon in two weeks, I won't allow myself to 'cheat'; especially on the nutrition side.  I don't want to be out there feeling like hell, all the while wondering if it was that pizza from a few nights back that threw a wrench in the spokes.


So, for 2014, I took my own advice.  I signed up for a number of events.  Two in particular have my full and undivided attention:

• My 1st & 2nd ever half-marathon trail runs.
• My 1st & 2nd ever Olympic Distance Triathlons.
• Three Century + group rides, including 'The Most Beautiful Ride in America" circling Lake Tahoe, California.
• "B" Race ~ The Wildflower Triathlon
• "A" Race ~ Ironman Lake Tahoe

These aren't incidental events.  They're purposeful; strategic.  We'll go over putting your race schedule together in a future post.

Since my last post, I've completed a couple of events that I thought I'd share as well.



T1 - Pleasanton Tri For Real 2013

Tri For Real - Sprint Triathlon

~ Pleasanton, CA

~On Your Mark Events

A typical sprint distance race, but really, really well organized:

• 700 yard open water, lake swim
• 18 mile bike
• 4 mile trail run
• 1:49:25
• 105 of 271 overall
• 17 of 31 45-49

DiabloMan - Sprint Triathlon

~ Walnut Creek, CA
~Tri-Freaks

An even shorter, but brutal triathlon.

• 450m pool swim
• 14 mile bike
• 3.5 mile run
• 4,000 ft of climbing on the bike. 950 ft of climbing on the run, that over just 1.75 miles. 
• 2:44:37
• 45 of 69 overall
• 12 of 17 40-49 

Crystal Springs Trail Run - Half Marathon Trail Run
~ Woodside, CA
~Coastal Trail Runs

A beautiful race, in a beautiful place. I don't think I'll ever miss one of these races.

• 13.1 miles of single track trail
• 2,800 ft. of climbing
• 2:27.25 (results not available at time of post_

So, I'll say it again; put 'em on the calendar.  It's far harder to eat that doughnut or drink that martini when you know you're going to pay for it in the worst way.  It's easier to lace up those shoes at dark thirty, or to swim with the steam rising from the pool at 10PM, when you know you have to

And now for the rest of the story: 

~Being inspired.  Find something bigger than you to race for.

By far, the most persistent life dream I've had has been to race at the Ironman World Championships in Kona.  With that always at the top of my mind, why then have I not yet been there? The answer is simple: Excuses; legitimate or otherwise, excuses are the culprit. So when am I going to get off my ass and actually go do Kona?  Well if you're reading this, you probably know that you don't just "Go" to Kona.  You earn your way to Kona, with phenomenal results.  Unless you're Chef Ramsay or Hines Ward (who mind you did a fantastic job and drew loads of interest and attention to the sport), you have to perform. I have an athletic background littered with lack of performance.  I better get started.

After suffering through, but enjoying Ironman California 70.3 in Oceanside last march, my goal now is to do my first "full".  A 140.6 mile triathlon.  But which one?  Honestly, it matters to me.  It's not that I have less respect for other events, but for me, personally, emotionally, I have to have a connection to an event.  I have to be emotionally vested or I just can't push myself through the dark places you go during endurance racing.  What is special about "IT"?  What is particularly brutal about "IT"?  What the hell is wrong with me when I immediately start Googling, "World's Hardest Ironman Races" and dreaming about what it must be like?  Lanzarote?  Where is that?  Oh man! That looks brutal! (with a curious and sadistic grin plastered to my face). As if 140.6 miles isn't brutal on it's own.

So, in order to become more informed, and even more motivated, I volunteered with a few friends at last year's inaugural Ironman Lake Tahoe 2014.  We witnessed a record number of DNS/DNFs first hand. I was and still am in awe.  It was absolutely freezing all day long. Literally, the sand on the beach was frozen!  The elevation left me searching for oxygen while jogging back to my truck for another bottle of water!  Witnessing the condition of the people coming out of T-2 (bike to run) left me speechless, inspired, and accepting of the fact that these athletes are simply, athletically out of my league. Ironman Lake Tahoe was going to have to wait.  But what an eye opener!

Then I got 'the call'. My aunt called me as I was assisting people out of T-2 and onto the run.  My cousin, Walden Grindle, a resident and permanent fixture of the North Shore of Lake Tahoe, was tragically killed in a speed flying accident just moments before she called. She didn't know where I was and wanted help locating and retrieving his truck.  I'll never forget the call.  Olympic Village at Squaw Valley will never be the same to me.

I did my best to finish volunteering "Catching" at the finish line, but I couldn't get my head back in the game.  I couldn't stop thinking about his wife of only 9 months. I couldn't stop thinking of my wife's broken heart and my young sons' first real exposure to death.  Their Uncle Walden, "Super Walden" (because he could fly), was gone.  He was married in Lake Tahoe.  I pulled my hood over my head, disappeared into the crowd of fans, families, and finishers, and ran to my truck to drive home.

I heard from a few the finishers on my drive home.  They all knew me, and knew my fitness level.  Some of them all but begged me NOT to make Ironman Lake Tahoe my first full.  It's simply a massive race. Some have written, and some have said, that it is truly the hardest 140.6 of all time.  This race boasts an average elevation of 6,500ft, with 8,400 of climbing on the bike alone. So where did that leave me?  It's simple.  It left me feeling incomplete. I went up there to be inspired.  I came home early, inspired beyond words. I woke up thinking, "Tahoe is never going to be the same until I cross that finish line."  My family and I drove to my grieving aunt's house. I waited for registration to open, then signed up.  I'm in.  This is the right race for me.

In short, now it's time to stop f'ing around.  I have adopted this mantra, and I can't even tell you where it's from, but it goes like this:

"Set your goals so high that you can't possibly achieve them...

...until you become someone who can."

I have a plan:   

with the support of "The Boss", Chris McCormack, and members of his training group (which I feel incredibly honored to be a part of), I've got a plan.  In fact, I've got a 35 week plan.  I've got races that I've added to my schedule, and some that I've removed.  Thanks to Rich Roll's program through MindBodyGreen, and Ben Greenfield (part of the MaccaX group) I've got my nutrition nailed; at least for now.  I'm not doing rides or runs beyond the 2 or 3 hour mark yet, so I still have some nutritional 'testing' to do before race day, but I'm on track.  Those long days, tough races, and purpose built sessions are on their way.  They're on the calendar. That said, gone are the days of misguided wondering.  Now it's simply a matter of execution. Execute the plan.  4k days in the pool, 100-150k rides, and 10-15 mile runs must become the norm. They can no longer be that "really tough session". With my focus being balance and wellness (for my family as well as for myself), each training session must be a strategic session, planned in advance, with a specific purpose.  This doesn't mean I won't enjoy myself, my runs, my rides, and my pool sessions, but it does mean that I'm closer than I've ever been to making this dream come true and I'm not going to screw it up now!

All for now, but more to come:

• What's working in nutrition, and what's not?
• What's bringing strength without injuries and/or fatigue?
• What's best helping to 'build that motor' aerobically?
• Struggles with equipment, gear, and funding.

Hugs.