January Volume Camp, Clermont FL

Warning... Novel Long Post

Well, I made it through a lot of ‘firsts’ last weekend.  Everything/everyone made it home in one piece.

• I successfully packed up my bike to fly, reassembled it and rode it without it falling apart
• I lived through my first time away from my kiddo overnight for multiple days
• I rode more back-to-back miles in three days than I ever have..in....my.......life

The January Volume camp was a 4 day training block where me and my teammates were able to get a ‘boost’ in performance.  One of my teammates is also doing IM NZ, so it was so great to meet him and to know I have a solid friend out on the course in March.  For those who didn’t have a race planned in the next few months, this was a chance to get some volume in each discipline and really give that outseason a kick in the butt and finish strong to start their training season in the Spring.   In total we had 10 athletes and 2 coaches, and I was one of two girls, and we kicked ass.  We were roomies for the weekend and got along famously.  We were early to bed, early to rise and did a pretty good job with our stretching at the end of the day, which I think really helped us recover.  I'm pretty sure the boys stayed up too late and didn't do much stretching - unless you count the hot tub as stretching:)

A quick overview of what we did each day at Camp

Friday – Early morning swim (3-4K) at a beautiful outdoor NTC facility.  It was a bit chilly (40s) and I was of course wearing shorts and flip flops because that's what you do when you live in MN and it's 40 :) The water was a balmy 79.  We were able to get some video of our stroke to review later in the evening.  Then it was back to the hotel for some foodage and get ready for an 84 mile ride.  It was a bit cold at the start, so I started out in long sleeves and a close layer under my jersey, but the day warmed up to a beautiful and sunny 60+ degree day.  We rode through a very cute town (Mt. Dora) and saw some beautiful lakes.  I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up with the boys, but I held my own and even ended up out in front a couple times.  Once we returned to the hotel, it was time for a quick run, like really quick.  R and I had good intentions of 20-30  minutes….but there were these hills.... all going UP from the hotel….at least it seemed that way.  So we made it 15 minutes and called it a day.  Then it was clean up for dinner and get refueled for Day2.  After dinner we had a chance to review our swim video and get some pointers on what we could do to improve our stroke.  I’ve been working on my swim stroke pretty heavily the last 3 years.  The only reason the swim is my strength is because I can usually swim at an effort level of 3-4/10 and come out of the water near the front and invigorated, not tired.  So I’ve been really concentrating on how to go faster with the same effort – and the only way to do that is to have better technique.  So it was great to be able to confirm my work has been paying off while watching my swim stroke.  Anybody who hasn’t had a chance to have their stroke filmed (over and under the water) is really missing out on some ‘free speed’.  Well, it’s not free….it’s take a LOT of drilling, but it pays off, even it’s three years later.

Saturday – Long Bike Day.  A Full Century, with a fun ‘little’ hill at mile 80.  I haven’t done two rides back to back like this since 2007/8, and I haven’t done a full century since IM WI 2011, so.....It’s been a while.  I gotta admit I was a bit unsure how this day was going to unfold - but I did alright.  It helped that it was another gorgeous day.  We all started out with some extra layers, but a few wardrobe changes and I was in my tri kit getting a sunburn – LOVE IT!  I rolled into the parking lot at the EXACT moment my odometer hit 100 miles.  Perfect.  Now time for another run – seriously??  Remember those hills from yesterday?  Yeah, R and I ran around two parking lots – more importantly, two FLAT parking lots and called it a day.  Then another delicious dinner brought in for us, and a low key Q&A where M and I were able to show Coach P the IM NZ bike course and get some pointers.  (more to come about that as the race gets closer and I unveil  my race plan)

Sunday – Yeah for more swimming – mainly because I figured it would help get my body warmed up after all that riding without having to push too hard.  And yup, it was awesome.  A bit warmer as we started an hour later, and we even got a bit of sunshine at the end of our swim.  Again, thankful for the swimsuit tanlines in Jan – however I can get ‘em.  Then it was back for breakfast and get ready for a short (54 mile) ride.  Remember that hill I mentioned from yesterday?  Yeah, I didn’t mention much of it because I’m trying to burn it from memory. We did a double loop of that ‘mountain’ (seriously, it’s called Sugarloaf Mountain), this time one from each way.  It was a bit easier as we didn’t hit it at  mile 80 of 100, but I gotta say, my only goal when starting at the bottom each time was simply not to have to get off my bike and walk.  We all made it, and our legs, hearts and lungs are now stronger for it!  Day three of riding….I’ve never done this.  Ever.  Not only was I able to keep up, surge, make it up mountains, but you know?  I wasn’t feeling too bad.  Great confidence builder for IMNZ.

Monday – Time to go home and see my family!!!!  Right after a 12.8 mile run.  It was another perfect morning.  Sun shining, clay trail.  Beautiful.  Seriously THE most beautiful run that I’ve ever been on. The picture gives you an idea.  I forgot my music, so I had a running commentary in my head, and as I came up over this hill to a beautiful view of a small lake, I literally said “WOAH” in my head (and probably out loud, but if no one is there to hear you, did you really say it?).  So the run was great.  I’m working at running zone1 for the first 60 minutes and then progressively getting faster, with the goal of having my last 3 miles be the fastest of the run.  I ended with a 7:47 min mile – which is great for me – as I start out at a 10:00 mile.  Awesome.  Pack up and get home safely – check.

Some Lessons Learned 

• Bike Travel bag is great - I actually had a loaner....Get this....I bought a bag from Mountain Plus Outdoor Gear, but they were waiting for their shipment and weren't sure they were going to be able to get it to me in time for my Volume Camp, so they sent me their personal/employee bike travel bag, to BORROW.  I am sending it back to them, and they will send me the purchased bag as soon as they receive theirs back.  Oh, and they're a veteran owned small-business to boot.  mpgear.com
• No bottles on the back of my bike.  I lost one on Sat ride and since I’m doing my own nutrition on race day, I want to minimize that risk.  Going to put my old school saddle bag tapped up under my seat and hope that I never have to access it and going with standard bottles on my frame.  Also, having that many full bottles on my bike was REALLY heavy. 
• Aero bottle on the front of my bike worked great.  I took a sip every 10 minutes and took a glug from my bike cage bottle (nutrition) every 30 minutes.  It kept me engaged and was easy to drink from and fill up.
• Tri kit is a GO.  I had only done an Olympic race in my tri kit – so I rode the Century in my new EN tri kit and it worked great.
• BIKE FIT IS AWESOME!  I have always been uncomfortable on the bike.  From my seat to my neck.  My legs never get a chance to get sore because my seat is in too much pain to stay seated for long enough to get my legs tired.  I used to say, the only reason I bike is because they put it between the swim and the bike.  My neck was a bit sore – but mainly from having to sit up on my tri bike (gotta have those hands near the brakes when riding in a larger group)– when I usually try to stay aero as much as possible in training.  My seat was for sure sore after over 200 miles of riding, but it didn’t bring me to tears as it has the last 7 years.  HUGE confidence builder.
• Fuel Belt on the run – still unsure.  I borrowed someone’s to try out and I probably need a different size, so I’m going to try that out and see how it goes.
• Nutrition worked great.  I got up every morning and had my bulletproof coffee.  I even brought my own coffee press because I’m a snob and I want good coffee and I’m too cheap to go to Starbucks every morning.  Then after swims, I had a Lara bar on the walk back.  Had some nuts/yogurt/fruit before the ride.  Then on the ride I used UCAN for my liquid nutrition, lemon/salt water for hydration, and brought some home made bars with me for more calories.  I didn’t have to worry too much about food on the ride wrt tummy troubles because the runs after our rides were so short.  But I never got hungry, fuzzy, cranky, so I calculated well with what I needed to get through the day.  In fact, I probably had too many calories if I would have had a long run after those rides. I did do my long run (as I have with all my other runs) on a fasted stomach, other than my bullet coffee, with some UCAN starting at 1:30 into the run – to get me through those last three harder miles.

I feel like I left out so many things.  About how boys will be boys.  The jokes.  The awesome friends.  The encouragement from every person, and sharing this experience with such a great group of athletes.  I’m so thankful that my husband urged me to do this.  I remember forwarding him the e-mail, thinking “this would be really cool, but I’ll never do it”, and his immediate response was “DO IT”.  Seriously, I still have the e-mail.  So thanks Babe. 

And to my JVC peeps.  Thank You.  I had such a great time, and can't wait to have your mojo stalking me on Race Day.  That's a pretty powerful thing, especially racing so far away from home.  You all gave me a confidence I have never had wrt triathlon.  And of course to Coach P - I'm not sure you have any idea how much your 'coaching' impacted me last weekend.  You are great at what you do, and we are all lucky to have you on our team, never stop.

You’re a Fat What??!?!?! Part Two

Our health begins in our gut. Consider the following facts about the gastrointestinal system:

• The gastrointestinal system comprises 75% of the body's immune system.
• There are more neurons in the small intestine than in the entire spinal cord.
• It is the only system in the body that has its own, independently operating nervous system, called the enteric nervous system.
• If you stretched our the gastrointestinal systemic its entirety, it would have the surface area of a regulation sized singles tennis court.  There are over 400 species of microbes living in your gut, totaling over 15 pounds of mass and containing more bacteria than there are known stars in the sky.

Now lets talk sugar.  Sugar causes inflammation in the gut and overall body.  The more processed and refined the carbohydrate (sugar), as a rule, the faster it breaks down in the digestive system, and the bigger the sugar rush it delivers.  That's why refined flours, sugars and sugar syrups pose such a problem for our systems.  As we gulp down sugar, those simple carbs are converted into simple sugar molecules (glucose) that pass directly into the bloodstream.  Blood sugar then rises, and the pancreas releases insulin to lower the blood sugar levels by taking glucose out of the blood and into cells.  If our body needs the sugar at the time we put it in the body, the body uses it appropriately. If not, the pancreas goes into overdrive, releases too much insulin, and begins the increase in inflammation in the body.

Normal inflammation in the body can occur when we are rebounding from an injury.  White blood cells rush to a point of injury in the body and mend.  When the injury is deep inside the body, such as the gut, hidden inflammation can trigger chronic disease and we get so used to it we don't even realize it's there.

The body in a fasted state has 1 tsp of glucose (sugar) measured in the bloodstream.  This is where our body likes to be.  The average American has, at any given time, 20 tsp of sugar in their bloodstream.  YIKES.

Two weekends ago I had my first BIG DAY of training.  Which basically means, I Swim, Bike, Run for 6 hours straight.  The goal isn't to see if I can do it, the goal is to learn what is working, and what is not with regard to my pacing, and most importantly, my nutrition.  I woke up, had my bullet proof coffee, with butter, heavy cream and MCT oil (concentrated Coconut Oil), did my strength resets and headed to the pool.  Got home, hopped straight on the bike and had two water bottles, each with 159 calories of UCAN (a starch based energy supplement that does not spike blood sugar), and two water bottles with Celtic Sea Salt and lemon.  I plowed through all the water bottles - probably should have been better hydrated - and should have drank more before and after my swim - because I felt like I had too much in my belly (nutrition included) during the run.  The run was a 30 min zone 1 effort, then push to 15 min of zone 2, and finish as hard as I could - no higher than high zone 3.  No tummy troubles, no bonking.  didn't have to take in any nutrition on the run.  It was great!

This last weekend, I had a 30-min run before my 3:30 ride indoor on the trainer.  I had my bullet proof coffee, did my resets, hopped on the treadmill, hopped on the trainer and didn't have any nutrition until 45 minutes into the ride, and continued to "drip feed" my nutrition throughout the bike.  Then the next day I had a 2 hour run.  The only nutrition I took during the run was salt/lemon water and a TBSP of honey at 1:15 in.  Felt Great.  Finished at a sub 8:20 min mile run pace - I got stronger as my run continued.  AWESOMENESS!

On Thursday I head to Florida for my first ever Volume Training Camp.  And my first time ever away from my little T.  The plan is 10+K swim, almost 300 miles biking, and 30 miles running.  What a break! :)  I wanted to send a blog update every day, but I'm hoping to not take a computer at all (I KNOW!!!!  CRAZY!!) so I'll take good notes and report when I get back.  Viva warmth!

gastrointestinal system facts resource: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/fix-gut-fix-health
sugar/inflammation facts resource: https://experiencelife.com/article/sugar-breakdown/

You’re a Fat What??!?!?! Part One

I am a Fat-Adapted Athlete.  A Fat What???  Exactly.

Most of my athletic life – certainly since I picked up the art of triathlon – I have had gut issues, mainly on the run part of a triathlon.  It’s so frustrating after putting in so much time and effort training our body to race long and fast, only to get to race day and have your tummy troubles hold you back.  You know you can run faster.  Your legs don’t hurt. Your joints don’t hurt.  Your heart and lungs don’t hurt, but you’re afraid you just might…..you know…..not make it to the next port-a-potty.

One of the things with becoming a fat-adapted athlete is “you notice what you don’t notice”.  It’s hard to explain, and you just can’t really understand it until you are there, but I never realized how much better I could feel on a day-to-day basis, let alone have stellar workouts and feel great after, with very little fatigue.  Yes, my tummy troubles went away, but I also gained so much more. 

I’ve had a pretty healthy diet all my life – as far as mainstream society would think.  Not a lot of junk, lots of home cooked meals, lots of salads, maybe a bit too much candy.  Every new approach I used to overcome my tummy troubles, I couldn’t get concrete results.  I tried no gluten, no caffeine, low carb, nothing was tried and true.

Then a year ago, my DH found a triathlon website that had him intrigued.  It was a diet based on the idea that our bodies have a TON of fat that we can use for fuel, but we need to teach our body to use it.  With the standard recommended diet, our bodies can’t access that fat because we’ve lost the ability to process fat efficiently.   We simply don’t feed it enough fat, and feed it too much processed stuff – aka refined carbs/sugar.

I’m not a nutritionist, and there are a ton of resources that are much better at describing this than me – I’ve included many of my favs in links below – but here’s my quick stab at describing our diet.  You’ve heard this before – Even the skinniest athlete has enough fat on them to run a marathon – but why can’t we USE that fat for fuel???  Our bodies have 2,000 calories at most in carbs (glycogen stores) available to use as fuel.  But we have almost unlimited fat stores.  When I was training for my first Ironman, I definitely upped the fat intake realizing that my body would use what I gave it for fuel.  Eating more fat helped my body learn how to use fat as fuel.  We now take that to a whole new level.

A ketogenic diet is a high fat diet.  75% fat, 20% proten, 5% carbs.  Because I am in the midst of training for an Ironman, I include more carbs into my diet – strategically.  Strategically being the key word here.  Think of your body as a fuel tanker.  You have fuel in the cab to keep the truck running and a WHOLE LOT of fuel in the tankers you are pulling.  If you follow the standard American diet, you can end up on the side of the road with no fuel left to drive the truck – but you have this enormous amount of fuel in the tankers you are pulling that you have no access to.  When you are fat adapted you can tap into that extra fuel and not end up sidelined in the middle of the race.

I often miss meals.  I race in a fasted state for all workouts that are less than 90 minutes.  I use strategic carbs for longer workouts.  I put butter and heavy cream in my coffee (seriously, it’s freaking delicious).  I don’t get hungry.  I don’t crash during workouts.  And the best part is, I have yet to get tummy troubles during any of my runs, short, long, easy, hard.

Here are some links to some good resources.  If you look to the very first Friday Fat Black episodes, (#1, #3) they have some good basic explanation of the #JERF Just Eat Real Food Movement and the benefits of being a fat-adapted athlete.

 A good, basic ketogenic information site http://www.ketogenic-diet-resource.com

Trispecific –  http://www.trispecific.com  Friday Fat Black podcast

The Natural Nutritionist http://www.thenaturalnutritionist.com.au