Nutrition 101: Cut back on the Girl Scout cookies

I've raced two half-ironmans, and in both I've had severe GI distress on the run, forcing me to grace the port-o-lets more often than I'd like.  To remedy this, I met with a sports nutritionist to chat about my plan for staying fueled on race day, and I learned some helpful information worth sharing.  My nutrition guru also wanted to evaluate my general diet to make sure I am getting everything I need and little of what I don't.  Let me just say that it's quite intimidating to record every calorie of food that you've consumed for a week and then share that with someone else.  More on that later.

First off, she asked me to list all the food and beverages that I consumed during my last half-iron in November:

On the bike:
- 2 bottles Gatorade
- 2 Clif bars
- 1 Power Bar
- lots o' water
On the run:
- Alternating Gatorade and water at the rest stops
- 3 Clif shot gels

Her first and overriding recommendation was to NIX THE PROTEIN (the Clif Bars and Power Bar) while on the bike.  She explained that processing protein while exercising was like sticking a spoon in the garbage disposal while it's running.  The body has a very difficult time processing protein, a somewhat less difficult time processing fat, and the easiest time processing carbs.  Therefore, exercise nutrition needs to consist primarily of, if not exclusively of, carbs.  She recommended that I try a product called CarboPro, which is apparently a flavorless powder full of, you guessed it, carbs.  Yum.  6+ hours on the bike, no solid food, just two bottles of CarboPro + water, plus an additional bottle of water every hour.  I'm willing to try it, but I have to admit that a Clif bar tastes damn good after 3 hours on the bike, and I don't think that my flavorless water will.  Boo.

Her next tip: salt.  Aside from the GI distress, I've also had the occasional leg cramping during my runs off the bike, sometimes crossing the finish with a Frankenstein look, unable to bend my knees.  I thought it was because I wasn't getting enough food in me.  She says I'm getting more than enough food but not getting enough salt.  I am a sweater - not the warm wool kind but the kind that disgusts you in the gym.  I create salt lakes around my spin bike and live in constant fear of drowning the gal next to me in Bikram yoga.  It's disgusting but also evidence that I'm losing a lot more salt than the average Jo-sephine.  Houston in May could be miserably hot and humid, so I'll be digesting a salt tablet each hour in the hopes of replenishing the salt mine that I'm sure to lose that day.

Now on to the fun part - an evaluation of the overall diet.  Generally speaking, she said I was doing well - getting the calories that I need *mostly* from good sources.  Do you really eat kale?  Yes!  I love it, thanks to a salad recipe my friend Amy introduced me to that you can find here.  And sunflower seed butter?  I admit, it's an acquired taste, but I love it on my oatmeal.  Okay, so what does this signify?  "One box SOs."  Hmm... (I'd hoped she'd just overlook that entry.)  Shout Outs.  What are Shout Outs?  Girl Scout cookies.  You ate a BOX of Girl Scout cookies . . . in one day?  They're the low fat kind.  And besides, I consider it my civic duty to support the Girl Scouts.  Maybe you should just write them a check.  Touche.

Take Me Home, Country Roads

I have hazy memories of my time spent in Munich during Oktoberfest 2002, but I distinctly remember standing on a table with a bunch of British blokes and singing John Denver's "Country Roads" at least ten times during the course of my ... eight (?) hours in the Lowenbrau tent.  On Friday, I had deja vu (well, minus the beer, bratwurst, lederhosen and lecherous drunks) as my friend Tammie and I rode from Austin to Andice for our 80-mile long ride.  I could not get that song out of my head, as it was so fitting on a beautiful afternoon ride out in the hill country.  Towards the end of the ride, the emphasis was more on the "take me home!" rather than "country roads."  A stein of German pilsner would have been a significant improvement over the powdered electrolyte drink in my water bottle.  By mile 60, I was definitely ready to be done and could not fathom doubling that distance. 
Here's Tammie at the Andice General Store, where we stopped to refuel.

Tammie's doing IM Texas too. She got her first bike a year ago and has quickly become someone who I just try to keep up with!  She is also the most stylish woman on the race course.  After 80 miles, her makeup looked freshly-applied, whereas I looked like I'd just come from a family funeral.  Not sure how the girl does it, but I'm hoping she'll give me a tip or two!

Spectacular Spectating

I came to the realization this weekend that I might like being a spectator at races more than competing in them.   

 

I spent Sunday morning cheering on my long-time running buddy, Michelle, as she completed her first marathon in Houston.  Despite the humid, drizzling weather and slick roads, coupled with a week full of sick kids and little sleep leading up to the race, she did great!  She let me run the last few miles with her, and I left her at mile 25 but raced to the finish to see her cross the line.  I think I was probably more emotional than she was upon finishing.  Yes, I cried.  But I also laughed a lot while running with her due to the hysterical signs that read:

 

"If it was easy, I would be doing it."

 

At mile 20, "your training runs ended here."

 

"That's not sweat, it's your fat cells crying."

 

"Chuck Norris never ran a marathon."

 

"Cheer up, the worst is yet to come!"

 

"Where are you guys going?"

 

"You better hurry or you're not going to beat Oprah's time!"

 

Spectators passed out all sorts of food along the route:

-pretzels

-orange slices

-red licorice

-beer!

-bananas

-pickles

-and my favorite, the "Little Debbie refueling station," where a woman was seriously passing out LD cupcakes.  It would have been very easy to gain weight while running 26.2 miles on that course.  Fortunately, Michelle has more self-discipline than I do and limited our food stops to Gatorade and bananas. 

 

I'm so proud of her marathon finish and also of my friend Samantha, who finished her first half-marathon and then graciously hosted us all for lunch.  Rock stars, both of them! 

 

And each with two sporty kids to boot!  Thanks for letting me share in your exciting weekend, gals!

Injuries, Recovery and Hope

Fortunately, not my own injuries...  For the past two weeks, our dog Hope has been recovering from ACL surgery on her back knee.  She's had to wear a cone around her head this whole time to keep her from chewing out the staples, and she has used it as a battering ram around the house, scratching paint off walls, scraping our calves, and knocking over everything not nailed down.

She is by nature a very active dog, getting a long walk each day and having constant access to our backyard to run and play.  Keeping her in an enclosed space has been difficult to say the least, but the vet has insisted on it for her to recover.   This is what she had to say about that:

 

Our bathroom doorknob, or what's left of it, is now a constant reminder that Hope does not like to be trapped in such a small space.  After this episode, we moved her recovery to our bedroom, more specifically, our bed.   We are not dogs-on-the-bed people, but she has been so pathetic (and stubborn) that we've just given in.

 

I'm doing my own recovery this week as well.  The fourth week of every month is a recovery week in our training schedule, and I'm in week 4 of month 2.  Yay!  I need it!  Lots of additional bed time for me too, much of it with the cuddlebug that is our pit bull. 



How to Reverse Your Farmer's Tan

With all of the time that I've been spending outdoors lately, you would think I'd be rockin' a fantastic tan, but the London-like winter here in Austin has kept me pasty white.  We had a brief respite on Monday, and I took advantage of the nice weather (and having MLK Day off) to do a long swim in Barton Springs.  I thought to myself beforehand, "this should be a fine day to work on the tan," but I was forgetting the wetsuit.  The only tan I got was on the backs of my ankles.

Maybe this will at least counteract the sock tan that I'm sure to get later in the spring when I start riding without tights...

The good news is that I had a successful swim.  I did 3200 meters in 1 hour, 10 minutes - not fast, but a solid time for me.  The Ironman has a time cutoff for each event.  Athletes have to be out of the water 2 hours and 10 minutes from the start.  A friend of mine went to volunteer at the Arizona IM this past November, and he said the worst part of his day was watching the officials tell the last folks out of the water that they were finished racing for the day because they didn't meet this time cutoff.  How incredibly devastating it must be to have trained so hard for all three events and then to only get to compete in the first and shortest of the three.  For those of us that are weakest at swimming, this is a frightening thought.

The overall distance for the swim is 4000 meters, so if I kept up the pace that I swam on Monday for the additional 800 meters, I'd finish in about an hour and a half, giving me a 40-minute cushion.  BUT, I did the swim in a wetsuit yesterday, which provides a significant advantage.  It keeps me buoyant and allows me to use less energy than I otherwise would.  I expect that my time without a wetsuit would be 15-20 minutes slower.  Until race day, we won't know for sure whether wetsuits are legal, but Houston in May isn't exactly cool.  Wetsuits are allowed only if the water temperature is 78 degrees or lower.  No one expects this to be a wetsuit legal race.   Bottom line is this:  I'm in decent shape to finish under the cutoff but need to keep on swimming!

New Skips for Inspiration

Bad. Ass.  The only two words that can be used to describe my 2011 athlete obsession, Chrissie Wellington. 

Most people outside of the triathlon world can't name a single professional triathlete, but if you can name only one, it's probably her.  She's won the Kona Ironman three times.  She didn't race this year due to an unfortunate illness but then came back a month later and CRUSHED the women's Ironman world record  at Ironman Arizona.  She's all smiles, sportsmanship and service.  At the end of the Arizona race, she hung out for hours and gave finish-line hugs to all the amateurs.  Incidentally, she also eats "chips," as her UK homies would say, leading us to mistakenly believe that she's just like us.

Her half-iron PR: 4:07.  Mine: 5:56.  Like I said, just like us.  So, maybe she'll complete the Ironman, have time for a massage, a table full of burgers, a nap, and a press conference before I even see the finish line.  The important thing is this:  we will be wearing the same shoe. 

Behold my new Chrissie Wellington edition T7 Brooks racer.  Note the glimpse of the Union Jack on the heel.  Hey - if you can't win, at least you can be stylin' like the winner!

Winter Break

I have been an unapologetic slacker the past week.  No swimming, no biking, no running, no core, but plenty of muscle soreness nonetheless.  Jody and I flew out to Salt Lake City last Wednesday for a ski trip in Park City.  Our friends Erik and Avery joined us from D.C., and we had four beautiful days of sun and snow.  I'm back with refreshed muscles (well, except for my thighs...) and excited to gear up for month two of IM training!