It's hard to believe it but in 24 days we will be traveling to St. Croix for our first "race-cation" of the season. Not only is this our first time visiting this beautiful island but we are really excited to tackle this beastly challenging half ironman course.
This has been a very time-demanding year for us with the Trimarni coaching and nutrition business keeping us super busy. Our athletes are absolutely amazing (one-on-one and pre-built for coaching) and they inspire us every day with their commitment, discipline, passion and enjoyment for using the body. My nutrition athletes have worked hard on daily nutrition as well as fine-tuning sport nutrition for better training and recovery and a more effective fueling plan for race day.
It's really incredible to see so many age group athletes out there who love to dream big, work hard have fun with training. It's not easy to balance a multisport lifestyle with life but when the outcome is a strong performance on race day, the sacrifices pay off.
On Thursday we (Karel, me and Campy) made a quick, 6.5 hour drive to Greenville to finally secure a home to rent when we make our big out-of-state move in May. We checked out 6 places that we found on Zillow and the very last house was the winner! We are so excited about living 2.5 miles from downtown Greenville and most of all, enjoying an even more active lifestyle with lots of nature to play with on a daily basis.
Karel and I love dining out at local restaurants when we travel and we found this place called Bravo in downtown (which we heard has over 100 restaurants!).
I enjoyed a delicious mushroom, corn and bean salad for dinner on Thursday evening and after being inspired by this salad, I couldn't wait to get back home to re-create the meal at home.
Viola! My own creation - sauteed mushrooms and onions in olive oil on top a bed of mixed greens, avocado, tomatoes, hard boiled egg (1), rice, shredded cheese and crumbled pita chips and a side of salsa.
To improve overall health, to reduce risk for disease, to control a healthy body composition and to boost performance, prioritize eating meals cooked/prepared in the home so that you can be in control of portions and ingredients. However, when there's the occasional opportunity to enjoy a meal outside of the home, use my dining out tips from my latest Ironman article.
How to eat healthy when dining out
On Friday morning, Karel and I went for an early morning hilly 4.5 mile run (with headlights - Thanks Trisha!) and after a busy day of finalizing paper work, it was time for a 6.5 hour drive home.
After a hodgepodge of recovery workouts after HITS Ocala half ironman, with Sunday after the race being a full day of no activity aside from walking Campy several times throughout the day and stretching, all lights were shining green for full-speed ahead with my body and mind to resume structured training a weekend after our tune-up half ironman race.
With no running until Wednesday (4 days after the race) and extra focus on sleep, Karel had two great workouts for us (we biked together both days) to challenge our running legs off the bike for we know that a steady bike paves the way for a strong run.
Saturday:
2 hour Bike + 1:15 hr T-Run
Bike is again just endurance pace for first hour. 2nd hour, take it up just a notch - SESP (steady effort still pushing).
40 miles, 2 hours
T-RUN:
5 miles descending off the bike (with a planned walk/rest of 30 sec after mile 2 and 4 and 60 sec planned rest after mile 5).
The rest of the run was steady with planned walk breaks (10-20 sec) every 2 miles.
10 miles - 1:17 total time (7:40 min/mile pace w/ walks included)
MS:
7:55
7:38
30 sec walk
7:27
7:06
30 sec walk
6:48
1 min rest
7:45
7:34
30 sec walk
7:52
7:41
8:07 ( with campy and Karel)
(Karel did 12 miles (he did his own MS). Total time: 1:24, average pace 6:58 min/mile)
Sunday:
2 hour bike + 7 mile run
2 hour bike + 7 mile run
First hour steady endurance pace.
MS: 30 minutes - alternating pulls of 5 min upper Z3/low Z4 watts
(Although being able to trade pulls with Karel was years in the making and I know he can go harder than what he does with me sitting behind his wheel, here's what it looks like for me (stats below) when Karel is pulling and I am sitting on his wheel and then for me to take a pull...it's not easy to draft and then take a pull! I'm sure Karel fully recovers when he sits behind me but when I am behind Karel's wheel, I am still giving a steady, slightly uncomfortable yet doable effort. Also, we were not riding on a straight rode for 30 min so our speed adjusts whereas we both focused on the same normalized power)
5 min (Karel in front, me on his wheel drafting) - 150 W, 23.79 mph
5 min (me in front) - 165 W, 22.68 mph
5 min (Karel in front) - 154 W, 22.77 mph
5 min (me in front) - 168 W, 23.46 mph
5 min (Karel in front) - 155 W, 23.98 mph
5 min (me in front - last pull!) - 170 W, 22.98 mph
Then SESP effort until we arrived home
T-run - 6 miles (+ 1 Campy mile)
Goal was steady effort, RPE 8/10 with 30 sec walk in between
55:08 total time, 7:46 min/mile average (including 3 minutes total of walking, 30 sec after each mile)
7:43
7:22
7:27
7:18
7:22
7:10
8:00 (Campy mile)
(Karel did 14.25 miles and a different MS, 1:42 total time, 7:12 min/mile average)
And to finish off the weekend - the perfectly balanced post-workout meal of fresh pineapple, homemade banana walnut bread (thanks Trimarni athlete Elizabeth from DC!) and an open egg omelet (2 whites + 1 whole egg scrambled with milk) with spinach to replenish, refuel and repair my body.