Skip to main content

Posts

Enhanced Games and the Loss of Athletic Integrity

I don’t want to give much energy to the EG because I strongly disagree with everything it promotes (and sells), but what bothered me most was the message underneath it.....the human body is most valuable when it produces results. Sports do more than entertain us. The values celebrated in athletics often become the values we carry into everyday life, influencing how we define success, measure worth, and even how we learn to treat our own bodies. The danger of enhancement culture is not only physical or psychological, but fundamentally philosophical. It moves sport away from diversity and the acceptance of human limitation, and toward a model where the human body can be engineered to be faster, leaner, stronger, more profitable, and more visually optimized. When sports become only about maximizing results, then something extremely important is forgotten. Most people are not inspired by athletes solely because they win. They are inspired by authenticity, sportsmanship, relatability, coura...
Keep reading »
Recent posts

OZ 3-stage MTB race recap - Fear, Mud, Rain and Stitches

This weekend we raced the inaugural OZ MTB 3-stage race in Bentonville, Arkansas. If you’ve never heard of Bentonville , it’s truly the mountain bike capital of the world. There are 80 miles of trails running throughout the city, which seamlessly connect to over 500-miles of trails which spread over the bluffs and hollers of Northwest Arkansas. And since our last visit in October for Little Sugar, there is a new Bike Park ( Oz Trails Bike Park ) which features 20+ miles of gravity (downhill) trails and the first chairlift-served mountain bike park in Arkansas. Over the three days, we covered ~105 miles and nearly 10,000 feet of climbing across every type of terrain imaginable: slick roots, chunky rocks, steep descents, flowing single track, endless switchbacks and muddy technical trails that demanded full focus and commitment. The one word to describe our experience at the event was…..eventful. Pre Race On Wednesday, we flew from Greenville to ATL to XNA so it was a quick 2.5 hours of ...
Keep reading »

Don’t Chase Someone Else’s Finish Line

For the past few weeks, I’ve been completely captivated by coverage of the Cocodona 250 - a 254 mile ultramarathon across Arizona with over 36,000 feet of elevation gain and a cutoff time measured in days, not hours. Watching runners push through exhaustion, sleep deprivation, heat, cold, dirt naps and hallucinations, I kept finding myself thinking, “That’s incredible. I want to do that!” But after a few days, I realized that I don’t actually want to run 250 miles. I don’t even want to run 50 miles. Truthfully, running 26 miles at the end of an Ironman feels long enough. What I was really drawn to wasn’t the race itself, it was what the race represented: challenge, grit, resilience, purpose, and the pursuit of something meaningful. This got me thinking that there are probably a lot of people like me who confuse being inspired by someone else’s finish line with needing to chase it themselves. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by people doing extraordinary things. In many ways, ...
Keep reading »

Heat Management Tips: The gear you need to thrive (not just survive)

Heat management is a performance skill, not a survival strategy.  When it comes to racing in the heat, most triathletes think about heat mainly in terms of “don’t overheat,” while the best hot-weather racers think about the strategies to reducing thermal strain so they can keep moving forward late in the race. Most importantly, cooling and hydration are not separate topics. They work together to maintain plasma volume, sweat rate, and sustainable pacing. Heat changes the tactics of triathlon racing. As core temperature rises, the body diverts more blood toward the skin for cooling. Sweat losses increase, plasma volume drops, heart rate climbs, and perceived effort rises, even at the same pace or power output. The athletes who perform best in hot conditions are usually not the toughest. They are the ones who manage heat load most effectively.  After participating in a lot of hot weather races, here are my personal top tips for managing the heat in order of priority.  1. Th...
Keep reading »

Racing in the Heat: How to adjust as an endurance athlete

The temps are rising and endurance racing is heating up.  On tap this weekend, IM 70.3 Chatt and IM Jax - both expected to be very warm races!  Training and racing in the heat can feel incredibly frustrating, even for professional and experienced athletes.  A pace that feels comfortable on a cool day may suddenly feel exhausting when temperatures and humidity rise. Many athletes assume they are simply “having a bad race” when this happens, but the reality is that the body undergoes significant physiological stress when racing in hot environments. Heat changes how the cardiovascular system functions, how muscles produce energy, how efficiently the body cools itself, and how well fluids and fuel are absorbed during exercise. Understanding what happens inside the body during exercise in the heat can help you adjust expectations, make smarter pacing decisions, and ultimately perform better and safely.  One of the biggest mistakes athletes make in hot conditions is tryin...
Keep reading »

Cohutta 100 MTB Race Recap

On Saturday April 18th, Karel and I participated in the  Cohutta Races , organized by Chainbuster (a wonderful family-run company who puts on excellent events).  Karel completed the Big Frog 65-mile event in 5:35 (7200 feet elevation) and placed 2nd AG (50-59) and I completed the Cohutta 100-mile event in 9:25 (~13,000 feet elevation) and placed 1st overall female.  Before I talk about the race, I need to talk about the day before it because getting to that start line was harder than many of those miles that followed. The travel went smoothly. It was an easy 3.5 hour drive and very scenic. I rented the cutest Airbnb just 20 min outside of the Ocoee Whitewater center. The food (grocery store) options were limited (Dollar General is the best option) so we brought all of our food. My mom and Alan came with us so they could do some hiking and watch Sunny while we raced. I love bringing Sunny along as he is a great companion and I love making memories with him - just like we d...
Keep reading »