Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

May 3 rd Around 5:45am I was out of bed and started the coffee. The forecast called for a slightly higher change of rain today (from the normal 30% to 50%) so I wasn’t sure if we would stay dry for our race warm-up ride but all worked out and it didn’t rain until late morning (a light shower with the sun still shinning). After a pre-warm-up snack of banana w/ cinnamon, nut butter and raisins/granola and glass of water we were on our bikes around 7:15am. My legs were itching to be on my bike so I really welcomed this ride. We rode the last 18-miles of the bike course (which goes by our cottage) in the same direction of the course and it was nice to get familiar with a few turns and key sections on the road that should be avoided. As I mentioned before, the roads are super bumpy so that adds to some of the difficulty of this beautiful course. The more I can ride/see a course to recognize where I need to shift gears (again – thank goodness for Di2!), where I do not have to s...

May 2 nd After a great night of sleep and waking up without an alarm at 5:45am (the sun comes up early here!) we both enjoyed a cup of coffee on our patio while watching the ocean. Funny how watching the ocean is so relaxing and calming. It’s important to wake up the body and to keep the body from getting lazy/sluggish on race week so the timing and duration of workouts is key. The day before the race is a warm-up day whereas three days out we will still do a slightly longer brick or three workouts w/ a swim included (maybe 2 hours or 2.5 hours with no more than 30 min run off the bike). If we are racing on a flatter course, we will typically do 2-3 x 90sec – 2 min faster efforts w/ double or triple the time recovery. If we are doing a hilly course, we will typically do a few short climbs to wake up the legs. After the 1 hour ride or so we will do a short 10-15 min run w/ a few short pick ups to get a good cadence with the legs off the bike. I typically reserve the ...

May 1st - Thursday This race is termed “beauty and the BEAST” because the course is beautiful but it comes with every type of challenge on the bike. There is wind, rough roads, heat, humidity and a lot of climbing. The beast is a well-known section of this difficult 56-mile bike course for the half ironman and it is around ½ mile long and the incline ranges from 11-21%. After you tackle the beast, there is a windy stretch of road to descend down from the beast. However, what we found out during our 90 minutes ride on Thurs with our new triathlete friend and tour-guide, the entire course is difficult! There is hardly any stretch of road that isn’t without some challenge. The road conditions are bumpy with potholes and lots of bumps, there is non-stop climbing and descending so you must have great bike skills on this course (and electronic shifting on a tri bike comes in super handy since a lot of time while riding will be NOT on aero bars – although a tri bike still puts the hips in ...