Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

After our morning swim and checking in at the race venue on Friday, I spent a little time on Friday afternoon packing my bags. My homestay has a pool table which made for a great height for laying out my gear for my bags.  I will wait until race morning to top my bottles with water so I prepared all my bottles with powder (only) and then laid out all my gear for race day.  Morning Clothes (also swim gear): Sweatshirt and yoga pants (not pictured, I will wear over my Trimarni kit) Trimarni tri top Trimarni tri bottoms Brooks Running sport bra Sunscreen Hair ties (4) Body Glide Chip w/ strap Cap Speedo Vanquisher goggles (tinted and clear) Garmin 910XT Bike Special Needs (to turn in race morning outside Starbucks) 3 bottles, each filled with 300 calories of INFINIT custom drink (no protein, I will fill with water on race morning) Run Special needs (to turn in race morning outside Starbucks) 2 flasks, each filled with 2 ounce NAPALM (100 calories each - I ...

We are looking at perfect conditions on race day. However, during our ride it was warm but nothing we were use to living in the South. Race day should be at least 15 degrees cooler and hopefully the winds will not be as gusty as they were when we were riding. The winds were so strong, even Karel was getting blown around.  We find it so helpful to not only wake up the legs with a "long"-er workout on the 4 days out from race day but to also put our bodies in real world conditions before the race. Knowing the course is extremely important when it comes to pacing but also for knowing what gear to use for race day.  Since I have raced IMWI and Karel has been on the course, we know there is very little time to settle into a rhythm on this challenging course (which I believe is the hardest course I have raced in 8 Ironman races ) which has a little of everything that can make for a tough bike ride - hills, bumps, winds, climbs, turns.  We will be wearing our GIRO h...

Karel and I love to travel and we love to race. In 2013, we planned a season of race-cations to celebrate our love of traveling and racing.  It's been quite a season, with a lot of highs and some lows but well, that's all part of being an age-group triathlete.  Just because you sign up for a race, it does't mean that life will be easy. If anything, life gets a bit more complicated.  But in order to find success in both life and sports, you have to do the best you can to keep everything balanced with whatever you commit yourself to in life. It's hard to believe but Ironman Wisconsin will be our last  race-cation  of the year and come Monday we will be enjoying our off-season! We started our racing schedule in March with our first race, HITS OCALA HALF IRONMAN, as a tune-up race for the season.  Then in May, in the end of packing up our townhome for our move to Greenville, we raced  St. Croix 70.3 .  Then, just 6 wee...