Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

  I recently consulted with three different athletes who complained of fatigue, injuries and/or lack of appetite and all three had ferritin levels of less than 7 ng/mL. I consulted with another athlete who desired a change in body composition who had a ferritin level of 437 ng/mL. Ferritin is an intracellular protein that stores iron in the body. For athletes, recommended ‘normal’ ferritin levels are very different from the sedentary. "Normal" ferritin levels are 12-300 ng/ml for men and 12-150 ng/ml for women but from my experience, most athletes will feel they perform (and feel the best) with ferritin levels of 50-100 ng/ml. I'm happy to announce that I've partnered with Athlete Blood Test as my go-to blood testing company for my nutrition consultations. ABT provides individually-tailored, athlete-focused blood biomarker testing to help athletes dial in nutrition, recovery, training and performance. Even more exciting for the female athletes, the Athlete Blood Test...

Prior to bed, I told Karel that I was really excited to race but also nervous. Going into this event, had no prior trail racing experience and have only done a few off-road runs over the past few years. As a total newbie, I just bought a new (my second ever) pair of trail running shoes (On Cloudultra) on Monday - six days before the event. To break-in the shoes, I wore them on Saturday while spectating Karel's Xterra triathlon race. So much for not trying something new on race day.  After a light night of sleep, I woke up at 5:45am and had a pre-race snack of a cinnamon raisin bagel with PB, banana and syrup (I didn't bring waffles - my typical pre-race/workout snack) and a coffee and water. I did some light foam rolling and mobility in the hotel room before we left for the race venue at 7am.  With a bit less competitors compared to the Xterra race, we had no trouble parking. Each entry to the park was $5/person (cash only) but there was no line to get in so it was a smooth mo...

  On Friday morning, Karel drove from our hotel to the race venue at  Oak Mountain state park (~5 miles away) for his pre-race workout while I stayed at our hotel ( Homewood Suites ) to do a run (and to not be gone too long from Campy). Around 9am, Karel did a ~1000 yard open water swim followed by a ~1 hour mountain bike followed by a 2 mile run. He said the trails were pretty quiet and he really enjoyed being out in nature. He did just enough movement to move some blood and test out the new gear. Karel was having so much fun on his mountain bike that if it wasn't for the race, I'm pretty sure he would have spent all morning out on the trails. As for my run, I ran around our hotel area (which was very beautiful) on the hilly roads for ~50 minutes and included 5 x 20 sec strides at the end.  As for the rest of the day, we worked for a bit in our hotel room and then went back to Oak Mountain State Park around 3pm so that Karel could get his race packet and for me to regis...