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Showing posts from May 19, 2024

DIY Post Workout Rehydrating Beverages

Exercising in the heat is very stressful for your body. In warmer temperature environments, a significant amount of blood is redirected from the working muscles to the skin in order to cool the body. Cooling (which is very important to your organs as you don't want to overheat!) happens from sweating and evaporation. As you sweat, less blood is available to transport oxygen to the working muscles. This would be similar to what your body experiences when training at altitude. But in humid conditions, the air is full of water vapor and it can't hold any more water so sweat has a difficult time evaporating (which means it can't act as a cooling mechanism like it would in low humidity). As a result, you are more likely to experience dehydration. When you are dehydrated, you lose blood volume which causes your blood to get thicker. This makes it harder for your heart to supply blood to your muscles. As a result, your heart has to work even harder to pump that blood (resulting in...

'24 Xterra Oak Mountain Race Recap

  Greenville crew The last race in our 3-week (15 day) racing block was Xterra Oak Mountain. For several years, we always dedicated this weekend to IM 70.3 Chattanooga (one of our favorite events) but with Xterra Oak Mountain being the same weekend, we went to Pelham, Alabama instead. Karel participated in Xterra Oak Mountain in 2021 (his first off-road triathlon) and in 2022 they didn't have the event. In 2023 we both participated (my 4th Xterra event) and I placed overall female amateur. When Xterra announced that Oak Mountain would be the home of the North American Championship, we knew that we couldn't miss this event. We love the trails at oak mountain, as well as the lake. It's a place that makes us super happy. The trails are proper mountain bike trails with rock gardens, technical turns, roots, climbs and descends but the trails are also nicely made with good rhythm and flow.  As for training going into Xterra, we had intentions of riding our mountain bikes on Tuesd...

'24 IM 70.3 Gulf Coast Race Recap

IM 70.3 Gulf Coast. Marni: 4:40.18, 2nd AG (40-44), 4th overall female. Karel:: 4:18.04, 1st AG (45-49), 15th overall. There were a lot of great takeaways from this race...... Although it's fun to go fast, I prefer hard, hilly and technical bike and run courses. I love three loop run courses! The training that I need to do to stay mentally and physically healthy and happy right now in my life is very different than the training I used to do to be mentally and physically ready to compete in the 70.3 distance. I've never considered myself great at the 70.3 distance but I'm happy that I can still be competitive without specific 70.3 training. I love competition! I ran the first loop as the lead female. I was passed in the 2nd loop by the eventual overall winner ( Samantha Skold - who was so fast and strong!) I then got complacent. My friend Jen Sylva passed me with a few miles left in the run and she encouraged me to run with her. I wasn't able to match her pace but than...