Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

Surprisingly, I slept pretty well on the night of the Ironman. We stayed up until around 11pm as we first watched the last stage of the Tour de France and then watched some of the IM Lake Placid coverage. I have found through experience that the more I push the run, the more damage I feel in my legs - which affects how I sleep and recover post Ironman. Because of so much walking throughout 26.2 miles, I luckily didn't experience the typical extreme tissue/muscle damage that occurs during 26.2 miles in an Ironman. I was still very sore and had some familiar aches in my left leg but overall, it wasn't as bad as I expected. Karel, on the other hand, was having a rough night and apparently I slept through it all. He was sore all over - head to toe. We kept Monday as a chill day and reserved it for 1) Awards 2) Eating. The award ceremony was outside in the Olympic Village area (just behind our condo) and we were joined by several of our athletes who were still in town. It w...

I had a great team helping me overcome an injury to my back/hip  that occurred ~3 weeks before the race. During this time, I was unable to run but with every day, I felt myself improving - oh so very slowly. I am grateful to Scott, my PT for the dry needling and exercises which helped my body go from pain to relief. I am also thankful to Frank, my massage therapist, for his time and energy in helping to fix my twisted body. I would also like to thank Valerie - from Physiofocus for seeing me before and after IM Canada (in Whistler). I also had Chris Johnson , PT do some tests on me on Friday before the race (thank you Chris for your time and help!). With many hands helping my body, I was able to arrive to the race feeling like my body had overcome an injury. While I still wasn't out of the woods yet, I felt relieved that I was no longer in pain. I'd also like to thank Karel who was so supportive during this time. I knew it was hard for him to see me not running but I fo...

The first few miles of the Ironman Canada bike were a little technical as there were speed bumps, bumpy roads and a few twists and turns. I didn't want to do anything silly in these early miles so I treated it as a warm-up, especially since my body was still adjusting to the bike position after the swim and I was finding myself a bit cold from being so wet from the swim. Once I got on the main road (Sea to Sky hwy) I started to ride into my Ironman event. The layout of this course was rather simple as there were four main segments. To Callaghan Climb, Callaghan Climb, to the far turn around, riding back to town and then you repeat. This allowed me to break the course up into small segments so that I could focus on executing each segment to the best of my ability. Although I didn't have any metrics to abide to, I lapped my computer at each segment so that I could check in with my metrics just to see how my numbers (specifically lap normalized power) was correlating to my ...

Photo: David McColm Saturday was a smooth day. I woke up around 5am after a solid 8 hours of sleep. Since arriving to Whistler, I've been going to bed around 7:30pm PST (asleep by 8-8:30pm PST) and waking up without an alarm around 4:45-5am. After my normal 2 waffles + syrup + peanut butter pre-workout snack, I headed out on my bike around 7:30am for an easy spin on the race course. I used the first 45 minutes to include a few efforts to wake-up the legs and then finished off the ride with a recon of some of the run course (easy spinning). Karel went out shortly after me and did his own thing but we unexpectedly saw each other on the run course (biking). I attempted a jog off the bike but I was still feeling some tugging in my adductor/groin so I didn't try to run through it. It left me a little sad with less than 24 hours before race day but I also reminded myself that I can't waste energy on something out of my control. After our morning workout, we each had a ...

Ironman Canada has been on our racing bucket-list for the past few years. We were immediately drawn to the challenging bike course. We find that the more difficult the race course, the more satisfaction we feel when crossing the finish line. It's also a lot easier to reflect on the race as a whole when there's more to think about than just a finishing time. Although Karel and I "race" the Ironman distance, the real race is always with ourselves - overcoming physical and mental obstacles, pushing through fatigue and self-doubts, exploring our limits and finding reasons and meaning to get to the finish line. With this being my 15th Ironman, I have a lot of experience knowing what it takes to get to the finish line and a big part of that battle is arriving with a strong and healthy body and a positive attitude. Whistler exceeded our expectations. The community was exceptional nice, the Ironman volunteers were wonderful, the Ironman staff put on a great race and th...

Now that we are officially settled into Whistler, I can honestly say that I've fallen in love with this place. Never have we raced in such a beautiful venue - and we've raced in some beautiful places! The scenery is jaw-dropping and I keep finding myself wowing at every mountain view and scenic river. It's just beautiful here. While it's always good to adjust to the time zone as soon we arrive, it's actually easier for us to get to bed a bit earlier so that we can wake-up a bit earlier - similar to our schedule at home on the east coast. With a super early race start on Sunday (6am), I am trying to get to bed around 7:30/8pm so that I can get a restful night of sleep and still wake-up feeling rested. This morning I woke-up around 4:45am after a solid night of sleep. The temperature has been very comfortable during the day and drops slightly in the evening. After a pre-workout snack (waffles + PB and Canadian Maple Syrup for me and oatmeal for Karel), we drove a...

We finally made it to Whistler and wow, it is breathtakingly beautiful!! But to get here, it was a long and stressful trip.  I allowed 7.5 hours to travel to the Atlanta airport from our home so that we wouldn't be rushed for our 7:30pm flight. Our plan was to check in our bags and bikes at the airport, drive to our friends house to drop off our car and then head back to the airport. Again, I planned 7.5 hours for all of this. After dealing with the unavoidable Atlanta traffic, we arrived to the airport around 3:15pm (3 hours and 15 minutes after we left our house). Check-in was surprisingly smooth and thanks to Delta's new bike policy, our bikes were free!! Wahoo! All we had to do was pay for an extra bag (we each had 1 suitcase and 1 bike bag) so we paid only $100 instead of $300. When we travel, we park in the hourly parking to check in several hours before our flight as it's a lot easier to take our stuff directly from the parking garage across the street vs...