Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

  Over the past few years, I've celebrated my birthday with some type of cycling. Last year  I was joined by Karel and my friends Garrett and Alvi for a 101 mile ride (with scenic views) and a little over 10,000 feet of elevation gain.  A few weeks ago I started to think about where I wanted to go for my birthday ride and I wanted to do something I've never done before. I was chatting with my friend Garrett and I asked him about riding to and on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Garrett is all for epic rides so he is a great person to consult when it comes to creating routes. Several of my cycling friends have ridden on the parkway but they usually start from the Flat Rock/Dupont/Brevard area. I asked Garrett if he would create a route that included the Blue Ridge Parkway from our area.  The first route  he created started from Marietta (~10 miles from where we live) and included a loop around/on the Blue Ridge Parkway. This was exactly what I was looking for. However, I...

  A year ago, our good friend Joe emailed us about the Paris Roubaix EF Pro Race Camp from April 4-7th, 2024. Immediately, as soon as I read the words Paris Roubaix, I knew this was something that Karel had to do.  Since a very young age, Karel has loved the sport of professional cycling. He got this love from his dad. Karel watches all the grand tours and classics and knows a lot about the sport and the riders. He also loves anything bike related so he regularly stays up on bike tech by reading various websites. Having grown up as a cyclist, he also knows a lot about the 'early days' of cycling.  Check out these pics of teenager Karel.  Behind the Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix is one of the most recognizable events in cycling. Known as the Queen of the Classics and the Hell of the North, this event dates back to 1896 and has taken place 120 times since then. Paris-Roubaix is arguably the hardest one-day cycling race in the world. At almost 260km (161 miles), the un...

 The winter can be a challenging time when it's cold and dreary but getting outside to exercise is an immediate mood booster. And as the saying goes, there's no bad weather, only bad clothing. On Saturday morning, Karel went gravel biking with our friend Alvi and I joined the GVL WBL  group ride. I've participated in this winter bike league for the past few years and it has significantly helped my mental health in the winter. Being inside or alone with my own thoughts is challenging for me and I find that I am the happiest when I am with people. I feel incredibly lucky that I have several swim partners and bike partners to help get me out the door when the weather is less than ideal.    I returned home from my ride shortly before Karel and for the next 20 minutes, I couldn't stop talking about the ride. I told him about the 60+ people that showed up, the horses that ran alongside us in a farm, the guy who didn't have the best bike handling skills and was making me ...

I love the heat and humidity but there's something about winter riding that soothes my soul and sharpens my mind. It's as if the cooler it gets outside, the more excited I get to go outside for a bike ride. I was not always this way - it took me several years to learn how to dress appropriately for cold weather riding but as the saying goes "there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing." Where we live in Greenville, SC. the weather can be unpredictable. Luckily, we are never too cold for too long and it rarely snows. While this is a great thing for year-round outdoor cycling, it does make it tricky for what to wear.  As an example, in the past two weeks, we have enjoyed a variety of weather for a variety of outdoor rides.  Warmish 2-hour afternoon gravel ride. Private skills session with our athlete Diane.  9:30am, 3hr group ride. Started off foggy, stayed cloudy, got warm and then cooler again.  Very cold 3.5 hour mountain bike ride.  Sunny sky, cold...

  STAGE 6 August 26th, 2022 Start: Meribel, France Finish: Megeve, France 85.45 miles 6:10 riding time 11.0 mph average 12,086 feet Climbs: TRA (9.7K), Cormet de Roselend (19.2K), Saisies (16.3K) By this point in the event, we had our morning routine nailed down and we started to become a bit more relaxed in the morning. Whereas we had stuck to a strict 2-hour before the event wake-up, we gave ourselves a bit more time to sleep in and woke up at 5:45am instead of 5:30am. We walked across the street to get breakfast and then packed up our room. At this point I was out of Skratch Super Fuel (which I used for the first 4 stages in my first two bottles). I used 2 heaping scoops C30 from Never Second and 1 packet of EFS Salty Watermelon (which was really good) in my other bottle. I also had some chews to give me a bit more calories since my other bottle only had 110 calories.  Since we didn't have far to go for the staging area (it was right next to our hotel), we made our way to t...