Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

  I've been here before, I know the feeling......sixteen times before I've questioned why I do this sport around 3-4 weeks out from Ironman race day.  That final prep in the Ironman journey is always a tough time.  Whereas my previous racing block (three 70.3's in 7 weeks) kept the motivation high for training, the past three weeks have been all about embracing the grind. I'm extremely thankful that I have not had any physical setbacks since the summer of 2019 and after 15 years, I am still passionate about long distance triathlon training and racing. A lot of that comes from having such a great playground for biking and running. But that doesn't mean that this last training block was smooth sailing.  There was self-doubt, there was fatigue, there was soreness and there were some niggles. But through it all, I've been consistently showing up and letting my body and mind work out their differences. However, on Friday last week, my body said "not today" ...

Drive is often the fuel that keeps you motivated to achieve a goal. But a powerful need to succeed can be driven by a fear of failure or constantly comparing yourself to others (or a past version of yourself). The more successful you become in each step of your athletic journey, the more afraid of failure you can become. As a result, you may find yourself compromising your values - and your mental and physical health. The state of being driven can become addictive.  Being intrinsically motivated is required in any successful individual. To work hard and relentlessly pursue a goal with determination is a great quality.  Although drive can be a great thing (when you use it in the right ways), it can also lead to a single-focused mindset. When you are too driven, it can be difficult to switch "off" which can make it difficult to respect your health and well-being.  As an athlete, the competitive nature and strong discipline that can make you a great athlete may also place yo...

  I think it's safe to say that most endurance athletes love physical activity. Certainly it would be difficult to train for a long-distance event if there wasn't a strong passion for working out. But with great enthusiasm to exercise comes a caveat - just because you are exercising, this doesn't mean you are becoming race ready.  Exercise (or physical activity)  is commonly defined as anything that requires you to move your body and burn calories. Training is viewed as working toward adequate levels of strength, endurance, speed and/or power for successful participation (and completion) of an athletic event.  To make the difference easier to understand, exercising satisfies an immediate need and is done for the effect is produces today. Exercise is done for its own sake - either during or immediately after. But when you have a specific performance objective in mind (ex. preparing for an event), you must change your physiology to prepare for the demands of your even...

Every athlete needs a high level of dedication, passion, desire and commitment in order to perform at a high level in training and on race day. For many athletes, the motivation to athletically succeed is borderline obsession. Since training for an athletic event may resemble excessive exercise, an unhealthy obsession with exercise may go unnoticed by a coach, training partner or friend. You may even think that your commitment to training is normal and even encouraged by your coach and those who look up to you as a fitness role model. For every athlete, it can be difficult to understand whether or not your motivation and commitment to your sport is "normal", especially since many athletes are interested in diet and training strategies in order to improve health or performance. Excessive exercise has many health consequences, such as bone and muscle injuries, hormonal issues, cardiac and other organ problems. On the mental side, the addiction to exercise may cause with...

source Ever since a young age, I have loved learning about the human body, especially a moving human body. In 1999, just shy of turning 18 years old and a year away from graduating from High School, my birthday present was a book titled "New Atlas of Human Anatomy" which came with a CD ROM explaining all the human body systems.  I read that book every night, over and over again. Throughout my undergraduate years at Transylvania University, in Lexington, KY, I couldn't get enough from my exercise science classes. Every topic was interesting and exciting and as a student athlete, I was able to apply almost everything that I learned to class to "real world" situations. While majoring in Exercise Science, I quickly fell in love with strength and conditioning which gave me aspirations to be a strength and conditioning coach. Forced to start strength training at the age of 10 as part of my swim team conditioning helped me appreciate the health and performan...

As athletes, we often following a rigid schedule of working out, balanced with a preoccupation with food and body image as it relates to physical performance and overall health.  For many athletes, patterns of exercise obsession and disordered eating coincide with the race season with a heightened awareness of how workouts, food and body composition positively (or negatively) affect performance. When your passion turns into an obsession, see this as a wake-up call that you may be taking your health to an unhealthy place. Sense of worth or ability to succeed should not be tied with a fixed number of hours/miles completed per week or a specific body composition or number on the scale.  If you feel frustrated, anxious or overwhelmed if you miss a workout or find yourself constantly criticizing your body composition, you may be putting yourself into situations where your life is controlled by workout, food and body perfection rather than being focused on developme...