Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

  After a 60-minute, ~3600 meter long course swim on Wednesday, we returned home to pack up the car and we headed down south to Jacksonville, FL around noon. The ~6 hour drive (with stops) was fairly uneventful and it was nice to listen to triathlon podcasts, knowing that we would be participating in a triathlon event in just a few days. Thank goodness for hot spot as we both could get some work done as the other person was driving.  When we arrived to Joe's house (our good friend, assistant coach at Trimarni and long-time athlete), we were greeted by his son Weston, Erica and my favorite Weimaraner Reagan. Karel and I ate our Chipotle that we picked up just before arriving to Joe's (we both got Sofritas on rice, w/ black beans, veggies, cheese and guac). I had a bit more work to get done after dinner and Karel and Joe put the final touches on our athlete's new Scott Plasma tri bike (Karel built it up the days leading up to our trip and we brought it for our athlete) in Joe...

On Friday morning, I woke up feeling excited that I only had one more sleep until race day. While I loved the idea of having women and men race on separate days, it was a little strange to think that I would not be racing with Karel, on the same day. But at the same time, I was super excited to give my best effort on race day (Saturday) and then get back out there on Sunday to cheer for Karel. The morning started with us driving a few miles downtown so that we could get in a bike and swim workout. As we were driving to the race venue, I felt a little short of breath but I simply contributed it to nerves and my menstrual cycle (day 3). In other words, everything that I felt on Friday felt very normal to me. Once we got on our bikes, I felt much better and the excitement replaced the nerves/anxiety and I was itching to race. After our 70 minute spin on the race course, we followed it up with an open water swim. We heard the water temp had dropped and there was a good chance it would...