Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

                                      In the morning, I laid out my gear for the race. As usual, I prepare my race gear way early and Karel typically waits until later in the day. With this only being my third Xterra race, I wanted to see a visual of all my items to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything for the race. We went for a ~30 min shake out run in the direction of Strand. As we started the run, there were several markets getting set up for the weekend. On the way back, we ran/walked through some of the markets. It was interesting to see the diversity in items at the market tables. On one table was clothing and on another table, were scrapes from electronics and cars. We also passed by a fruit vendor with lots of different seasonal fruits. After eating a meal, I finished packing up my gear and worked on the computer for a bit. At 12:40pm, I walked down to the beach to meet up with the...

  \ In early January, I found myself watching a lot of mountain bike skill videos on YouTube. As a complete newbie , I want to learn as much as I can so that I can improve my skills while building confidence and safety. Although I still love triathlon training and racing, I really love bike riding. It was only a matter of time until I added a mountain bike to my collection of bikes. Karel is much more experienced and skilled than me in mountain biking, there are several skills that he is struggling to learn on his own. And after breaking his hand  last May, there are certain obstacles that cause him to tense up (ex. bumps, drops and jumps). Karel has been an exceptional teacher as he has taught me how to go up and down certain rock garden features and how to safely navigate over roots. But since neither of us don't know what we don't know, we felt it would be worth our time, money and energy to invest into a mountain bike clinic.  In late January, Karel came across Lon fr...

  On Saturday morning we drove ~50 minutes to Clinton, SC for the recon group ride of the Gravel Battle Sumter Forest race. Southeast Gravel  puts on great events and as an added feature, many of the events include a free recon ride to preview the course.  There must have been over 60 cyclists attending this group ride, which eventually split into the long route (74 miles) and short route (44 miles). We rolled out at 10am and finished the ride just before 2:30pm. We ended up with 70 miles, 4 hours and 19 minutes (including regroup stops and a water refill) and around 3000 feet of elevation gain. I like this gravel course because it has a nice mix of pavement and gravel and the longest gravel section is around 8 miles. The gravel sections can get a bit dicey due to lots of holes so you need to keep yourself focused throughout the entire ride. There are a few gravel hills but they mostly come near the end (with a few spaced out throughout the route) but much of the rolling ...

Last week (while dealing with Madison's declining health ) we had two of our athletes in town for a 2.5 day private training camp. The focus of the camp was improving off-road bike handling skills (gravel biking). We also included swim/run training in the camp as our athletes have several triathlons on their schedule. But with their first ever ultra-distance gravel event (150-mile) happening late summer, it was important that our athletes improve their gravel skills to that they can both feel more comfortable, safe and confident when training off-road.  Although the weather was not in our favor with predicted rain all day on Thurs and Friday (the two full days of their camp), we got incredibly lucky in that we were able to drive to two different locations and entirely miss the rain. Even better, on Thursday we were able to ride in a short sleeve jersey and shorts!  For Zach and Ashley's camp (husband and wife from Nebraska) we completed the following over 2.5 days:  Thurs...

Before we left for Maui on the 29th, I found myself feeling nervous and excited for my third-ever trail run. In the days leading up to the event, I ran on some of the course and experienced several extreme weather changes (from sun to heavy rainfall). Seeing how exhausting it was to jog/walk/hike on the course when it was in great conditions, my worries of the unknown started to build as the trail got wetter and muddier.  The transition from road to trail racing has been a humbling experience for me. I find that I am good at it but not great. My endurance and resiliency has allowed me to experience some success within my age group at my last three events (Oak Mountain Alabama, Ogden Utah and recently in Maui) but I still have a lot of weaknesses when it comes to my skills and abilities. For example, I lose a lot in the downhill sections of trail running. But what I lose in my lack of skills and experience I gain in my love a new challenge.... even when my heart is beating out of my...

  On Friday afternoon, I asked Karel what his plans were for training on Saturday. I mentioned to him that a small group was riding at 8:30 from the parking lot at North Greenville University (a popular meet-up place for cyclists, around 20 minutes away) but I really wanted to go gravel riding. Karel was excited for the off-road adventure so he planned a route that included a mix of grave and road. He wanted to show me some of the segments that he covered during the Belgium Waffle Ride .  We decided to leave from North Greenville University and it worked out great that we started our ride with a few of our friends that were riding on the road. The first ~60-minutes was mostly climbing as we headed toward the Watershed and the up the Hendersonville side. We accumulated around 1500 feet of elevation gain on the road, while chatting with those in the small group. The time went by fast and sometimes I forgot that I was on my gravel bike. That's the nice thing about having a grave...