Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

  One race down, two to go.  We just completed the Whitewater Triathlon and one week later, we will participate in Gulf Coast 70.3. Six days later, we will race Xterra Oak Mountain.  Today we slept in and around 9am, we went for an easy ride. We left the house on our road bikes without a specific route in mind. We explored some different roads and made our way back to the house after around 2.5 hours. I ran an easy 38 minutes off the bike, listening to a podcast.  Although there is no one specific guideline, rule or method to speed the recovery after an endurance event, I feel it's important to walk you through some of the factors that contribute to your recovery time after an endurance event, some of the mistakes that athletes make when recovering from an endurance event and a few strategies to help you get back to good health after an endurance event. Why is race recovery important?  When training for an event, you welcome (and need) intentional and residual ...

After the culmination of many months (or years) of training, your race day is almost here! But now that the “fun” training is behind you, you now feel an enormous amount of pressure to perform.  If you find yourself experiencing a flux of positive and negative emotions before an important race, these pre-race jitters are simply a mix of irrational and rational thoughts relating to your goals and expectations for race day. And when racing anticipations are at their highest, there is a subjective fear of failure that stems from by many uncertainties, doubts and worries. For some athletes, pressure enhances motivation, enjoyment for the sport and focus. These athletes thrive off pressure and turn it into positive energy to boost performance. But for many, the pressure to succeed is so intense that performance is negatively affected. Although pre-race jitters are normal, they are commonly associated with disturbing symptoms like GI issues, mood swings, trouble sle...

In just a few weeks, we will be heading down south to Haines City for our first triathlon of 2018. It's been seven looooong months since we raced in a triathlon and I can't help but think about that early season racing mindset. I forgot what it feels like to push through the low moments, to make the mind work with the body, to be very uncomfortable, to embrace the unknown and to put a lot of mental energy into everything that is needed to have a great swimbikerun in a competitive setting. Racing is a skill. It requires practice and time to perfect. The best part of an early season race is to get back into the racing environment, dust off the rust and to test yourself.......without pressure to be at your best. Because racing is something that you get better at the more you do it, early season races provide a great opportunity to figure out what works best for you without any pressure on the outcome/final results. As an athlete, it's easy to feel pressure to perfor...

On Saturday, I will be racing my 3rd half Ironman distance triathlon of 2017. And 5 weeks later, I'll be wrapping up my triathlon racing season with the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Chattanooga, TN. Although the distance has remained unchanged, athletes are covering the half ironman distance much faster/quicker than ever before. While the distance is not as long as that of an Ironman, I still respect the distance as covering 70.3 miles with the human body is no easy feat. The half Ironman distance requires a lot of preparation. You must be committed to the training for there is no fake it until you make it or wing-it on race day. The training prepares you physically, mentally, emotionally and nutritionally as race day requires great skill, self-management and confidence. Seeing that many athletes define athletic success as 1) A finish 2) Improvement in time, the true success in a half Ironman event comes from being great at not slowing down. Understanding that every...

Traveling to a race is almost a necessity for athletes these days. With so many race options and so many beautiful and bucket-list venues, it's likely that you will travel more than 2 hours to a race course at least once in your racing season. For some athletes, all you know is traveling to races as you have limited options for racing in your city/town.  Race-cations (as we call them) provide a special opportunity to travel to a destination, race somewhere new and (hopefully) enjoy a little sight-seeing and R&R after the race. Although traveling to a race can be exciting, racing is stressful and combining that fact with the many unknowns and potential logistical nightmares of racing in an unfamiliar venue, outside of your home environment, this can bring anxiety, worries and fears - especially if you are racing a new distance for the first time or you have specific goals and expectations for your race.  I encourage you to not push away the thought of tr...

I consider myself extremely lucky.  I just happen to have a sport psychologist/mental skills coach as my best friend. Gloria and I may live on opposite coasts but our friendship continues to grow year after year.  Gloria emailed me before my 2nd Ironman World Championship in 2011 and I could feel her positive energy through the internet. From one email she was a stranger who instantly became a close friend. From a simple email, our friendship began.. I knew she had a gift of knowing how to say the right thing at the right time and she has helped me season after season, year after year, in every one of my races. Her mental skills tricks and ability to verbalize what "we" as athletes think when we train and race is incredible. Ultimately, Gloria knows how to unleash great performances and it all starts with having a stronger, better, healthier mindset when it comes to training.  Karel and I have coached Gloria and her hubby on and off over the past few years ...

Race week is an exciting time. It's a time to reflect on the hard work that allowed you to be physically prepared for race day. Race week is also a time to bottle up energy to use for race day. We always tell our athletes to save their  best performance for race day and race week is no exception. Patience is a virtue. Race week is extremely special because it signifies the end of a journey. There was once a time when you couldn't do the things that you can do now and that's because you had a timeline when you started training and you worked hard to get to where you are now. The deadline has come and you are ready.  You are ready to perform with your healthy, fit and amazing body.  There are many negative thoughts that can fill an athlete's head during training and race week magnifies those thoughts to the extreme. Every thought becomes bigger, scarier and more nerve-wracking. Some athletes do a great job of managing those thoughts whereas other athletes tend ...

What a great feeling to have our A+++ race planned for 2015!!! Is it too early to start the Kona countdown? So the question is....How much fitness can we gain over the next year as we save our best performance for the 2015 Ironman World Championship? Just to clarify, we will never race injured or sick so this schedule is always subject to change. Also, no race on this schedule is as important as Kona so we will never put our bodies in a situation that we may sabotage our Kona race day performance in a less important race. Because we do not incorporate a lot of high volume training into our Ironman training plans, we will use most of our season focusing on skills/form, strength and speed prior to increasing volume. Our typical IM prep is around 12 consecutive weeks. Also, we know that life "happens" all the time and we always strive to find balance in life as age group triathletes so rarely does a planned schedule go 100% as planned.  I will dedicate a blog her...

Over the past few weeks we have had the opportunity to watch a few of our local Trimarni athletes race in Florida at the Clermont Olympic Distance Triathlon and the Haines City 70.3 This is, by far, my absolute FAVORITE thing about being a coach. It's so motivating and inspiring to see our athletes use their bodies on race day and to put weeks/months of training to the ultimate test.  (Thanks Taylor B for the pic!) (Thanks Taylor B for the pic!) Because there are many ways to define a successful race day performance, it's important that athletes always consider having a race day plan and thinking about anything and everything within their control before and during a race. Because it feels great to finish a race knowing that you gave your best effort possible, it's very important that you consider a few very important tips to ensure that you set yourself up for success at every race you participate in on your schedule.  PRE RACE: -Be sure to te...