Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

  For athletes, Thanksgiving often arrives during a time of off-season rebuilding, or much-needed rest. Perhaps there's a reason for this timely holiday. You now have a chance to step back and appreciate everything that makes your athletic journey possible. This Thanksgiving, take a moment to thank every part of your athletic life. And most importantly, don't forget to thank your body.

Dear body, With only a few more days until Clash Daytona half distance (my last race of the year), I wanted to take the time to thank you for an incredible year of training and racing. You let me participate in 13 events over the past eleven months. From mountain biking and gravel racing to off-road triathlon to 70.3 and finishing off with two XTRI events, you allowed me to step out of my comfort zone, utilize a wide range of mental skills and test my strength and endurance. You let me push myself in a variety of ways and it was an honor to share each experience with you.  With nine of my 13 events taking over 5 hours to complete, I never take for granted what you allow me to do, mentally and physically. My love for you is not for a look or image but for the life that you allow me to live.  I know for you to take care of me, I must take care of you. I promise to never deny you energy or nutrients in order to look a certain way or for performance gains. I promise to aloways giv...

Winning my first Ironman as overall amateur female at 2017 IM Chattanooga and giving my body a huge thank you for being oh-so-amazingly strong and healthy. What do you think about your body? Standing on the podium in first place, yet you feel "too fat." Achieving a personal best time, yet your legs/butt feels "too big." Doubting your abilities because your stomach feels "too heavy." Blaming your subpar performance on your weight.  Lacking self confidence because you don't look like other athletes. In each of these scenarios, is an athlete who believes one of two things: That looking differently will improve athletic success or a current look is the reason for lack of athletic success. Despite putting in the training and being physically prepared for an event, actual acceptance of one-self can be a major athletic limiter. Inside, you have internalized feelings of being inadequate because of a look, a comparison or an assumption. Poor body ...

Here we are again, back in Chattanooga! As we were driving into town on Tues evening, my stomach felt a little funny as it felt strange to return to the place where my fainting setback left me with a smashed face and an unfulfilled feeling for my last race of the season. But I didn't let this feeling get to me because I returned back to Chattanooga with Karel with excitement and gratitude for another race opportunity by my body. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I have emotionally moved on from my recent DNS at the Ironman 70.3 World Championship but physically, a big part of me feels like I have some unfinished business here in Chattanooga. Knowing that stuff happens and we can't control the future, the only way that I could move on from my last race experience was to make sure that my next racing decision was not for anyone else but myself.  I wanted to do a race that made me happy. After giving my next race a lot of thought, I couldn't be more excited to turn m...

Frustration, stress, fear, anger, disappointment, insecurity. Food restriction, in an effort to change your body, will not fix emotional issues. Do not make your body a target when you are having a bad day, an off moment or things just don't seem to be going well. Do not take your emotions out on your body. The only way you can get through life is WITH your body. Give it a thank you every now and then. Starting now.

When was the last time you thanked your body? When you look in the mirror, how do you talk to/about your body? When you train and eat, does your body image dictate your choices in a positive or negative way? An unhealthy body image in athletes can increase the risk for disordered eating habits.  Avoiding major food groups (carbohydrates), not fueling around/during workouts, skipping meals and snacks and dehydration are some of the examples of unhealthy strategies that athletes often take to gain control over eating in an effort to change body composition/image. Whether you are an athlete who seeks weight loss/body composition changes to improve overall health, you are an athlete who struggles with body image due to comparison with other athletes, comparison to a past you or overall discomfort with your body image, or you are an athlete who follows a very restrictive diet and extreme exercise routine in an effort to maintain a specific body composition/image whi...

If you want to feel inspired, motivated to work out and amazed by the human body, I recommend to watch Kacy Catanzaro do the incredible as she becomes the first women to make the finals in American Ninja Warrior.  I am extremely passionate about helping athletes learn how to develop a healthy relationship with food and the body through my business but I am also no stranger to expressing my thoughts with  the athlete's body,  and concerns with  body image  and ultimately giving guidance to athletes on how to  build a better body image . So when something so amazing, related to the human body in motion, goes viral in the mainstream media, I love the opportunity to share my thoughts on a very important topic.  Body Image How do you see your body at rest and how to do you see your body in motion? As an athlete or fitness enthusiast, we must not forget that you are not an exerciser. You have goals for your body and ultimately, you hav...

  Preparation The activity or process of making something ready or of becoming ready for something. Things that are done to make something ready or to become ready for something. A state of being prepared.  We all have our own definitions for being/feeling prepared. For the athlete, it may be following an arbitrary training plan and for others, it may be putting all your trust into a coach to design the perfect plan for you to peak and taper properly and execute on race day.  I'm sure we can all think of a time when we felt prepared and things didn't go as planned. And of course, the times when we didn't feel prepared and it showed.   But then there are those times when we didn't feel prepared and we surprised ourselves.  Some say that preparation is key to success. Failing to prepare is like preparing for fail.  When it comes to carrying the human body for 140.6 miles, preparation is certainly key. There's always that ...

source This is one of my favorite pictures to use in my presentations when I talk to athletes and fitness enthusiasts about learning how to have a healthy relationship with food and the body. I'm sure that you can see immediately why I love this picture. Both athletes are incredible because of what they are able to do with their body.  If you are currently training for an event or have ever trained for a race, you may have noticed that through hard work, consistency, a balanced diet and proper sport nutrition and nutrient timing your body became stronger, faster or more powerful to carry you through longer and/or more intense workouts.  Sadly, many athletes are not only seeking great fitness gains for an upcoming event but chasing the "look" of an athlete.  In reference to the above picture, place the two athletes side-by-side at the beach, in bikinis, and Zelinka will likely gather a lot of attention for her defined body. Put the two athletes side-by-side at th...

My legs were tired, it was hot and humid, the wind was blowing and I was riding behind Karel on his new Speed Concept. 33 days until Kona and I think I just finished one of my hardest training blocks ever. Thank you BODY! -Sunday's workout- 5 hour ride + 15 min run Bike: 1 hour warm-up, building to 10 watts below IM pace (legs took a while to warm-up thanks to the stress I placed on my body from Saturday's 3:15 bike + 9.5 mile run). 35 min IM pace w/ 5 min EZ Main set 3x's: 35 minutes @ Half IM pace (watts) w/ 4 minutes in between (see below of details of this set) Steady riding upper Z2 until finished Total hours: 4:58 Miles: 99.3 15 min run off the bike (RPE 75-80%, ended up holding 8-8:15 min/miles) Since Karel is training for a half IM (Miami 70.3 in the end of October), his training is a bit different than mine right now. He ran 1 hour before the bike and then joined me on my 2nd interval. After I did 35 minutes of riding at my IM pace and then ...