Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

1. What are you most excited about these days? That it's summer and the weather is warm!  2. What’s your favorite holiday? Thanksgiving. 3. Favorite season? Summer.  4. Where does one go on a perfect road trip? To a race.  5. What is the best activity when home on a rainy day? Writing.  6. If you could switch lives with someone for a day who would it be? Campy.  7. What is the best thing that happened this year? I signed a contract to write two more books! 8. What’s your New Year’s resolution? I don't set resolutions. 9. What’s your favorite exercise? Swimming. 10. Best way to decompress? Talking Campy for a walk.  11. What’s your favorite country to visit? Europe. 12. Last country you visited? Europe. 13. Country you wish to visit? South Africa. 14. What’s your favorite ice-cream? Mint chocolate chip.  15. What makes you smile the most? Animals.  16. What’s the coolest thing in the world? Nature....

Going into IM 70.3 Chattanooga race week, our coach told us that we would be taking a week break from triathlon training before getting into our training for Ironman Canada. Karel and I were really excited for this break. While we love training, we aren't injured and we aren't burnt out, we know that a physical and mental removal from sport is a necessary part of being an athlete. Certainly, it's much easier to enjoy a planned and intentional break than a break that is forced and unplanned due to injury, sickness, life or burnout. In other words, a necessary recharge is a way to help the body better adapt to training stress. We were told from our coach that we could swim, bike and run (since these are great activities for overall health) but the goal is to return to training on Monday the 26th feeling excited to put in some hard work for the next 8 weeks. We were also given guidelines as to what we could do IF we did swim, bike or run in terms of duration per workout ...

It's no surprise how much I love Campy. For the past 10+ years, Campy has been living the best life ever as I've made sure that no day is ever wasted for my furry little pooch. Because a dog's life is so short compared to us humans, I always make the effort to make memories together. Campy and I love being outside and exploring nature. The hotter the weather the better as we both love the heat. Campy loves being in the car and he's always up for a road trip. He loves smelling/exploring new places. As part of our week-break from triathlon training (more on this in a future blog), Karel and I decided to do a different outdoor activity - Kayaking! Of course, I couldn't imagine being outside, making memories and enjoying the sun without Campy. We all had our first experience Kayaking at Lake Jocassee and we had a great time. Not only is this lake absolutely beautiful but it's also pet friendly. Kayaking gave us a great workout and it was a nice change from ou...

It's well-documented that if a workout is less than 60 minutes, there is no need to take in any carbohydrate. However, for workouts lasting more than an hour, carbohydrate has been shown to improve performance. Despite scientific literature telling athletes when fuel is or isn't needed, I encourage my athletes to use sport nutrition all-year long, regardless of the workout duration. For me and Karel, we never train without eating before a workout and we always have sport nutrition in our bottle(s) when we workout.  While this may appear as if I don't understand exercise physiology or that I am putting my body at a metabolic disadvantage, that couldn't be further from the truth. Consider these facts: It can take up to 8 weeks to train your gut to adapt to the mechanics of fueling and exercising. It can take several months of trial and error to figure out which sport nutrition products have the right types / amounts of carbohydrates an...

Marni Race Day Nutrition  Pre Race Nutrition (race day) -2 waffles, peanut butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon -Cup of coffee (Nescafe Gold Instant) -Small glass of water -Small glass of water w/ 1 scoop Osmo pre-load for women -In the 90 minutes before the race - 16.9 ounce plastic water bottle filled with 2 scoops NBS Carbo Hydration (100 calories/25g carbs/300mg sodium) -~15-20 min before race start - 3 Skratch Rasberry chews Bike:  -Front bottle cage - 26 ounce bottle w/ 6 scoops  NBS Carbo Hydration  Strawberry Lemonade (240 calories/60g carbs/720 mg sodium). -1.2 Liter (40 ounce) Ventum hydration system - 4 scoops INFINIT custom nutrition (pink lemonade flavor) mixed with water in a bottle, then poured into hydration system (total: 500 calories/122g carbs/1012mg sodium) -Rear bottle - 26 ounce bottle w/ 2 scoops INFINIT custom nutrition (grape flavored) (250 calories/62g carbs/506mg sodium) - only consumed a few sips, used as back-up fuel/hy...

Pre-race We arrived to Chattanooga on Thursday afternoon. With this being our 4th time Chatty for a race, it was nice knowing that we are familiar with the area. It was a fairly stress-free 4.5 hours of travel and Campy was super excited for his road trip. He loves the car and of course, being with us. The week going into the race was extremely rough for me. My body was exhausted from my last block of training and my hormones making me feel blah (more on this in a later blog). Karel was on and off - one day he felt pumped to race and then the next day he felt flat and tired. A lot of this was from lingering fatigue from St. George 70.3 just two weeks ago. Whereas Karel doesn't overthink, I experienced a roller-coaster of emotions, thoughts and physical issues on race week. Thankfully, come Friday I started to feel a lot better and the closer we got to the race, the more excited I was to race. We booked a cool Airbnb townhome (pet friendly) just 2.5 miles from the race venue whic...

I remember a time not too long ago in my triathlon journey when my love for training outweighed my love for racing. Sure, race day was something I always looked forward to but with every race came expectations, pressure, competition and worry about the unknowns. Race day was stressful whereas there was nothing to worry about when I trained - as no one was watching. Over the years, I've studied Karel and his love for racing. He loves to race. If he could, he would race every weekend. I've noticed that he always displays a few special "race day" qualities. Applying these strategies to my own pre-race and race day thought processes has allowed me to love racing as much as I love training. Here are a few takeaways of how to enjoy racing and to get the most out of your race experience: Don't chase results, PR's or podiums. Race the competition - whoever shows up on race day.  Preparation builds confidence.  Rely more on RPE over metrics to race more proactiv...