Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

Positive Body Image The 365-Day Running Journal , Pg 18. Whether you are a casual jogger or an experienced racer, you may believe that changing your body composition will help you reach your running goals. After all, how many times have you heard the mistaken belief that lightening-up will speed you up? With any type of sport, it’s normal to look to others and see where you stack up based on performance, training volume and body type. While running can be a great activity to help shed excess body fat to improve your overall health, there’s a downside to competitive leanness. Chasing the idea that weighing less will enhance performance may deprive you of the fuel and nutrients that you need to optimize performance and to maintain great health. The media is oversaturated with images of fast runners with six-pack abs, lean arms and long slender legs. Constant exposure to these images can make you believe that you are not built like a runner - increasing body consciousness, low...

On Sunday evening, we lost a beautiful soul. Just shy of 96 years, Grandpa Joe touched the lives of so many. While it's never easy to say good-bye to a loved one, Grandpa passed away peacefully in his sleep - without suffering from any disease or illness. Certainly, a goal of us all to live a long and fulfilling life! When I was dating Karel in 2006, we traveled to Reno to bike around Lake Tahoe. I remember how worried Grandpa was about us and spent the entire day awaiting for our arrival. We finished the ride with ice cream - Grandpa's treat. Then for my honeymoon in 2009, Karel and I traveled back to Reno in the winter and Grandpa loved that we could share a bit of his hobby on the ski slopes. My grandpa took up skiing at the age of 50. He taught his three daughters and all of us grand kids how to ski. His long-time wish was to be cremated and for his ashes to be scattered over Mt. Rose. Karel loved hearing stories of “way back when” and Grandpa had ...

Time is flying by and I'm happy to report that I am now running! Although it's only been a few 10 minute runs on the treadmill (three of them), I'm thrilled with my progress. I'm a firm believer in frequency over quantity when it comes to a return to activity after an injury for the body needs time to adapt to training stressors and frequent exercise will allow for slow but gradual adaptations. Also, in my situation, I'm learning new motor patterns and finding myself wanting to go back to old bad habits of arching my back (anterior pelvic tilt), using my back and hamstrings to move me forward and not engaging my glutes. So in an effort to fix these things, I need constant exposure to this movement - which means continuing with PT, strength and marching. My movement specialist has been great as she touches me in the right spots so I can feel what muscles I should be using and where my body should be moving. She is also a stickler for posture. I'm als...

Running, like any other individual sport, teaches you many life lessons. It's simple, and yet deceptively complex. People run for different reasons, such as weight loss, health or stress relief. Running doesn't discriminate. With every run, you're presented with a new challenge, a time to reflect and an opportunity to problem-solve. It's your cherished "me time," a way to run from, for or to something. It connects you with your community, helps you explore nature, inspires you to travel the world, and temporarily removes you from the stresses of life. The confidence and feeling of accomplishment from any type of run will carry over into your daily life, reminding you that you have the strength to conquer anything that comes your way. Running is the ultimate badge of perseverance. More than just a blank space to document your training miles, the 365-day Running Journal is designed to teach you more about yourself as you give mean...

Preparing for a triathlon is much more than checking off workout to improve fitness and booking travel accommodations. Nutrition plays an important role in race day readiness. Whether you are training for an Ironman or a local sprint triathlon, nutritional preparation is key. How you fuel during a race primarily depends on the duration of the event and your racing intensity (which is based on your fitness level). Nevertheless, proper fueling will help you maximize recovery, fuel your workouts appropriately, boost your immune system and to maintain a healthy body composition, alongside building confidence for race day. While triathletes can get away with a haphazard sport nutrition strategies (or not fueling at all) during short workouts, competing at your best requires you to constantly fine-tune sport nutrition strategies to help minimize the fluid, electrolyte and fuel depletion that may compromise your performance and health on race day. Because proper sport nutrition should...

It felt great to get back into structured training last week. I was a bit nervous for my long ride on Friday (4.5 hours) as it was my first outdoor ride since IM Canada so I recruited my friend/athlete Al to join me for company since Karel is out of town. Karel was in Mont Tremblant supporting our athletes who were racing there (both did amazingly great!). I've also been recruiting my swim partner Kristen for my swims - on Thursday we had a toughy of a workout. The main set was 4000 (after a 500 warm-up) and the workout was a lot of building, pacing and specific intervals to hit. Our arms were super tired at the end! Although I'm still not run training yet, I did my first run (on the treadmill) this morning - yay! Celebrating the small milestones. While I've never had a bone related injury, I'm well familiar with soft-tissue injuries and the biggest thing stopping me from running over the past few weeks was the tugging and tightness that I was feeling. While not t...

In many sports, it is considered beneficial to achieve a leaner body composition for locomotive efficiency — in other words, the less you weigh, the easier it is to move your body. Within the sport of triathlon, triathletes are not immune to this mindset and will often manipulate the diet in order to achieve a lower body fat percentage. Although there are safe and healthy ways to change body composition, triathletes can be very rigid and inflexible with their thoughts and actions. When a driven, perfectionistic, competitive, achievement-oriented triathlete is constantly exposed to diet discussions, advertisements, articles, endorsements and images on social media, a general interest in weight loss may manifest into an unhealthy obsession. With so many ways to enhance performance and to optimize health, two of the most popular sought-after strategies by athletes include diet and body composition changes. When done correctly, performance may improve. However, it’s not uncommon for a...