Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

I didn't think that I would be writing a blog post about race day nutrition in 2020 but here we are, just two sleeps away from our first triathlon race of the season. Although it's September (which would be viewed as late season racing in years past), it's surreal to think that this will be our first triathlon race in 11 months!  While not every race day nutrition mistake is a limiter to performance, athletes are quick to place the blame on nutrition when a race day performance doesn't go as planned.  Here are some common race day nutrition mistakes that may compromise your race day performance (and health):  Overfueling - With pressure to perform at your best, it's understandable that you want to optimize performance. With this comes a need to fuel - a lot - in an effort to offset a slow down. Overfueling before and during the race can leave the belly uncomfortably full and cause lethargy. It's understandable to fear running out of energy during the race but o...

  A buddha bowl is not only visually appealing, but the contents inside are incredibly nourishing. Overflowing with color, a Buddha bowl is a one-stop, balanced meal. Ingredients typically include plant (or animal) protein, whole grains and vegetables. Because the options are endless, Buddha bowls allow you to be as creative as you want in the kitchen. As noted on TheKitchen ; "According to Dan Zigmond, a Zen priest and the author of Buddha’s Diet, the name Buddha Bowl might have a very literal origin. “Buddha woke up before dawn every morning and carried his bowl through the roads or paths wherever he was staying. Local people would place food in the bowl as a donation, and at the end he would eat whatever he had been given,” he told Epicurious . “That was the original Buddha Bowl: a big bowl of whatever food villagers had available and could afford to share.” Sure, a buddha bowl just looks/sounds like a meal in a bowl but there's a lot more to it. It's a macronutrient ba...

September is National Suicide Prevention Month.  September 10th is World Suicide Prevention Day - a time to remember those affected by suicide, to raise awareness and to focus on efforts on directing treatment to those who need it the most.  In 2019, the unthinkable happened. We lost an athlete and friend to suicide. Words can't describe the sadness that we felt when we heard he took his own life. We miss him dearly.  Mental health is extremely important to me. Growing up, I always felt like my mind functioned a bit different than other people. But my mental health became more of an issue when my dad passed away just 3-days before my 32nd birthday (2014) after a 10-month battle with cancer. While I continue to learn how to navigate life without my dad, life still has it's obstacles, struggles and setbacks - all of which affect my emotional well-being.  Unfortunately, because of the stigma of a mental illness, it's a silent struggle that many of us share in common. So...

  This picture was from our last triathlon - waaaay back in October at the Ironman World Championship.  After all of our registered events were cancelled, I didn't have much confidence that we would be racing in 2020. Not too long ago in mid-summer, we heard that a USAT sanctioned race was happening just 63 miles away. We kept it on our radar as a possible race option. We waited until 2 weeks before the event before we made the decision to register (which we did last week) and now we can finally say that it is race week!  Karel and I will be participating in the Tugaloo Olympic distance triathlon on Saturday - September 12th, 2020 along with eight of our athletes. I guess we could call this a team race - yippee! Knowing that we are still in a pandemic and the race experience is a bit different, here are a few of my thoughts going into this race:  I have extreme gratitude for the local community, race director and event staff for putting on this race.  We are ta...

  I think it's safe to say that most endurance athletes love physical activity. Certainly it would be difficult to train for a long-distance event if there wasn't a strong passion for working out. But with great enthusiasm to exercise comes a caveat - just because you are exercising, this doesn't mean you are becoming race ready.  Exercise (or physical activity)  is commonly defined as anything that requires you to move your body and burn calories. Training is viewed as working toward adequate levels of strength, endurance, speed and/or power for successful participation (and completion) of an athletic event.  To make the difference easier to understand, exercising satisfies an immediate need and is done for the effect is produces today. Exercise is done for its own sake - either during or immediately after. But when you have a specific performance objective in mind (ex. preparing for an event), you must change your physiology to prepare for the demands of your even...

If you are on a quest to change your body composition or boost your health, you may find yourself overwhelmed by all the different dietary approaches.  Traditionally, the word "diet" describes how you eat. However, over time it has evolved to mean "restriction" or "elimination" - often in attempt to lose weight.  To help you out, I want you know that the perfect diet doesn't exist. There is no one "best" diet that works for every person around the world. Every human being is different - different genes, lifestyle habits, nutritional needs, emotions, activity regimes.....and so much more.  While there are several universal nutrition principles that have consistently shown to improve health, reduce risk for disease, maximize longevity and to help with weight maintenance, I'd like to offer a different way of thinking about food. In other words, if you are on a quest to improve your health or change your body composition, there's much mor...

In my previous blog post , I discussed the struggles that many athletes and coaches are facing during this time of cancelled races.  Before I offer these tips, I want to remind you of a critical component of sport longevity and achieving athletic excellence.  I've been a competitive endurance athlete for the past 14 years. I've had my share of setbacks but I have never lost my love for training. I contribute this to one thing: maintaining joy for the process and letting the outcome take care of itself.   Many athletes experience burnout when preparing for an endurance event. The training journey rarely starts this way but when an athlete feels tremendous pressure on an outcome (race day success), the training becomes stressful, monotonous and tiresome. Although not every workout will be inherently enjoyable (improvements require hard work and stretching the comfort zone) and there are struggles in every athletic journey, maintaining joy for training is an important e...