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IM 70.3 Blue Ridge - Quick Recap

  Our racing block was a success. We completed three long distance triathlons in 29 days.  May 7th - Ironman World Championship  (St. George, Utah) May 22nd - Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga  (Chattanooga, TN) June 5th - Ironman 70.3 Blue Ridge (Roanoke, Virginia) The past 4 weeks have been fun, exciting, challenging and empowering.  FUN Although traveling can be stressful, we love our race-cations. In St. George, Karel re-connected with his friends from Czech. We were reunited with the beauty of the red rocks in and around St. George. In Chattanooga and Roanoke, we had over 20 Trimarni team members participating in each race. It was so great to see familiar faces. We love racing and being able to travel to three different places in a month was a lot of fun. Each race provided us with a different race experience and unique course features. The community support, volunteers and professionalism for each race was incredible and we felt welcomed (and safe) at every race v...

Goodbye 30's .........

  When I reflect on the past ten years, I can't believe how much happened in my life. I learned a lot. I made mistakes. I struggled a lot. I celebrated milestones and achievements. I did a lot of things for the first time. I cried. I worried. I stepped out of my comfort zone.  Life is hard. Life is short. Life is uncertain.  Life is exciting. Life is fun. Life is amazing.  Age is just a state of mind. You are as old as you think you are.  I worked incredibly hard in my 30's. Now that I am 40, I guess it's time to ask myself "what's next?" 40 things that happened in my 30's.  Started my business Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition.  Moved from Jacksonville, Florida to Greenville, SC.  Bought a house and two cars.  Paid off the house and two cars.  Traveled to Europe 4 times.  Raced in Europe 4 times.  Wrote three books.  Did a lot of public speaking.  Wrote articles/quoted in various magazines (Triathlete, USAT, Runner's W...

Celebrating 30 years as a vegetarian

I recently celebrate my 30th anniversary as a vegetarian. Sometime around the age of 10 in the month of April, I told my parents that I didn't want to eat meat anymore. I am not sure what caused this decision but from a very early age, I've had a strong love for animals/creatures. My parents thought it would be a short phase but as the years went by, I never grew out of it. And despite many people in my life telling me that I would need to eat meat in order to participate in sports, I never let my decision to be a vegetarian impact my athletic lifestyle. Over the past three decades, I've learned a lot from my own journey as a vegetarian. To celebrate my anniversary, I thought it would be fun to share some of my most commonly asked questions when people hear that I am a vegetarian.  What kind of vegetarian are you? I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian. I consume eggs and dairy products as part of my vegetarian diet. Although I've had many times when I've considered becoming...

IM 70.3 Chattanooga Race Report

We left Thursday in the late morning and drove through Knoxville, TN in route to Chattanooga. The drive took us around 5 hours with traffic/construction by Asheville, bathroom and a stop at Chipotle and Trader Joe's just outside of Chatty. We arrived around 4pm and checked into our Airbnb. Karel just purchased a  Sea Sucker  bike mount for the top of the car and although I was worried our bikes would fly off, they stayed really secure during our drive. The device is super easy to use and really practical for travel (and it only weighs 11 lbs so it would be great to travel with when we rent a car for races).  It's getting a bit harder to travel with Campy because he needs to be with one of us at all times (he can't be left alone in the Airbnb because he gets confused and anxious). He also gets tired more easily which means he can't be on the move for long periods of time. But we love making memories with him. At the age of 14.5 yrs old, I am not sure how many more race-c...

IM 70.3 Chattanooga - Quick Recap

  A few years ago in 2018, Karel completed two Ironman distance triathlons within three weeks (IM Kona followed by IMFL held in Haines City, FL ). Karel finished IMFL in a very depleted and exhausted state. His body and mind was not fully recovered from the Ironman World Championship and his body was empty by the time he started the marathon run at IMFL. But in this experiment, he learned a lot about himself. Had he not accepted this challenge, he would have never discovered his physical limits and capabilities.  Fast forward to the present, we were both a bit unsure how we would perform at IM 70.3 Chattanooga after completing the Ironman World Championship in St. George just 15 days prior. It was only last year that I did my fastest turnaround between two races - IM 70.3 Chattanooga and then IM 70.3 Blue Ridge two weeks later. I had a lot of trust in my body that it was healthy enough to accept this challenge but there were still a lot of unknowns as to what type of damage w...

IM World Championship St. George - 26.2 mile run recap

  GEAR Karel: Shoes Nike Alphaflys,  SL-1x Roka Sunglasses Marni: Shoes New Balance FuelCell, Perfect cooling towel , SL-1x Roka Sunglasses (Shoes from Run In ) NUTRITION Karel: 10-ounce Nathan flask filled with NeverSecond C30 (Citrus) stored in kit pocket, carried packets of precision hydration 1500 and had 3 maurten gels (2 non-caffeine and 1 caffeine). Water/ice at aid stations. One sip of coke. Marni: 2 x 10 ounce flasks filled with NeverSecond C30 (Forest Berry), carried packets of C30 and NBS but didn’t refill. Sipped coke at aid stations throughout as needed + water/ice. Naked Running band.  Nathan 10 ounce flasks.    I knew the first two miles would be uncomfortable because I've raced on this course 3 times (70.3 distance). The first few miles are on a long slight gradual uphill. It's never fun running uphill to start a run but then again, we live on the bottom of a hill so we are accustomed to starting every brick run on a hill. Mentally, Karel...