Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

  Today is the first day of fall! It also happens to be Karel's birthday (shhh - he doesn't want to make a big deal of it 😉). In our recent weekly newsletter, Joey shared a delicious energy ball recipe with all the right ingredients to warm your belly on a crisp fall day. Enjoy!  Pumpkin Chocolate Energy Balls By Joey Mock, RD, LD, CLT With Fall comes thoughts of crisp mornings, colorful leaves, apple picking, and, if you enjoy pumpkin, getting your seasonal pumpkin fix. These no-bake energy balls make a delicious, quick, and convenient snack while offering the nutrition benefits of pumpkin (like vitamin A, potassium, and fiber) and pumpkin seeds (like magnesium, zinc, iron, potassium, and fiber). This recipe makes about 20 balls (using a 1 ½ Tablespoon cookie scoop to portion out the mixture). Ingredients 2 cups oats ½ cup canned pumpkin puree ¼ cup almond butter ¼ cup flaxseed meal ¼ cup pumpkin seeds 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract ½ teaspoon cinnamon ¼ cup maple syrup ¼ cup...

  The picture is from the Kona, Hawaii. On nine separate occassions for almost 2 weeks, between 2007 until 2019, this was our view in early October. The Ironman World Championship has a very special place in our hearts. I have had the privilege of racing 5 times on the Big Island and Karel has raced 4 times. At Ironman Lake Placid this year, we both earned a slot to race in Kona again. Had we accepted, we would have been heading back to the Big Island to participate in the IM World Championship.  This  is a picture   from Molveno, Italy. A place we've never been to before. On Monday, we will be flying (back) to Europe for the  Xterra World Championship . Karel qualifed at the 2021 USA Championship in Ogden, Utah. Originally I was planning to bring my mountain bike and make the trip an epic train-cation while supporting Karel but I unexpectedly received a rolldown slot after participating in the Xterra European Championship in Czech Republic and I accepted the s...

  Ever since I started mountain biking (back in December 2021), it never feels like training. Nature feeds my soul. It's been such a fun journey and I find myself improving with every ride. We have very technical terrain where we ride - with a lot of roots, rocks, tight turns, climbs and descends - so I have been forced to learn the hard stuff very early on. But with every struggle there was motivation to continue to improve. My weakness is still cornering as I slow down a lot but it's something I'm determined to continue to work on so that it becomes a strength.  Over the past two weeks, I've really seen my skills improve. I've been able to get up and over obstacles that I've never done before. On Tuesday, Karel took me to Paris Mountain - which has some of the hardest mountain biking trails in our area. I was very scared and intimidated riding on these trails for the first time but Karel helped me ease into it and by the end, I found myself gaining a lot of co...

After spending several weeks in Europe, I find it challenging to adjust to the American food culture. When I return, I am quickly reminded of the dysfunctional eating habits of many Americans. Now you may be assuming that I am talking about the oversized portions, heavily processed snacks and convenient fast food that have become normalized in the USA and are commonly contributed to obsesity and health problems. Although the food industry is partly to blame, it's actually the diet industry that I despise. As we accumulated cycling miles and elevation in the French Alps, I spent very little time on social media. When I eventually opened my Facebook app and started scrolling, I was quickly reminded of our nation's unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. After a few posts talking about intermittent fasting and low carb diets, I had to close the app as I became so frustrated to see what I was reading. Certainly, my situation is a bit unique in that Karel's family lives in Cze...

  STAGE 7  August 27th, 2022 Start: Megeve, France Finish: Megeve, France 62 miles 4:21 riding time 14.2 mph average 7628 feet Climbs: Epine (6.9K), Croix Fry (11.3K), Aravis (4.4K) After 6 days, we didn't think we would make it this far. The final day. All that was between us and becoming an official Haute Route finisher was 62 miles. On any day in Greenville, riding 7600 feet would be a big climbing day but for stage 7, it was a "light" day. Besides the time trial, every stage involed over 10,000 feet of climbing. I was really looking forward to completing this event and I wore my Haute Route jersey (included in our race packet) as a celebration for making it to the last stage.  At breakfast, I looked at the results and I was safely sitting in 2nd place in my age group. Unless something extreme happened (ex. mechanical or crash), I felt like I could remain 2nd in my age group (40-44). I felt like that was a big accomplishment and I brought that motivation to the stage. ...

  STAGE 6 August 26th, 2022 Start: Meribel, France Finish: Megeve, France 85.45 miles 6:10 riding time 11.0 mph average 12,086 feet Climbs: TRA (9.7K), Cormet de Roselend (19.2K), Saisies (16.3K) By this point in the event, we had our morning routine nailed down and we started to become a bit more relaxed in the morning. Whereas we had stuck to a strict 2-hour before the event wake-up, we gave ourselves a bit more time to sleep in and woke up at 5:45am instead of 5:30am. We walked across the street to get breakfast and then packed up our room. At this point I was out of Skratch Super Fuel (which I used for the first 4 stages in my first two bottles). I used 2 heaping scoops C30 from Never Second and 1 packet of EFS Salty Watermelon (which was really good) in my other bottle. I also had some chews to give me a bit more calories since my other bottle only had 110 calories.  Since we didn't have far to go for the staging area (it was right next to our hotel), we made our way to t...