Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

🧂More sodium isn't the solution to your struggles in the heat and humidity. Around this time of the year, I often receive many emails from athletes struggling with sport nutrition while training/performing in the heat and humidity. With good reason, dehydration is a major contributor to health, performance and GI issues. As a result, many athletes believe that they need to consume more sodium during exercise. While sodium is important, high heat and humidity lead to two major problems in the exercising body: 1) increased core body temperature and 2) dehydration Interestingly, the athletes struggling the most (ex. vomiting, cramping, stomach pains, nausea) are already consuming a lot of sodium!   For those who constantly obsess over sodium, it's important to understand the basics of sweat: 💦You do not lose salt without fluid. 💦Sweat is hypotonic (water loss is greater than solute loss). 💦To effectively rehydrate during exercise, you need sodium and carbs to help with the abs...

We just returned from a week-trip to Bend, Oregon. We followed that up with a few days in Salem to support our athletes at Oregon 70.3. Oregon is known for an outdoorsy lifestyle and we witness this first-hand during our recent trip to Bend. As it relates to living an active lifestyle, one thing was evident – the way in which communities and streets are designed. How many times do you commute, run an errand or go somewhere that is less than 5 miles away? How many times do you drive a few miles in order to start a workout? How often do you ride a bike, other than for exercise? There’s a good chance that you will say that it’s not safe to ride a bike where you live or to where you need to go. In many states, the prevalence of physical activity is higher in places where there is little to no access to safe or convenient places to be active – like community parks, sidewalks or trails. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease and Control), common barriers to physical activity include lack...

Pre-Race I was a bit nervous going into the High Cascades 100. We had reconned the back half of the course but the first ~45 miles were all new trails for me. The routes in Bend are incredible. Over 900 miles of single track MTB trails! But the conditions are very different to what I am used to – sandy, jagged pointy rocks and loose dirt. I was also nervous about the start of the race and having 350+ athletes to navigate around going into the single track. I prepared my bottles the night prior and got 2 bags ready for the bag drop (aid station ~45 and ~81). I used a 1.5L plastic water bottle for my hydration pack (either INFINIT Fructose 360 calories/hr or Never Second C30 Berry, 360 calories per bottle/hr) and a sport bottle of Mexican coke (diluted with water). I started with my USWE hydration pack with INFINIT Fructose and a bottle of Never Second C30. I also carried a Power Bar, PB Clif Bar, Power bar chews, Gu aminos and a Never Second Gel. We woke up at 3:45am and ate our normal...

  Oregon has been a bucket list state that I've wanted to visit for a very long time. When we were planning our 2023, our focus was selecting different or new events. We only planned one on-road triathlon (IM 70.3 Blue Ridge for me) and the rest were all off-road events. We love triathlon and our swim, bike, run lifestyle but to keep our spark lite for structured training, it's been fun having a different focus for this year.  Around 2020, we watched a YouTube race recap of the High Cascade 100 MTB event. This was before I started mountain biking. We fell in love with the scenery and the enormous task of riding 100 miles on a mountain bike.  Karel wanted to the Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder 5-day stage race in June and our athletes decided on Oregon 70.3 in late July as a team race. The High Cascade event never left my mind. When I realized that the High Cascades 100 MTB event was a week before Oregon 70.3, we decided this was the year that we should do the event. Just addi...

  26 mile run , 4545 feet – 6:00.00 New Balance Fuel Cell Shoes HOKA trail shoes Women's Distance Carbon Z Trekking/Running Poles (105 cm) Naked Running Band Naked Running Vest Camelback Nathan hard flasks (10 ounce) Naked running soft flasks (17 ounce) 100% gloves Roka sunglasses Cooling towel Marmot Women's GORE-TEX® Minimalist Pro Jacket Nutrition: NeverSecond C30, NeverSecond Gel, Powerbar chews, Skratch Orange, Gu Aminos, Pretzles, Coke, water Mile 1-3.7 – 219 feet, 9:51 min/mile Woods and gravel As I left the transition area, I was looking forward to the first off-road section. I assumed it was all gravel but first I had to make my way through the woods. There was barely a path in the woods. The ground had a lot of roots to run over. It was actually a lot of fun but it required a lot of work to get through. The course was really well marked with pink flags at every turn and keeping us on the path. Once I got through the woods, I was looking forward to gett...

  Photo: Triathlon Canada 111 mile bike, 8993 feet elevation gain – 6:33.10 (6:21.03 riding time, 17.5 miles), fastest female, 6 th fastest overall Ventum One w/ Podium 90 rear and Podium 60 front Boyd Wheels Gearing: Front 39/53. Rear 11-32 Tubeless: Continental Grand Prix 5000 S TR 700x25 Giro Helmet Bont Cycling Shoes Nutrition: 3 x 26 ounce of 360 calories Infinit Fructose, 2 x 26 ounce of 360 calories Neversecond c30 Berry. 1 Never Second bar, 1 bag Powerbar chews, a few sips of coke, 1 bottle water. I had the course downloaded in my Garmin Edge computer and I knew every mile of the course from our recon the previous days but the course was still very well marked and there were plenty of volunteers at the intersections. There were also kilometer markers every 5K. I was very impressed with all the signage on the course and around the venue. Some of the roads were very smooth and well-maintained but overall, the roads were semi to very rough.    Mile 0-9 (16.5 mph, ...