 So the big day is done, you’re feeling sore but satisfied with the way things turned out. Your next step is to get your body recovered and ready to train again. If you’re done for the year, well I guess you could just work your way into the off season and enjoy your free time. But, if you’re looking to race again within a couple months you’d best get going on that recovery. A few things to keep in mind are your need for good calories, your need for fluid, and your need for rest. The good calories are easy, get your fat and salt craving out of the way if you must, but get back on the wholesome food bandwagon as soon as you can. Your body is most likely severly damaged and the only way to bring it around is with good quality nutrients.
You also can’t forget about hydration. Drink crazy amounts of fluid (non-alcholoic and non-caffeinated preferably) in an effort to flush your system of all the toxin build up and breakdown you’ve suffered from race day.
Continue reading Ironman Recovery
 An Ironman is a long day, that is for sure. Even the best are out there for at least 8hrs. Most seem to come in around 10-14, then the survival group, out there exercising for 15+ hours. It’s next to impossible to account for everything that’s going to happen on race day when you’re dealing with that amount of time. Even 8 hours is a ridiculously long training day. Here are some things to ponder.
Hunger at mile 90 of the bike, what should I do? Getting hungry at mile 90 of the bike is not a good sign, it generally means you’ve undershot your calorie intake and have some catching up to do. How are you going to do that before getting off your bike and running a marathon? Answer: slow down so your heart rate lowers and you can digest properly, take in a bunch of food and gradually get the pace back up. Ideally you would catch that problem before mile 90 as it can often be hard to eat at that point of a race.
What happens if you can’t eat solid food anymore? You need calories, so what is your plan going to be on race day? Can you drink Coke for the remaining distance? Are gels your weapon of choice? Can you force a banana down? Have your answer ready as best you can so you know how to deal with the problem.
Continue reading Think your way through it
As triathletes we tend to forget the importance of keeping our core and lateral leg muscles strong. By doing the exercises in the video you engage a range of run- specific stabilizer muscles. This can help prevent injury – namely hip, knee, and ankle injury (provided you don’t over [...]
We have to apologize for falling off the tip bandwagon. We’re working on putting together another one very shortly. Probably in the form of video.
Thanks for continuing to check the site. Hopefully some of the archived tips have been able to keep you busy!
Cheers,
Trevor and [...]
 A great way to monitor your improvement and work on appropriate pacing strategies is to set up training loops. Depending on the length of your ride or run you would ideally cover the loop between 3 and 12 times…or more. This then gives you a tremendous amount of data to look at and see where you start to slow. If you keep track of your average HR and lap splits, you can also compare week to week or month to month to ensure you’re making gains in your training. There are a few different ways to go about tracking your loops:
#1. Peg your HR at a particular level and just keep running or riding while taking splits every lap. You’ll most likely notice a drop in time after every loop – but the fitter you are the less that drop will be and the faster your overall time will be at the conclusion of your chosen distance.
#2. Start slow and get faster throughout. This is a great way to learn how to pace properly. If you can do the first loop in 10 minutes, try and drop a few seconds every subsequent loop until you hit your last lap. This will take practice, no doubt, but it will give huge insight into how hard you can actually ride or run at the beginning of an Ironman leg and sustain that pace right till the end.
Continue reading Loop it up
Those of you who follow Chuckie V’s blog know that he advocates walking as part of your training – time on your feet equals time in the training log. You’ll help strengthen your feet, and if you think about proper form you can also engage your glutes and back [...]
There is no question that having the best, and usually most expensive, equipment can benefit you on race day. However, if you have limited financial resources to devote to Ironman Triathlon, these are our thoughts on where best to spend your hard earned money.
When you look at the [...]
With the high training volumes that go into preparing for an Ironman, skin irritations are inevitable. Chaffing, sunburn, blisters and the dreaded sore red skin around the saddle area are common examples. If you have sensitive skin and have had to squat in the bushes on a long ride, [...]
 Today’s post is a long but Heather the science geek wanted to shed a little light on all of this antioxidant stuff that we hear about and give a bit more in-depth background to support the take home message: eating plant-based whole foods, not relying on antioxidant supplements, is paramount to your recovery and will help you soak up all those hard Ironman training sessions.
A paradox in metabolism is that while the vast majority of complex life requires oxygen for its existence, oxygen is a highly reactive molecule can damage living organisms by producing reactive oxygen species (ROSs – nasty things like the RUSs in the Princess Bride). ROSs are highly reactive ions or small molecules that have unpaired valence shell electrons. Huh? what? Basically they are just hyped up molecules that have all this energy and want to react with stuff so they grab at anything… say lipids in the membranes of your mitochondria. Enough unquenched, super excited, ROSs nipping at things and you can get cell death. Because of this, organisms contain a complex network of antioxidant metabolites and enzymes that work together to prevent oxidative damage to cellular components like DNA, proteins and lipids. Reducing agents, (I’m double-O-carotene) like Beta Carotene and vitamin C neutralize ROS’s and prevent them from causing damage – “leave that cell membrane alone, it’s me your after!”
In general, antioxidant systems either prevent too many nasty ROSs from being formed, or remove them before they can damage vital components of the cell. However, just like all ‘zee Russians’ aren’t bad guys in Bond films – some reactive oxygen species do have useful functions in cells, such as signaling. The function of antioxidant systems is not to remove oxidants entirely, but instead to keep them at an optimum level.
Continue reading Exercise and oxidative stress – get your antioxidants from whole foods
Working on run form is important. With these 3 simple drills you can teach your body to improve your run stride and efficiency, as well as muscle activation patterns. They don’t take long, 5 minutes at the most. Throw them in as part of your warm up, during a [...]
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About this site:
These triathlon and endurance sport related tips have been compiled by Heather and Trevor Wurtele over the years of their progression from working age-groupers to full time professional triathletes. Heather is now a 4 time Ironman Champion and top 10 World Championship finisher. Trevor has an Ironman PR of 8:22 and a 2:51 Ironman marathon.
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So the big day is done, you’re feeling sore but satisfied with the way things turned out. Your next step is to get your body recovered and ready to train again. If you’re done for the year, well I guess you could just work your way into the off season and enjoy your free time. But, if you’re looking to race again within a couple months you’d best get going on that recovery. A few things to keep in mind are your need for good calories, your need for fluid, and your need for rest. The good calories are easy, get your fat and salt craving out of the way if you must, but get back on the wholesome food bandwagon as soon as you can. Your body is most likely severly damaged and the only way to bring it around is with good quality nutrients.
