If you’re extremely hard-core and ride in temperatures where your water bottle actually freezes, the best thing to do is mix a slightly stronger than normal drink – First Endurance EFS, for example.  The sugars and electrolytes will not only help keep you hydrated and topped up calorically, but the solution will keep the fluid drinkable.  Then again, they make some pretty darn good indoor trainers nowadays!

So, the next time you’re out riding or running in cold weather and you start feeling a little lethargic, think about the fluids you’ve taken in; it’s possible you could be running on empty.  Your body needs to be hydrated in order to function at its optimal level. If there isn’t enough liquid in your body, essential functions like circulation don’t go as smoothly as they should.  Proper hydration will also help regulate body temperature and keep you in a good mood. If you haven’t been drinking enough water, you can feel tired, cranky, or irritable. You might even imagine that you’re hungry, when your body is actually craving is water.

Drink up!

If you have any un-explained GI issues, or even just find that you have to take bathroom breaks rather frequently during or right after long runs, it can be useful to try going gluten free. Try two weeks without gluten (you’ll be surprised how frequently it crops up), and then re-introduce pastas and breads (basically anything at all to do with wheat) in the third week. Make some notes in a food log about how you feel and see if there are any changes in your digestion when you consume gluten again. If it doesn’t bother you, then great, but if it does, you can take steps to eliminate a dietary stress to your system. Training and racing is hard on your body – the food you eat shouldn’t be!

Other food items to consider knocking off the shopping list for race week:
Dairy: Consider swapping for Almond milk if you need that bowl of cereal or glass of milk – a bit higher in sugar content, but it’s a great vegetarian source of calcium, protein, carbohydrates.
Peanut Butter: I think we’d all be surprised by the number of people in the world that have a very mild allergy to peanuts.  You may not feel it, or even think you have it, but we like to scratch it off the list for a week or so before our ‘A’ race just in case there’s some underlying energy affect.  Almond butter, sunflower seed butter, or cashew butter are great alternates.
High fiber items: We’ve never really bothered to alter this much on race week, but do be aware of taking in more than you’re used to.  Avocados are very high in fiber, blackberries, raspberries and prunes as well.  And of course the high fiber cereals and muffins you may like to snack on.

A happy stomach is a happy athlete. 

Thank you all for sharing your favorite swim workouts.  Have a look through if you ever need some new ideas in the water.
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Want a the chance to win a FREE container of  Ultragen by First Endurance?  You can enter the draw with two simple steps:

#1: Make sure you’re a member of the Ironmantriathlontips email list.

#2: Leave your favorite swim workout in the comments section of this post (use your real email so we can contact the winner).

From there we’ll do a random draw on March 31st 2010.

Important Criteria!!!!: The swim workout does have to be a legitimate swim workout – “400 meters IM” does not count.  Break it up into your Warm ups, Main sets, and Cool downs.  If you’d like to leave multiple swim workouts, please do so in separate comments so your name will be entered into the draw more than once.

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We are going to restrict the draw to residents of North-America for ease of shipping.  The winner is also responsible for the shipping cost and any duties that may arise from shipping across a border.  Product will be shipped from the Ironmantriathlontips ‘headquarters’ – currently in California.

About Ultragen:

Research has shown there’s a critical thirty-minute glycogen window (called the “window of opportunity”) immediately following exercise when insulin sensitivity is at its highest and exhausted muscles essentially open the door to nutrients. If nutrients are not absorbed quickly enough, however, this opportunity for maximum restoration is lost. But it’s not just when nutrients are absorbed, it’s also about which nutrients are available. The body requires more than just sugar and protein to fully recover, so recovery is limited without a precise balance of nutrients. Ultragen delivers 60g of glucose, because clinical studies show that high glycemic carbohydrates taken after exercise create a catalyst, which increases the uptake of essential nutrients into exhausted muscle. In addition, Ultragen offers a synergistic blend of vitamins, minerals, co-factors, glutamine and BCAA’s specifically designed to modulate the damaging effects of cortisol brought on by intense endurance training. The Ultragen formula is designed to be fully absorbed within the essential thirty minute glocygen window, when the body is primed to absorb nutrients.

Ultragen contains special proteins (Whey Protein Isolate and Hydrolyzed Whey Protein) that meet the unique requirements of endurance athletes. Fast acting Whey Protein Isolate delivers high levels of anti-catabolic branch chain amino acids. Hydrolyzed Protein is enzymatically predigested in small, easy to digest, di- and tri-peptide chains that are quickly absorbed for muscular recovery. This is important because small molecule proteins are superior to the larger, hard to digest Whey Protein Concentrates that are used in most recovery products. The special proteins in Ultragen are absorbed faster and easier assuring you maximize recovery during the critical thirty-minute glycogen “window of opportunity”. The result: quicker recovery, improved endurance and the ability to race at a higher level.

Ultragen is designed to be absorbed quickly. For maximum recovery, mix Ultragen with water and consume immediately after exercise. Mixing Ultragen with anything besides water and/or consuming other foods during the first thirty minutes after exercise will slow down absorption. Thirty minutes after using Ultragen you should drink and/or eat something else.

Eating high quality food on rest days (lots of fruits and vegetables) will help ensure that your rest day is actually doing what it’s supposed to – repairing muscle and cell damage caused by hard training.

This is especially true after hard races. The craving for junky food is always at its highest after a race, it feels like a reward for accomplishing the task at hand. Yes you crave salt, but try getting it with a V8 instead of potato chips and fries. If you’re diligent about your food intake you can turn those race days in to your best ever training sessions. Good food first, party food later!

At the risk of having this sound like a blatant plug: We will say that one of the more impressive recovery products we’ve come across is Ultragen by First Endurance. Not only does it hit the bloodstream quickly and contain all the proteins, vitamins, and minerals you’d want from a recovery drink – the stuff mixes with water to the texture of a juice.  Absolutely no clumping or powdery residue. It is a pretty nice option for bringing with you post workout or post race; you can mix it on the fly and the flavour is awesome.

Beer contains 150 calories.
Beer has no fat
Beer has no cholesterol
Beer is caffeine free
Beer contains no nitrate
Beer contains 1 gram of protein and 13 grams of carbohydrates
Beer contains significant amounts of magnesium, selenium, potassium, phosphorus, and biotin
Beer is chock full of the B vitamins (as anyone who has taken brewer’s yeast as a B supplement already knows), with impressive amounts of B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid), B6 (pyridoxin), and B9 (folate), with smaller amounts of B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B12 inotisol and choline.
Beer is 92 percent water

The key is having ‘A’ beer, as in one! Or perhaps choosing a non-alcoholic variety like O’douls.  The time to avoid the brewskie is when you’re dehydrated, need to stay hydrated, or looking to lose weight.  Though beer has no fat, it is one of the most readily available fuels that your body could use as energy, therefore causing your body to convert and store all the other carbohydrates in your system as fat!

If we could somehow eliminate it’s inebriating and dehydrating effects we’d have the ultimate race fuel!!  What does your body do with the alcohol in your system?

• A small portion of the alcohol is converted into fat.
• Your liver then converts most of the alcohol into acetate.
• The acetate is then released into your bloodstream, and replaces fat as a source of fuel.

All of that is processed very quickly, faster than any form of gel or bar you could find.  There’s also those vitamins and minerals listed above that are sure to help your body repair and keep it healthy.

There will be variation from one beer style to another, of course. “Light beers” contain fewer calories and carbohydrates. High alcohol beers–barley wines or imperial stouts– may contain more calories and carbohydrates. Different beer styles–dark styles, wheat beers–will have different levels of trace elements from pale ales or pilsner. But, across the board, beer in moderation is a nutritious beverage, and a great companion for food.

So, grab an evening brew and feel good about it.

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.

I’m feeling weak and and can’t get myself going even though I know I’ve had enough calories?  Are you hydrated enough to keep the digestion going?  Have you had enough electrolytes for your body?

There are endless problems that could arise and everyone is going to have their own to deal with.  But there is most always a solution, you just have to THINK about the problem and how to solve it.  Your day is not over if you’re hurting 5 hours in, be smart, think about the problem and figure out a remedy.

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.

“Okay, um these are supposed to be Ironman Triathlon Tips… Hewro!?” I’m getting there…During exercise, oxygen consumption can increase by a factor of more than 10. Us long distance triathlete types really like the aerobic stuff so we suck back a lot of O2. This leads to a large increase in the production of oxidants and results in damage that contributes to muscular fatigue during and after exercise. The inflammatory response that occurs after strenuous exercise is also associated with oxidative stress, especially in the 24 hours after an exercise session. The immune system response to damage done by exercise peaks 2 to 7 days after exercise (this is why staying on top of your diet is so important for optimum recovery, training… everything). During this process, free radicals are produced by neutrophils (the most abundant type of white blood cells in humans) to remove damaged tissue. They are some of the good ROSs. As a result, excessive antioxidant levels (e.x. from over supplementation) have the potential to actually inhibit recovery and adaptation mechanisms.

Antioxidants can cancel out the cell-damaging effects of free radicals, but oxidants are still needed to some degree. This may be why all those controlled studies using antioxidant vitamin supplements have observed no reduction in either the risk of developing heart disease, cancer, neurological disorders… or the rate of progression of existing disease. Other substances in fruit and vegetables (possibly flavonoids), or the delightfully complex mix of substances that make them so tasty, are what really contributes to the health of those who consume more fruit and vegetables.

So, don’t down a bunch of extra vitamin C and beta carotene pills thinking you are doing your body good. Eat some carrots, a pomegranate, broccoli, swiss chard, kiwis, berries, yams…. This list is long, appealing and a better buy.