Happiness and Motivation in Running.

I just sent an email to an endurance athlete that I thought others might relate to. It is something I find myself sharing with motivated athletes a lot:

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I saw your comments about yesterday's run. I completely understand how it feels to have a "need" to run faster. I'm sure I have shared with you the time I spent learning to "run slow." It is the most difficult thing for almost any runner, in my opinion.

The question that I always ask myself and therefore might be something you want to ask yourself: Why do I need to go faster?

I often find that there are "hidden" reasons within my own mind that create that need, not anything that is a material pressure. For instance, I commonly feel a need to prove my athletic ability. I wrote a blog post just before the Derby Marathon regarding my football coach in high school; there are times today that I still want people in Broken Bow, Nebraska to believe that I'm a quality athlete.

Some people are able to deal with those pressures by glorifying the past, creating the good ol' days scenario. I have not been able to do that, so I consistently seek to be good at something related to sports. This can lead to many mistakes while training and when establishing a race strategy in long distance and ultra-endurance events.

Not only have I found that my need to be "fast" is grounded in my past, but also in my present life. In my everyday life, I define myself as a personal trainer and a coach. When people ask me what I do for a living, I let them know that I work as fitness director at the U of Kentucky, but aspire to be a full time coach and trainer, sooner - rather than later. In those situations, people always assume that I am fast.

How can a person be a coach if they are not good themselves? That is the standard thinking that a lot of people have, especially if they are unaccustom to the coaching profession (it's not like I coach a high school team.... that they might understand). But let's face it, here in Lexington, most people associate me and know me through endurance events. The fact that Nikki is also involved with racing and makes her living as a full-time trainer adds to that characterization, in my mind.

A great challenge that I feel all endurance athletes should accept is to explore their purpose for training and competing. Here are some of the reasons that I hear most when I talk to an athlete one-on-one:

1. to be healthy
2. to challenge myself
3. to have a sense of accomplishment
4. to learn about my limits

Most of these reasons are not about performance, but commonly the performance trap comes in later. I'm not saying that performance shouldn't be a part of the process, I'm only saying that this lifestyle (this is cliche) is all about the journey. If we can stay focused on how we go about the journey, then the performances will take care of themselves.

One book that I recently read that deals with this topic well was, Breakthrough Triathlon Training by Brad Kearns.

This is a long (very long) way of saying, don't let the slower running get to you. Try and do just the opposite. When you are running allow yourself to work through the motivations you have to run faster, even though your body is asking to to remain slower. Developing this ability will allow for a lot of opportunities to open up. Those opportunities might just be, being able to run injury free and possibly even improving performances?

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Just something to share as my time has been monopolized the last few weeks as I finish off my build period. I'll post more nutrition stuff again once I start to taper.

Racing Nutritional Plan #2

The second attempt to nail down a solid race nutrition plan went much better than the first attempt did. Here are a couple quick observations:

1. I started right away with hydrating
2. I used the liquids only to begin and then used the gels (more later)
3. The pace / effort was higher this time so I didn't take in as much
4. If I wasn't riding with others, I would have slowed down and took in a lot more calories.

Ride / Run Details

time: 5:25
distance: approx. 96miles (still haven't fixed computer)
calories: 3217cals, 45% fat (from polar monitor)

trans (drank soda)

time: 20:39 (felt really good! quick turnover, quick legs.)

What the pattern of consumption was like:

1. I started by using water for the first 20 minutes of the ride. I did this to simulate the ride in a race, because I can never use anything but water after coming out of a lake swim anyway. (Swallowing all the crap while swimming leaves me a little less than optimal.)

2. Switched to using e-Fuel (aff) for the rest of the first hour. Took in 24oz.

3. Started using the e-Gel's (aff) after the first hour was over and continued to use gel's and water for the rest of the hour.

4. Continued to switch back and forth between the gel's and liquid by the hour for the entire ride. (ex. 0 - liquid, 1 - gel, 2 - liquid, etc...)

5. I ate half of a oatmeal cream pie about 2.5 hours into the ride and had a couple drinks of Eric's mountain dew.

Nutritional Fact Details

4 eGels - 600 calories, 920mg sodium, 340mg potassium
48oz eFuel (2 bottles) - 420 calories, 780mg sodium, 300mg potassium
20oz eFuel (partial bottle) - 175 calories, 325mg sodium, 125mg potassium
1/2 Oatmial Cream Pie - 155 calories, 350mg sodium
72oz Water
Moutain Dew (not much) - 55 calories, 25mg sodium

- transition - drank half a can of Vault Soda, 90 calories + caffeine!

Prior to training

For breakfast, I took in 2 cans of Boost Plus. It is somewhat unappealing, but it has worked really well in the past. And on race day it is easy to digest so race day nerves don't cause more problems then they need to.

On the next couple "experiments" I will try and drink 3 bottles of Boost Plus, finishing the last bottle about 2 hours prior to my ride.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoy the taste and texture of the eGel's from Crank Sports, so I'm glad that I could find a pattern of intake that worked well with their liquid product. I am going to try and take in 3 gel's per hour on my next trial run, because I only ended up comsuming 260 calories per hour this time. (way too low!)

Full discloser: I signed up for the Crank Sports affiliate program... so maybe I can earn a few gel's and eFuel's. Just so you know the links can earn me a "reward". But I used the gel's for my marathon last spring and have been using them again, so I would have supplied a link to them anyway.

There will definately be a mountain dew in my special needs bag on the bike along with an oatmeal cream pie. And along the run, I plan on using as much soda (hopefully coke) as they supply. (As Jared noted on my last post, coke is good. But I personally like the full strength variety.)

Thank you for all the comments on the last post. I will hopefully learn more next time and share again.

Figuring out a racing nutritional plan. #1

There are generally two reasons that I can attribute my worst performances to:

1. poor pacing in the early stages
2. poor nutritional decisions during the race

Last week I decided to start being serious about figuring out my nutritional plan for my "A" race coming up in September. I am going to post some of the details of my trails and errors as I experiment during my key training sessions over these last few weeks.

One thing that I did to help me monitor my hydration is that I purchased 4 30oz bottles for my bike and used a permanent marker to put 8oz lines on them. This allows me to see how consistently I have been drinking my water, gatorade endurance, gatorade and/or eFuel.

Here is yesterday's experiment

ride details -
time: 4:47:11 (rode with Ron for about 1:30/1:40)
calories: 2048cal, 50% fat (according to Polar... so?)
ave hr: 130bpm (right at my aerobic level for a ride this long on the bike)

nutrition details - (total consumption)

2 - eFuel's : 420cals, 390mg sodium, 150mg potassium
4 - eGel's : 600cals, 920mg sodium, 340mg potassium
38 oz of h2o
24 oz of extra strength Gatorade (2 scoops of powder / 24oz h2o)
1 Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie : 310cals, 350mg sodium

extra strength Gatorade = 450cals , 855mg sodium , 270mg potassium

Total Intake: 1780cals, 2515mg sodium, 1110mg potassium

Intake / Hour(4.8hrs): 370cals, 524mg sodium, 231mg potassium

Thoughts and Ideas

The caloric intake wasn't enough in my opinion, but when you look at the caloric intake vs. what the Polar says about caloric expenditure then it doesn't look too bad. I wish that I had a power meter of some type so that the caloric expenditure was more accurate, as I am not even sure what the formula is that Polar uses... maybe I'll take a look. I could also sit down and hammer out some estimations, but the terrain, etc. is so variable in KY that it would be no closer, I'm assuming. (A power tap could fix that!)

I also had to stop and pee 3 times! This isn't exciting (re: exclamation point). It is just that I never have to stop during my longer rides? I either started out with the nutrition products too late into the ride or I was riding too intensly, but we were not riding too hard at all and my heart rates were way down the first third of the ride? My total sodium intake seems ok?

If anyone has some thoughts, let me know. The eGel package does say not to use with a sports drink, but I didn't start using the extra strength Gatorade until late into the ride. I always used just water with the eGel's and then for 20 minutes after I took them.

Not only did I have to pee, but my stomach started to feel bloated. These both would be signs of electrolyte imbalance, but I'm not sure why they acted up yesterday as I haven't had any troubles this season? It may be that I didn't have my mountain dew or Ale 8 to supplement everything else? (Might be back to a bottle of ale 8 for me...)

More data to come. I welcome any suggestions or thoughts.

Bluegrass State Games Crit

Nikki posted some photos of the Bluegrass State Games Crits that were this past weekend. Check them out.

This was a good moment for the entire Pedal the Planet team:



And Tony too.

Sitting there and watching the races for a few hours made me think about racing myself... for maybe 5 to 10 minutes. I may try a road race someday, but the idea of racing in a crit is somewhat scarry to me. Plus I'm not sure it would be any fun, kind of like running a 5k.... don't like it.