No Food Wednesdays!

No, not really!  

I have a family history of colon cancer, so I have to eat nothing but clear fluids and authorized foods before my colonoscopy checkup tomorrow.  It sucks not being able to eat as much, but you do learn how much control you can actually have over what you put in mouth when it counts.  

So far today I have eaten a single-serving Jello, a cup of coffee, three scoops of Carbo-Pro, and a tall-boy of Amy and Brian's coconut juice.  We will have to see how long I can go before I eat my chair.

My understanding is that the hormone cortisol kicks in after you get hungry enough.  It's what gives you the senstation of, "I got so hungry that I wasn't even hungry anymore."  It turns off the hunger pangs so that you aren't miserable and lets you go on with your life until you find food.  The body is pretty cool!

I still cranked out a decent swim this morning (4000 yds.) and plan on running this evening.  It should be an interesting experiment in fueling.

Weekly Totals and Review, Feb. 21st Through 27th.

Local cycling fan on Sunday's ride.

I built a widget that takes my automated Movescount Twitter posts with the details of each workout and puts them all in stream for the blog.  If you click on one of the links, it takes you to the workout notes, speed & HR graphs, and more.  It will definitely help get the weekly review done much faster!

It has been a wonderful week, chock full of little enlightenments about my training and nutrition.  Basically, the inclusion of Carbo-Pro into my workout fuel has created a revolution in my performance.  At this point, my conclusion is two-fold: 

1. I wasn't taking in enough easily digested carbs in training, so sustained workouts were fuel-deficient and frequently resulted in low HR and low power.
2. To make up for low energy during my workouts, I was overeating at meals in preparation for the next training session.  I eat mostly whole foods, and the body has to work harder to digest it, so I was having terrible sleepy spells after eating as my blood left my brain to work in my stomach.  Not only that, but if I ate a meal and then went into a workout, the sleepiness was harming my energy level and creating super-low HR results.

Carbo-Pro delivers tons of energy that's easy on the stomach, so last week's workouts were much easier to do.  Many times I found myself having to hold back to stay in a specific HR range instead of the usual having to push harder to maintain it.  This is a complete 180 in my performance and I'm extremely happy to be experiencing it.

An interesting side effect is that I'm finding it easier to eat less at meals because I have a reliable workout fuel.  My weight is slowly dropping back to what it should be because I'm not overeating like before.

I'm still testing Carbo-Pro as a primary fuel source, finding out how to use it under more severe conditions.  For example, it has no electrolytes and I have to figure out how to manage that situation in the Texas summers where we have days with the heat index at 130 degrees.

The next podcast's "Training Log" has extensive audio notes about this whole experience as it happened.  Make sure to check it out!

Here is the totals for the week, followed by the links to some of the individual workouts:

Total time - 14 hours, 18 minutes.

Swim distance/time - 6.05 miles/2:48 hours

Bike distance/time - 117.2/6:55

Run distance/time - 35.32/4:35

And some cross training mixed in...

Podcast - Rocky Raccoon 100 and Jessi Stensland Interview

Click Here to Listen to the Show!

Join in for a fantastic interview with form pro Jessi Stensland and exclusive audio from running the Rocky Raccoon 100 mile ultramarathon.

Jessie talks with us about how to train better by holding good form for as long as possible.  It's a great training method that can make you faster, stronger, and prevent injuries.

The Rocky Raccoon 100 took 26 hours of non-stop running to complete.  Listen in for details on how to pace and eat to keep going during an ultramarathon.

We are also lucky to have audio from the making of Team Feat's RAAM training video.  Thanks, guys!

And of course, there's much more fun inside the show, with audio from Paul Crik and Triboomer.

Click here to listen or download

Video - Tour of Local Health Food Store and Nutrition Tips

I was recently hanging out at Brazos Natural Foods when I talked one of the co-owners into showing us around.  She did a great job of explaining some healthy food choices and she has invited us back for more!

Team Feat Prepping for RAAM

Our good friends TEAM FEAT is a group of four that is doing Race Across America (RAAM).  RAAM is considered to be one of the most difficult races in the world, and we are getting an inside look at the training that goes into it.  We also will be getting insider audio and video during RAAM this summer from these guys.

The latest about-to-be-released podcast has a portion of the behind-the-scenes audio from this video shoot.  The entire audio is available in the upcoming members only area; ZenTriCult. 

Enjoy and stay inspired!