Sample Training Week of Minimalist Ironman Training...

Many of you heard my interview with EVOAthlete's Jay Schroeder. While I'm working on a more formal post about how I am implementing his advanced endurance training methods in my minimalist training (6-9 hour per week) build-up to Ironman Canada, here is a basic overview if you want to see what a week of training looks like for me right now:

Monday: 

-Easy 30 minute recovery ride

-30 minute focused swim drills with fins/paddles

-Tennis practice, either before or after in sauna do 5x20 second on, 5 seconds off isoextreme lunges

-Before bed: 5 minute isoextreme wall squat

Tuesday : 

-Full body foam roller

-5 minutes inversion table

-5 minutes hot-cold contrast thermogenesis

-Swim 10x100's using Wetronome to decrease 100m time by 0.2s per week.

-Run Hurricane workout, 10x30 seconds at 10mph and 10% incline + 5-8 rep Barbell Complex (Squat/DL/Overhead Press/Clean) + 30 Burpees finisher with mobility drills

Wednesday: 

-Swim 50's and 25's sprints. Dryland - between each set perform 35 rebound bent over DB row "pen drops" with folded dollar bill exercise 

-After completing swim, in sauna: 10x30s on/10s off iso extreme standing hamstring and iso extreme back foot elevated lunge 2 minutes each side.

-30 minute ride with 5-10x 10-20 second super high cadence neuromuscular repeats, after ride perform 1 Russian Lunge every 5 seconds for 2 minutes, then repeat for opposite side

-At some point during day, iso extreme rebound standing doorway pushups - 1 rep every 10 seconds for 5 minutes, hten iso extreme scapular pullups 20x10 seconds on/5 seconds off. 

Thursday: 

-Before or after run perform isoextreme doorway pushup, 5 minutes.

-Litvinov 400m repeats as 15-30 dumbbell swings or front squats to 400m uphill or flat run. After, do 5x20 second on, 5 seconds off Isoextreme lunges. 30 Burpees finisher.

-Tennis

-Before bed: 5 minute isoextreme wall squat

Friday:

-5 minutes inversion table

-5 minutes hot-cold contrast thermogenesis

-30 minutes Injury Prevention Protocol (preferably in sauna)

Saturday: 

-Electrostimulation 30 minutes quads/hamstrings + 60-90 minute Zone 3 intervals ride. After: isoextreme standing hamstring 10x30 seconds on, 30 seconds off 

-Hypoxic swim set, 20-30 minutes

Sunday: 

-Run 60-90 minute Zone 3 intervals + swim longer 200-500m intervals. Between each swim set 15 rebound bent over row "pen drops" + folded dollar bill exercise and rebound bent-over front delt raise 15x + folded dollar bill exercise

More to come soon at BenGreenfieldFitness.com! Also, check out Jay's site at EVOAthlete.com.

How I Prepare My Race Day Nutrition For A Half-Ironman

I've received quite a few questions about how I actually prepare my race day nutrition for a Half Ironman. If you read my "Healthy Race Day Nutrition Plan" article, then you know that my race day nutrition for a Half-Ironman looks like this:

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1. UCAN

UCAN is a high molecular weight, corn-derived starch that is metabolized differently than simpler sugars such as fructose or maltodextrin. It is a powder that you mix with water, and it’s metabolism results in far less insulin production and less blood sugar spiking compared to other gels and sports drinks, and as a result of these lower insulin levels, this approach also allows your body to tap into it’s own storage fat as a fuel.

How I use UCAN: I simply consume 2 servings (220 calories) 2 hours before the race, then 2 servings per hour during the entire bike and run. I mix 6 packets (enough for 3 hours) into a water bottle that I keep on the downtube of my bicycle and consumed a mouthful every 15-20 minutes, and put 3 packets into a flask that I guzzle from every 5K on the run.

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2. Energy28

One drawback to UCAN is that most of it is flavored with artificial sweeteners, so I choose the plain, unsweetened version. But the plain version tastes a bit “chalky”. So I wanted to figure out a way to add a bit of flavor, and also get some extra energy-boosting compounds. Enter Energy28 Liquid Superfood, which imparts both flavor and also energy enhancement without the caffeine central nervous system overstimulation.

How I use Energy28: I simply consume 1 servings for each serving of UCAN . So I put 6 servings in the water bottle that I have the UCAN in, and 2 servings per hour in a flask of UCAN that I carry on the run. 

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3. Master Amino Pattern (MAP)

As I’ve written about extensively in this 2 part series on amino acids, high blood levels of amino acids primarily:

1) reduce your rating of perceived exertion, allowing you to work harder without your brain “shutting down” your body;

2) keep your body from cannibalizing your own lean muscle during exercise, thus limiting post-workout or post-race soreness.

But most proteins (the source of amino acids) need to be digested, which can take a long time and shuttle a lot of extra blood away from your muscles and into your stomach. Enter the MAP capsules, which completely digest in 23 minutes, while other protein sources take anywhere from 2-6 hours.

How I use MAP: I consume 10 capsules 30 minutes prior to the race, then simply carry  a small ziplock bag of MAP in my shorts and eat 5 per hour during the entire bike ride (I just chew them, but you could also swallow them with water).

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So how do I practically prepare all this? Here's how, courtesy of my iPhone camera from my hotel bathroom in Thailand before a race...

Run Flask Step 1: Dump 3 packets of UCAN onto a makeshift funnel, in this case, the front page of the race program. 

 

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Run Flask Step 2:  Fill flask with UCAN powder (this is just a handheld flask holder - companies like NathanSports and FuelBelt make them)

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Run Flask Step 3: Set flask out on floor by bed with 3 packets of Energy28, which I'll add in the morning just before I head to race start. Mixing the night before can cause clumping, so I wait until last possible minute. After adding Energy28, there will be barely any room left for water, but I'll top it off with 2-3oz water. 

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Bike Bottle Step 1 (optional): Toss a bunch of UCAN packets in bathroom sink. No funnel required since bike water bottles have a larger mouth.

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 Bike Bottle Step 2: Dump the UCAN packets one-by-one into bike bottle.

 

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Bike Bottle Step 3: Set the bike bottle out next to 6 more Energy28 Packets for mixing the next morning. Go to pasta party, sleep, get up, and kick butt. ;)

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No photos of the MAP, but that's pretty straightforward. Just put some capsules in a ziplock bag and carry in your jerseys or up one of your shorts legs.

Rather than you having to go the four corners of the planet to get this stuff, I figured out how to just bundle it all for you in one convenient Low Carb Fueling package:  

http://goo.gl/Yryi5 <–UCAN+MAP+Energy28 Low Carb Fueling Package

The package above is basically 60 packets of UCAN, a full 120 tablet bottle of MAP & a bottle of Energy28 – everything you need to get your low carb fueling  dialed in, and about 1-2 months worth of fueling!

And leave any questions, comments or feedback below...

Overall Amateur Win at Laguna Phuket Triathlon

Here's the results!

Story and pics to come later...

Redemption - The Leadman 125

At the last minute, I registered for the Leadman 125 race in Bend, Oregon as a "redemption" race for my DNF (Did Not Finish!) at Half Ironman World Championships 2 weeks ago.

So myself and my friend Derek Garcia  drove down to beautiful Bend, and met up with an athlete who I coach (Jim McIntosh) to survey the bike course - which started up at about 5000 feet elevation at chilly Cultus Lake and ended with a screaming fast descent down into Bend, Oregon.

For this race, I planned on using a whole new nutrition protocol, which I talked about in detail in this Endurance Planet podcast, but which basically involved:

1) UCAN Superstarch - eat 2 servings for breakfast (mashed with a banana) and then one densely mixed bottle of UCAN (200 calories per hour) on the bike downtube and one Nathan running flask for the run (also mixed for about 200 calories per hour).

2) Energy28 Superfood - slam one just before the swim, and then one serving of it mixed in with each serving of UCAN - for both flavor and some extra energy boosting compounds, like Maca and Rhodiola (Energy28 also has about 35 calories a serving).

3) 5 Master Amino Pattern capsules per hour (to keep my blood amino acid levels up).

Basically, with this 1-2-3 combo, I'm giving my body a slow release sugar with some amino acids in it, and deriving the remainder of my energy from my body's own fat stores - which basically means I'm eating 200 calories less per hour than I normally do during a race. You can really geek out on this nutrition protocol by clicking here, if you'd like. 

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As I expected with a late season race in the Pacific Northwest, race morning was dark and cold. Our bus driver got lost on the way up to Cultus Lake, so I arrived at the transition area in just enough time to put my water bottle on my bike, use the porta-potty, and rush into the tent to put on my wetsuit.

Unfortunately, I'd grabbed the wrong wetsuit from the stash of wetsuits in my garage (my BlueSeventy Helix was stolen at the Troika Triathlon), and I found myself feeling like I was being strangled in a tiny wetsuit with arms and legs that came up to my elbows and knees!

But the water was cold enough to where I did not want to venture out without a wetsuit, so I wore it.

I ran into the water and made it to the swim start just as my wave took off...

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Feeling like I was hyperventilating the whole time, I managed to get onto the feet of  a faster swimmer and hold on for dear life for the 2.5K swim. He dropped me about 200m from the finish, but at that point I was simply relieved not to have A) frozen or B) ripped my wetsuit.

I swam this swim the same way I approach my Half Ironman swims - no pacing or holding back. Just swim as hard as you can (without breaking form) from start to finish.

As I came out of the water and ran into T2, struggling to emerge form my tiny wetsuit, I had no clue what place I was in, but knew that I was freaking cold!

When I arrived to my bike, I saw that the bike beside me was already gone, which I hate to see. So I skipped the important step of putting on gloves, or arm warmers, or socks, and just took off.

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Thanks to my hasty transition out of transition, for the first 15 miles of the bike I watched my fingers slowly turn blue. I couldn't hold my water bottle or eat anything because my hands were so cold! I just kept opening and closing my fingers, hoping they'd warm up soon so I could eat and drink.

By about the 15 mile mark, I had passed everyone on the bike and caught the leader, Jeff Smith. Since my legs were feeling good, I decided to put a move on him too, so I passed him, put the hammer down and didn't look back for the next 5 miles.

When I finally did turn around, Jeff was still there! He hasn't lost his last 9 races, so I should've known better than to think I could drop him that early in the race...

For the rest of the 65 mile ride, including the 50+ mile per hour descent into Bend, Jeff and I raced neck to neck, taking turns holding the lead all the way into run transition, where Jeff rode in about 20 feet ahead of me...

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I beat Jeff out of transition, but at that point, I was thoroughly parched, and wasn't sure I was going to be able to maintain the intensity I wanted for the 10 mile run. My strategy was to simply run this race just like a 10K, then hold on for dear life in the last 4 miles.

But my lips and throat were completely bone dry, since I only had one bottle of water during the entire bike ride. Every time I went cycling through an aid station, they simply weren't ready with the water bottles. That's the hazard of leading the race!

As I worried about my hydration, Jeff caught me quickly, and we reached a Y in the road after just 1 mile. It wasn't marked. One option was to run along the river and the other was to climb a steep 1/4 mile hill.

I'm not sure why, but we both took off up the steep hill, and it wasn't until we got to the top of it that we realized we ran completely off course. It's a horrible sinking feeling when you're in the lead and you lost precious minutes running the wrong way, but once again, that's the hazard of being in front.

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So we took off back down the hill, and now Jeff was in front of me. For the next 4 miles, I tried to keep him in sight, and by mile 5, I saw him not run through an aid station, but actually briefly stop to drink water at the aid station, which (no offense Jeff) to mean is a sign of weakness in a run of this distance, and suggests that you might be hurting.

I was hurting too, but that's the point where I put my head down and my move. I passed Jeff by the end of that aid station, and didn't look back for the next 2 miles.

At mile 7, I glanced back and didn't see anyone.

But not wanting to take any chances, and knowing that the 34 and older age division started 6 minutes behind us, so someone could actually still beat me, I kept the throttle down all the way to the finish line, and ended up winning the overall race title by a little under 3 minutes.

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So despite barely making the swim start, wearing a tiny wetsuit, and getting lost on the run, I managed to squeak out the overall win for Leadman 125!

The best part is that with that different nutrition protocol, my gut felt fine after the race (none of the usual bad gas, post race sugar burps, caffeine downers, or anything like that!).

Here I am with my finisher's tape:



So what's next? Myself and a group of 15 athletes will be headed to Thailand this winter to do a double triathlon in beautiful Phuket (where even the triathlons have a happy ending). ;)

Leave your questions, comments or feedback below.

What Happened In Vegas (Hopefully Stays In Vegas)

At the end of this post, I've got a quick question for you that I'd love to hear your feedback on...

I must admit that I felt pretty dang good coming into the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Las Vegas.

Really good, actually.

My legs were a-popping and I was ready to lay down the smack and back it up. After a tough race (see my previous post) at ITU Long Course World Championships in Spain, I raced a Half Ironman "tune-up" a few weeks ago, where I took third overall (Troika Triathlon) and have just felt really fantastic lately.

I've raced long enough to know when my body is ready for a solid performance, and this seriously threatened to be it.

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But the mishaps started the night of the race.

At 2am, the hotel room next door woke my roommate Graeme and I up with a very loud hip-hop song on repeat. It was literally shaking the wall.

Then the jackrabbit-like humping started, with a guy who kept shouting "F*&^ me harder! F*&^ me harder!"

You gotta be kidding me. After about 45 minutes, hotel security shut them down and we finally got back to sleep.

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Despite being a bit sleepy, the swim went well.

But soon as I hopped on my bike, though, something felt funny.

On the first hill up and out of transition, people were passing me left and right. I shrugged it off and just waiting for my legs to "come around".

Just to be sure, at the top of the hill, I pulled aside and checked my tire pressure. Everything was good...

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Then, on the downhill, as I slid to the front of my saddle, the whole saddle went nose down. I had just gotten a bike fit, and had been messing around with my fit afterwards.

Obviously, I failed to tighten the seat enough.

No big deal, I thought, and I slammed my butt down into the saddle to correct it. 

Then the real trouble started. My entire seat post slid down. Yet another mechanical adjusting failure on my part.

So I rode the next 5 miles standing up, until I found a tech motorcycle and did a quick tool adjustment on my seat.

By this time, I figured I was screwed for a podium finish, but tried to keep my head in the game.

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But I just kept getting passed, despite me working harder than ever on the bike.

No offense, ladies, but there were women riding by me who had numbers like "48", "49" and "50" written on the back of their calves.

That just doesn't happen to me in races!

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So at mile 40, I pulled over for a third time, and this time I spun my rear disc.

Even though I had checked it the day before, I must have jostled it laying the bike down in the minivan, because the brake caliper was shoved up against the disc.

I'd been riding with brakes on for the past 40 miles.

At that point I was mentally ready to be done, and knew I wasn't going to be anywhere near the podium division finish I was looking for.

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I "soft pedaled" back into transition, ready to throw in the towel.

The screaming spectators and crowds got me inspired to jump into the run.

However, when you're running a race in over 100 degrees heat, you need a reason to be out there, and at that point, my reason had faded. A finisher's medal was not enough incentive for me to punish my body for the next 90 minutes.

So at mile 3, I walked it in and called it a day.

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Here I sit in Vegas, getting ready to end a tough experience with a hard drink.

But there's one more thing:

When I have an experience like this, I need a redemption race. Something to give myself a mental boost of positivity, go prove to myself that I'm fast, go use the fitness I built up for this race, and ensure that everything is OK.

So here's my question for you:

Where do you think I should race? I'm ready anytime in the next 2-3 weeks. You name the place and I'll try to make it happen - Olympic up to Half Ironman...go!

Hurting Is Temporary, But Quitting Lasts Forever.

As my toes dug into the Spanish sand, part of my body anticipated the blasting air horn that would start the 2012 Long Distance Triathlon World Championships, and send me sprinting out into the water for a grueling 2.5 mile swim, 75 mile bike and 19 mile run.


The other part of my body was messed up. 

My eyes were bloodshot from severe lack of sleep, my gut had a deep gnawing pain, and my usually sprite pre-race muscles felt drained and empty.

No, this was not a result of a nasty Rioja wine drinking binge, too many Café Largo’s the night before, or some kind of stomach bug.

It was simply me experiencing the same sub-optimal state that has been described to me over and over again by other triathletes, whether during a training workout or before an important race.


That dead feeling of being completely exhausted and unable to dig when the race intensity begins.

It’s been so long since I’ve arrived at a starting line in that state, I had forgotten what it feels like to have a non-responsive body despite perfect training, a good taper, and no emotional and lifestyle stress.

And it was a loud and clear reminder to me: arriving on the starting line of a race with a 100% physically prepared body means that you have to take care of your gut during race week. Otherwise, by abusing or neglecting a section of your body that is even more exposed to external environments than your skin, you’re setting yourself up for subpar performance.

So what is it about the gut that can create this kind of dreaded pre-race condition in triathletes? In exactly one month, you’re going to find out the answer in Lava Magazine – or you can leave your guesses or comments below, because I’m not going to tell you until then, since it’s an article I’m commissioned to write and I can’t “leak it” on this blog post.


But until then, here is what ensued from my race week mistakes…

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The swim was tricky, with twists and turns throughout – rather than the typical “loop” or “out and back” you see in most swims. Over and over again, I tried to “dig” and drop the group I was in, but kept having to fall back on hips and feet to draft.

At 1500 meters, I considered grabbing hold of a kayak and calling it quits. But eventually, my hands hit sand and I came charging out of the water in an hour even, in 10th place. After learning later that the swim was actually long by nearly 400 meters, I was pretty happy with this, as it means it would have given me an equivalent Ironman swim split of about 55 minutes – one minute faster than my personal record. But I drafted the entire time, so it didn’t really feel like it was swimming, as much as desperately trying to stay on feet.

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All through the swim-to-bike transition, I was gasping for breath – more than usual. My heart felt like it was beating out my throat, my lungs felt tight and constricted and when I finally started pushing the pedals, I once again experienced that frustrating sensation of not being able to dig.

By this time, I knew what the problem was, because that gnawing ache in my stomach had now grown into a full-blown “issue” - and by the time I was 90 minutes into the bike, I was vomiting gels.

So with dead legs and an exhausted body, I wiped the vomit from my mouth and began repeating a mantra that I would repeat over 50 times before the day was over:


“Hurting is temporary, but quitting lasts forever”.

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With this mantra, I strung myself along, splitting the painful bike into 5K portions, and trying to keep down something – anything. By the time I finally got off the bike and onto the run, it had been an hour since I’d last eaten or drunk.

I came off the bike still in 10th place, with a 3:08 bike split and an average speed of just under 25 miles per hour over the 75 miles. But I knew that even that placing wasn’t going to last long with the way I was feeling – and it was pure will at this point that was keeping me on my feet.


“Hurting is temporary, but quitting lasts forever”.

I said it one more time as I slouched in the bike-to-run transition tent, preparing myself mentally to charge out in front of thousands of screaming Spanish fans and at least try to look like a triathlete, not a walking zombie. All I wanted to do at this point was curl up into a ball and go to sleep.

As I came out of the tent, I wished I’d had earplugs. The roar was deafening. There were more spectators in the cobblestoned Vitoria plaza than I’d ever seen in any race, shouting, cheering and blowing horns.

I clutched my stomach and began running.

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Within 1K, I passed my wife Jessa, and when I crumbled to her side and literally collapsed onto my back on the race course, she immediately knew I was having a rough day.

My breaths were coming in short spurts, and my heart rate was screaming in my throat. What was wrong with my body? I felt like I had no control.

Jessa and a police officer helped me to my feet, and I desperately turned to the officer in broken Spanish, “Donde es el bano? Donde es el bano?”

He pointed across the park at a lone bathroom, and I ran to it and stumbled inside. With my head in my hands, I grimaced through several minutes of extreme discomfort, then splashed my face with cold water, and finally emerged from the bathroom:


“Hurting is temporary, but quitting lasts forever”.

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When I emerged from the bathroom, two spectators literally shoved me back out onto the run course and I started running. Within 1500 meters, I was back in another bathroom. This happened again, and again, and again over the first 15K of the run course. By this time, I had discovered that I could only keep down one source of energy: Coke.

After consuming two full cans of carbonated Coke during those first two loops of the run, I knew that I would finish, but it would be ugly. At this point, I only had three things keeping me going…


1) The fans; 


2) Imagining pushing my twin boys in the stroller, and not wanting them to see me be a quitter. 


3) “Hurting is temporary, but quitting lasts forever”.

I though the last loop of the run would never come. By the time it finally did, I had taken eight bathroom stops and completely emptied the contents of my gut out both my front and backside. I was now running with what felt like balloons full or air in my stomach.

With pride, I somehow passed the final bathroom on the run course without stopping – although it seemed like merely the site of a bathroom was now my gut’s cue to “empty”. I’m guessing by this point I just had nothing left to “go”.

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Cathedral.

Cobblestones.

Screaming spectators.

The finish line arch.

In this video below, you can barely see me clutching my head in my hands as I cross. That about sums up my thoughts at that point, “I have no clue how I just finished that race”.



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My final run split a flat and fast course was 2:20 – 20 minutes slower than last year on what should have been a much speedier course. This got me 19th place in my division and 33rd overall out of 593 male athletes who competed – and nowhere near my 1st place finish from last year.

I broke down crying from a combination of extreme fatigue and exhausted disappointment. After limping to the hotel, I spent the next 5 hours in bed, doubled over with gut pain and unable to do anything but lie there and stare at the ceiling.

So what happened? What can cause an athlete to arrive in perfect preparation to a race, but suffer such a lack of ability to perform?

Over those 6 hours and 30 minutes, I had been reminded of an important lesson that I already knew, but took for granted. You’ll get to learn exactly what that lesson is in my next article in Lava Magazine. Stay tuned. It will be in the “Kona” issue.

A Tiger And A Double Bacon Wrapped Hot Dog In A Cheeseburger, Please.

How Can You Not Read A Race Report That Starts With A Baby Tiger Photo?

Today, as a pre-race tune-up before I go defend my gold medal at ITU Long Course World Championships in Spain next week, I dropped into the Tiger Triathlon.

This race is advertised as a "quarter Ironman".

Which basically seems to be a 1K swim, a 40K bike, and an 8K run. I'm not quite sure how the math on that works out with the run part, but whatever - I'm in!

So I showed up on race morning with 2 kids, 2 dogs and my wife (bless her heart, once I took off on the swim she was left with all 4 of them) and with the help(?) of my 4 year old boys set up transition area in a blistering 20 minutes, with barely enough time left over to put on my brand new Blue Seventy Helix wetsuit (thanks B70 guys!) and rush down to the water.

Here's the hurry-up video I shot for my Twitter and Facebook followers who asked me how I set up my bike for an Olympic Distance Triathlon...

The swim horn sounded and we were off. Here's where I remembered an important lesson:

In an early morning lake swim, the glare of the bright morning sun at some point is going to really impede your sighting as it glimmers off the lake, so A) if you can get tinted goggles, wear them, and B) if you have the option to draft do it.

Fortunately, I did both A) and B), and came out of the water in 2nd place, about 5 second behind the leader. I passed him in the run up to T1 and headed out on the bike in 1st.

The 40K point-to-point bike is a net elevation loss, which means a few things:

1) You need to really focus on maintaining wattage, as it's easy to let yourself "cruise" with as many downhill stretches as a bike course like this has - no "zoning out"!

2) If you're lucky enough to come out of the water in 1st place like I was, you need to put the hammer down early because if anybody gets on your wheel it's much tougher to shake them off when you've both got a downhill advantage.

As I rolled into transition and dismounted to grab my shoes, I was unpleasantly reminded of one other thing about net elevation loss bikes...

3) You'll be going faster than usual, which makes non-aerodynamic position have a higher time penalty. This means you stay tucked, aero, and for heaven's sake, don't look back behind you because that stick your helmet tail into the wind.

Why did this turn into an unpleasant reminder for me? 

Because I didn't realize that another competitor,  super-speedy runner Jesse Carnes, had snuck up on me in the bike and rolled into transition just a few seconds behind me. Rather then getting to comfortably run to the finish line, this meant I was now going to have to suffer - especially considering that the entire two-loop run takes place on Jesse's old highschool cross country course!

I took off running scared, and here's where I implemented another tip:

If you know the guy behind you is a faster runner than you, try to outsplit him early so that he doesn't have the motivation to catch you later on. 

So with Jesse hot on my heels, I ran the first 4K much harder than I knew I could maintain for the full 8K.

And it worked.

By the time we reached the finish on the high school track, I'd put about 25 seconds on him, which was enough for me to cruise in for the win in 1:43 and change.

And get a freaking huge Tiger Triathlon coffee mug, which means I may need to increase the volume of my morning coffee dose:

Delicious and decadent post-race celebratory details will come in just a moment, but first a few shout-outs:

Nutrition/Gear notes:

-Day before: Slept in tiny hotel room with wife and kids. So none of the usual Millenium Sports Somnidren GH and EarthPulse for sleep enhancement.

-2 hours pre-swim: 2 sweet potatoes. Totally plain. Burn clean.

-30 minutes pre-swim: 2 delta-E (caffiene/B12/Taurine packs), 20 Sprays Magnesium Oil, 10 Master Amino Pattern capsules, 4 Extreme Endurance

-Wetsuit: Blue Seventy Helix

-Google: Blue Seventy Element

Bike notes:

-Shoes: Louis Garneau Tri-Speed shoes

-Helmet: Gray Aero helmet

-Wheels: Shimano C-50

-Tires: Challenge Triathlon

-Groupo: Shimano Dura-Ace

-Seat: Adamo ISM Road Saddle

-Sunglasses: Native Eyewear

-Fuel: GU Roctane powder, 300 calories, mixed into 20oz water.

Run notes:

-Shoes: My killer new Skora Forms <--you must wear this shoe - it is a minimalist racing shoe that looks like a freaking Italian designer shoe.

-No food, no water.

Of course, a big thanks to all my sponsors. Check them all out here.

OK, on to that post race decadence I mentioned. 

I don't know where you compete in triathlons, but out here in the Northwest, it's usually not terribly difficult to find bananas, peanut butter, and some kind of cream cheese in the post-race area. If you're lucky enough to find all three, then do as I do, and make yourself a peanut butter-cream cheese-banana split.

And that's not the only post-race indulgence in which you can partake...

...Tiger Triathlon happens to be out in Colville, Washington - about a 90 minute drive north of Spokane - and if you ever happen to have the pleasure of taking that drive, I would highly recommend that you do as I did, and indulge in a "World Famous Clayton Burger" after the race (if you're gluten-free like me, sans bun, of course.)

You'll find the joint on the left side of the highway as you drive back from Colville to Spokane, about halfway back.