The Race Season is Over, and I'm Eating My Way into Oblivion!
Bill Floyd
USA Triathlon Certified Coach, Level II
USA Cycling Certified Coach
TEAM in Training National Certified Coach
Not!!! No, I won't be doing that, and I hope you will not either. However, let's take a look at what goes through our minds and our bodies during this time of year.
Picture yourself during this past race season, when you are training hard, your intensity is extremely high, and you are eating "fuel" not food. Yes, that's right, "fuel" and not food. You see, when a triathlete really gets into the norm, or the way of life for a triathlete, he or she will eat only certain foods, prepared a certain way, with a certain amount of calories, and eaten with a certain amount of fluids, of the right kind, filled with the right and appropriate amount of vitamins and minerals.
Why, you ask, for the selectivity, so to speak, on all of this when you are simply wanting to go fast? The reason is simply put, " the fuel is what drives the body when the body is set in motion, at a given amount of intensity, in order to gain the right amount of lactic threshold, to gain the balance of accumulative endurance, muscular endurance and anaerobic endurance, so you can turn it into speed."
And, that adds up to alot of calories. Depending on a person's age, and their committment and intensity levels, a triathlete can eat as much as 5,000 to 10,000 claories a day, just to sustain their strength and committment to train, and to race. You probably will not gain weight, nor lose weight except for fluids during the racing season if your training plan is designed for that.
Now, "the race season is over and I am going to eat my way into oblivion." Well, you could, and then again, you may not. Here's what your mind and your body now has to go through. First, you will go into a transitional stage for about a month, of cutting back mileage, time, and yardage. You have now kicked back, decelerated the efforts, and have decided to bcome re-acquainted with life, once again. Sounds crazy, and yet, that is exactly what happens. And, you know what has not been looked at, just yet? You are still eating, out of habit, no longer because of fuel needs, but a habitual habit of eating more than you need right now. Thus, your caloric intake is greater than your intensity and you will have to find a way to now diet. A triathlete going on a diet! Can you imagine something that seems so foreign? But to a trained coach, we see it all of the time.
So, how do we go about "re-thinking" our process, committment, and training regimen, and just re-adjusting our lifestyle. Within a training plan, or a simple way of putting a note on the refigerator, we have to consciously re-trained our thinking to eat less, and allow our body to re-acclimate to less food. Now, your stomach will growl, you may be a little irritable for a few days, you may even have a headache or two, but your body will re-adjust, as well as your thinking. Instead of two helpings, you cut back to one, and instead of eating lots of carbs, you focus more on vegetables with less calories and less chance of them "hanging around " for a while. In other words, your body will learn to enjoy eating for the sake of flavors, not because of "fuel."
However, while you cut back on mileage, time, and yardage to give your body a good rest, and a chance to re-build with some new cells, you can keep your fitness to almost the same level as you are leaving it at the end of the race season. We have talked about this before in another newsletter where we have shown you to use high intensity, with shorter time frames, mileage and yardage. The intensity will burn the fat and to keep your weight in check, and your speed will stay just about the same. Let me give you an example:
Race Season workout: 1 x 20mB(ike) w/ 4 - 6 x 3' accelerations @ Z4 w/ 3'R
Z4 is Lactic Threshold or "really hard"
Post Season workout: 1 x 10mB(ike) w/ 8 x 1' accelerations at Z5A w/ 1'R, 2' WU/CD (Warm Up/Cool Down)
Z5a is lactic threshold, yet it is "really, really hard"
So, eat all that you want and go on a diet, which is the slow way, or cut back your time, mileage and yardage and rest, and eat moderately with one helping, and still go fast! Sounds simple to a coach and to a ........triathlete.
Now, don't forget to go into your local Vitamin Discount Center and ask the highly trained Store Manager for some helpful tips on a vitamin supplement plan that will enhance your off season, and to begin thinking about next year's racing season, starting at the same speed as you left it, with a well rested body!
And, take a look at TriFloyd's website for some coaching tips, and our popular Levels Programs and our six Clinics we offer each year, as well as our Open Water Swim Workouts from mid-March to mid-October.
www.TriFloyd.com
BfloydPres@aol.com
See you at the races!
Keep training to keep racing!
Bill Floyd
USA Triathlon Certified Coach, Level II
USA Cycling Certified Coach
TEAM in Training National Certified Coach
