Why am I doing this?

You’re at mile 19. Your heart is pounding, legs are throbbing, and the thought crosses your mind, “Why am I doing this?”

It’s 5:30am and you’re already halfway through your trainer ride. The rest of the house is quiet, it’s dark outside, and the thought crosses your mind, “Why am I doing this?”

It’s 5 o’clock on Friday afternoon. Your co-workers are going out for a drink after a long week at work, but you’re on the way to the gym and the thought crosses your mind, “Why am I doing this?”

Why are you doing this? Do you have a good answer? Inevitably, most – if not all – of us have reached or will reach a point in our training or during a race when we raise the question. It helps to have a good answer.

Start thinking about what your answer is. Why are you doing this? Why is finishing this race important to you? What does it mean to you to set a new PR, place in your age group, qualify for nations/Kona/Boston? Start thinking about it now. I encourage all of the athletes I work with to set goals for themselves because it helps them stay focused during training and it provides an answer to the inevitable question, “Why am I doing this?”

That’s right, goals with an ‘s.’ Multiple goals. And only one can be time related. Try to come up with three goals that you hope to accomplish this year. Make them genuine and make them important to you. Maybe you want to improve your nutrition plan, learn more about training with a heart rate monitor, explore new running trails. Whatever they are, make them important to you. After you come up with each goal, think of three specific things that you can do to reach that goal. The more specific you can be the better.

Now that you have your goals, get to work on achieving them! As you go through training, check in on your progress. Make sure you are doing what it takes to meet each goal. Good luck!

Eat Your Broccoli! Why?

What are healthy foods?

What’s good for me to eat?

What’s bad for me?

I find that in today’s world, there’s a lot of confusion around food. People often times want to eat healthy, but they don’t know how. One week it feels like they read an article that tells them to follow one approach and the next week they hear from a friend that a different approach is the way to go. Amidst all this confusion, I challenge people to ask, “Why?”

Why is this new great approach better for me? Why is this food considered healthy? Why is this food unhealthy?

I believe you can answer those basic questions with just a little basic knowledge on food. Namely, calories and macronutrients. Before we go any further, I will add this disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist. I am not a food scientist. I have taken the initiative to educate myself on food and specifically how food relates to athletes and athletic training.

So, let’s start with calories. Calories are energy. Energy is fuel. For an athlete, you can look at a given workout and determine how many calories you burn per hour. You can also count the number of calories you eat in your food. At the most basic level, if you eat more calories than you burn, you gain weight. On the flip side, if you burn more calories than you eat, you lose weight. Don’t forget to factor in your basal metabolic rate (that’s the number of calories you burn throughout the day just being you). Sounds simple right? Yes and no. It’s actually really hard to accurately count calories – both burned and consumed. Plus, it is true that not all calories are created equal.

That brings us to macronutrients. There are three macronutrients: fat, carbohydrate, and protein. Fat and carbohydrate are sources of energy meaning that they can be used for fuel during exercise. Protein is used to build muscle. The differences between fat and carbs are that carbs are meant to be an immediate source of fuel and are also used in higher proportions during higher intensity, shorter term (under 5 minutes) exercise.  Fat on the other had can take up to 12 hrs. to metabolize – eat an avocado now and you’ll be able to burn it for energy during your jog tomorrow morning. Fat is also used in higher proportion is longer duration (over 5 minutes) exercise and lower intensity. Finally, carbs can be converted to fat and stored for use later. Protein on the other hand cannot be converted and stored as fat.

Let’s see how much of this you got and think some of these questions through.

Why is it good to eat a little protein before bed?

Remember, protein is used to build muscle. While you’re sleeping, your body is at rest and it takes that opportunity to rebuild your muscles. Giving your body some protein right before sleep is a great way to kick start that process. Immediately after a workout is also a great time to get a little protein.

Why is it bad to eat fat during exercise?

Fat is used in higher proportions in longer duration, lower intensity exercise. That might – mistakenly – lead you to believe that you should eat fat during your 45 min morning jog. Remember though that it takes a long time to metabolize fat, so you don’t want to consume it during exercise. Instead, focus on consuming a small amount of carbs during exercise. This small amount of carbs actually enables your body to burn the fat that it already has stored for the majority of the energy that your workout requires.

Why are carbs bad? Are they really bad?

No! Carbs are not bad for you. Hopefully you caught the part about carbs being used as fuel for athletes. As an endurance athlete, you need to eat carbs. Please, please, please do not go on a low-carb or no-carb diet as an endurance athlete. Yes, it is true that you burn a higher portion of fat during long distance exercise, but it is not entirely fat – it’s still a mix of fat and carbs.

Low-carb and no-carb diets are a hit in the US right now, because the general population eats more carbs than they need and doesn’t exercise much or at all. For a person with a relatively sedentary lifestyle, you really don’t need many carbs because you’re not doing exercise to burn that fuel. When it’s not burned, it’s stored on the body as fat. Think of it like filling up the gas tank in your car. If you go to the gas station every day and buy 10 gallons of gas, but then don’t drive anywhere, your gas tank is going to overflow every time you fill up.

I hope this was helpful to give you a basic introduction to food and how it relates to athletes. I’m going to publish more in the coming months on more specifics of nutrition and how it relates to athletic training including putting together a race day hydration and nutrition plan and more.

Fitness Tests

Throughout your training, it is a good idea to do fitness testing. This allows you to track your progress in order to make sure you’re on track to meet your goals. If you’re on track, great! If you’re off track, what can you do to adjust your training to make sure you are still able to accomplish your goals?

*This list includes all of the fitness testing that I like to do with my athletes. The swimming and biking tests are for triathletes, so runners can omit those.

Planks (front, right side, left side, and back)

Do a timed plank for as long as you can hold it while maintaining good form. In each plank, your body should stay in a nice straight line – shoulders to hips to knees to feet. On each plank, make sure your hand or hands are grounded directly below your shoulders so that your arm makes a 90 degree angle with the ground.

Push-ups

Do as many consecutive push-ups as you can while maintaining good form. If you can’t do many or any push-ups, try doing modified push-ups on your knees – just make not of that if you do modified push-ups.

Chair Squats (both legs and single leg)

Do as many consecutive chair squats as you can using just your body weight. Make sure you sit down all the way into the chair to get the full range of motion. First, test doing a squat with both legs and then test your right and left legs individually (take a break between each set to rest). For the single leg squats, you can hold your arms out for balance, but don’t hold on to anything and don’t use your second leg to assist.

If you an do 500 with both legs and 100 with one-leg, stop there because you’re doing great! You’re ready for a more challenging test.

Wall Squat

Hold a timed wall squat for as long as you can. Your back should be firmly against the wall. Your thighs should be parallel to the ground and your shins should be perpendicular to the ground (everything is a 90 degree angle).

Freestyle Swim (50 m and 500 m)

In the pool, do a timed 50 m sprint and a timed 500 m swim. Yards are fine too, just make sure you make note of whether you are doing the test based on yards or meters and stick with that throughout your training program. These tests are intended to test your speed and endurance in the water.

Bike (5 min and 1 hr)

Do a timed biked ride of 5 minutes and 1 hour and record how far you went. This should be an all-out effort for the duration of the test. This works best to do on a trainer to eliminate outside variables like the weather and traffic. If you do it outside, try to find a flat course and use the same course each time you test. These tests are intended to test your speed and endurance on the bike.

Bike Drills

These tests are intended to measure how efficient you are with your pedal strokes.

Top Bike Cadence: Set your bike up on the trainer and put the resistance or your bike in the easiest gear. Start spinning and spin up to the highest cadence you can get until you start bouncing out of the saddle. Record the top cadence you were able to reach. This works best if you have a cadence sensor on your bike. If you don’t have a cadence sensor, spin up to your highest cadence. Hold that cadence for 10 seconds and count the number of times your right leg reaches the bottom of the stroke. Multiply that number by 6 and you have your top cadence. Counting yourself will not be quite as accurate, but if you do the test the same way throughout your training, you should at least be consistent.  

Peg Leg: Bike like a one-legged pirate! Set your bike up on the trainer and put the resistance or your bike in the easiest gear. Clip in only one foot and time how long you can continue to pedal with just one foot. The catch is that your time is up when you feel/hear a distinct click at the top of your stroke. That click happens when you are not applying force to the pedals all the way through your stroke. If you never get that click, time until you can no longer pedal.

Run (1 mile and 10k)

Do a timed run of 1 mile and 10k. This works best if you do it outside or on an indoor track (not on a treadmill) because you’ll get the most accurate time. If running outside, try to find a flat course and use the same course each time you test for consistency. These times can help you calculate your VDOT (the amount of oxygen your body consumes in a minute) which is a good measure of your body’s efficiency. You can then use your VDOT to calculate appropriate running training paces and project potential race times for whatever running distance you are training.