One high point from 70.3 St. Croix was my race day nutrition.
Here is my “First Endurance” race day nutrition report:

3:45 am Breakfast (Race start time was 6:32 for the pro women):

2 cups of yogurt with 1 scoop of rice protein
1 banana
a handful of cereal
1 packet of Justin’s Almond Nut Butter
1 small cup of coffee

5′ before swim start: a taste of gu

Bike: 1 32 oz bottle with 2 scoops of EFS lemon lime drink , 1 banana
3 hits of liquid shot. At mile 30/35 I grabbed a bottle of gatorade that was on course. It was really, really hot. I needed a lot more liquid than usual. Please also note that I grabbed water at ever aid stating and gulped as much as possible.

Run: At every aid station I grabbed gatorade and water. I didn’t need any gels, orange slices, or food. The final 3 miles, I mixed coke and water together as felt like I needed a little mental boost to get me home.

Even though it was hot, hot, hot, I had no cramping or GI distress.  I like to keep my race day nutrition as simple as possible. Simple seems to work the best for me. Thank you to First Endurance for the best, cleanest, nutrition products on the planet. First Endurance makes it easy to have a good nutrition day!

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There were a lot of unknowns coming into this race.  My previous block of training was nothing to write home about.  Before the race, I couldn’t remember the last time that I felt awesome on the bike. I couldn’t remember the last time that I had a great swim.  My runs had been going fairly well, but admittedly, most of my last training block was spent lying in bed. While Cliff and I have tried to be smart about incorporating the right amount of rest into my training, neither one of us was in tune enough to catch this last bout of over training before it hit me.

During our pre-race talk, I told Cliff  that I was pretty sure I knew how St. Croix would play out.  While I tried to think positively and consider giving myself a 50/50 chance of either having a great day or a crap day, in my gut I knew it was more like a 80-90% chance that I would have a disappointing race.
Despite my not so impressive day, I am pleased that I was able to blow out the pipes for the first time in over two weeks. Only 5 days ago, I couldn’t even ride my bike for 2 hours without symptoms of overextending myself.  Also, today was a brutally hot day, the hottest day that I can remember from years past.  And despite my last two weeks of feeling…

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I have been thinking about my college years a lot these past few days as I just made my flight reservation for Knoxville for the REV3, May 9th.  I ran track and cross country at the University of Tennessee.  I have a Bachelor of Science and graduated in 1995.  I have a lot of great memories from my time there, and I am feeling a few butterflies with nervous energy as I plan to return to campus this May.

Focusing on the some of my favorite memories today, I thought about what I loved the most about our team…

One of the things I miss about college running  is the strong bond we  had as women and athletes .  We were  ”Lady Vols”.  We trained in a very competitive environment.  We encouraged each other, we competed with each other, we brought out the inner fire in each other, and occasionally we fought with one another.  In a sense, we were  sisters.  My years at the University of Tennessee are where I feel I grew the most as a young woman.  Some of my best friends today are the girls that I ran with 15 years ago. 

I love this picture…can you find me??  This picture is from Spring Track 1993 (I think).

After my college running career ended, I did not miss running. I missed the team.  After years of being an “individual” in triathlon, I am now a part of the TRAKKERS  “team”.  I am returning to Knoxville not…

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Sometimes when you gamble, you win.  Sometimes when you gamble, you lose.

This race started like most other 70.3 races.  The pro women started 3 minutes after the pro men.  We all sat on the start line, jockeying for position.  Pow, the gun goes off …arms start flying.   

Arms are flying, goggles get knocked off, legs get pulled, & arms get tangled.  Luckily but unluckily, none of this happened to me on Saturday.  After about 300 meters, I realized I was leading the rest of the other ”not as fast” swimmers out of the water.  Awesome….

Anyway, I wasn’t about to pull these girls around the swim course, especially if there was someone else that was capable of  leading.  Another pro woman seemed to want to be in front to lead us scrubs around, and I gladly let her do it.  I jumped on her feet, a bit annoyed with myself, but getting myself amped for the bike…

Onward and upward….right?!?  After all, I am very used to getting out of the water 4 minutes back from the fastest swimmers…2 and a half minutes behind the contenders.  This “bad” swim  is not new territory for me.  In fact, this time of year, it is sort of normal for me.  But I couldn’t help but get angry.  And to be more honest, getting angry is actually good for my racing…

I had a pretty good t1, hopped on my gorgeous, sleek Kestrel Airfoil, Pieridae, and I rode fairly hard.  Since it t was chilly, I wasn’t craving my…

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Episodio seis de la cobertura que se realizó en el Ironman 70.3 Pucón 2010. En este videos se vive la competencia y lo agotadora que esta es para los competidores. Tenemos el momento exclusivo cuan…

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We catch up the Lovatos to talk about Amanda’s win in Pucon, overcoming the cold water in Oceanside, and what we’ll see from them in 2010.

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One of the most important aspects of racing and training for me is my recovery. While I’m not injury prone, I do tend to get VERY, VERY tired. While I have known this about myself since my early years of racing at the University of Tennessee, I haven’t always listened to my body.

Always wanting to impress the coach, wanting to be the best or fastest, I strived to follow “the program” until I would drop dead of exhaustion or half dead from being sick. I am most vulnerable to the fatigue, when I am doing lots of quality and lots of volume. While taking ice baths and using my NORMA TEC MVP Boots is imperative for recovery and injury prevention, the most important thing for me to do is to take a few days easy…or even…gasp…take one (or 3) day off!!

Here are the 10 KEY signs that I look for when I think need a day off:

1. I don’t feel like walking my dogs. I love my dogs…a lot. But when I am tired, the thought of taking them outside makes me want to vomit.

2. I don’t feel good after the first 30 minutes of training. Sometimes a good warm is all that I need to feel happy, alive, and fast. However, if I still do not feel good after the first interval, I know that I am headed toward the path of anger and destruction.…

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I’m home…I’m back…I’m recovering from the CEC training camp that was held in Tucson.

As I sit and reflect on the past two weeks of training, I have some really awesome memories. I can not say enough great things about “camp”. Being able to train with Cliff and the rest of the CEC athletes (and Terra), having Cliff see us in person, and how we train was really good for us. I think we change as people and as athletes from year to year. Not only do we need different things on a physical level, we need different workouts to help us mentally. It is natural to need new things structured into our programs. Being able to get one on one attention from Cliff was excellent as Cliff is very strong at assessing what we need as athletes.

One of the other aspects of camp that I enjoyed was the camaraderie that we had as athletes. I love training in a group environment. I thrive on it. I love going to workout, a bit nervous, a bit tired, a bit sore, pulling everything that I have from the deepest part of me to give all that I had on that day. Camp was hard! We did a ton of volume with a bit of intensity thrown in. There were days that I got my ass handed to me. There were days that I did the ass kicking. However, what I…

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