Posts

Showing posts from June, 2010

Fueling During Training and Racing Part 2

The last blog post I talked about some basic aspects to fueling during training and racing for just about any race. In this post I will discuss more specific aspects of training for longer distance events. The carbohydrate is your body’s most efficient fuel source. It plays a role in both low and high intensity endurance activities. A 150-pound triathlete can store approximately 1800 calories of glycogen as carbohydrate. This can help you through about two hours of high intensity training or four hours of moderate-intensity training. Our body can also utilize fat and protein as fuel (in very small amounts) to support the moderate-intensity workouts, but our stores of this are not nearly enough to support the energy of 4+ hour training days you need carbohydrates. Consuming carbohydrates during training longer than one hour can help performance by maintaining adequate blood sugar levels. Blood glucose is the main fuel source for your brain, and a well-nourished brain may improve your tr

Fueling During Training and Racing Part 1

One of the most common questions triathletes and runners ask me is what they should eat when training and racing. The answer is not real simple. That is why I am going to discuss it in two different blog posts. This way you, the reader won't get bored and I will get a break writing it! First I will talk about the various options and provide you with some basic information. In the next blog post I will talk about how to fuel during some of the longer events such as marathons, ultra marathons, half ironman and full ironman events. When trying to figure out what to drink or eat when training keep in mind everybody is different. A lot of times it takes several trial efforts to find something that works for you. I have mentioned before in previous blog posts what I do for longer events and that works really good for me. I figured it out through trial and many errors! First lets talk about all the products out there. I use gels that have less simple sugars in them. These work better for