What Do Triathletes Eat? The Week Before the Ironman

What do triathletes eat?

Anything and everything. We are notorious for putting all-you-can-eat places out of business.

The Ironman is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, followed by a full 26.2 mile marathon.

All in under 17 hours.

The training are longer than the race.

My longest swim was 6,000 meters.

My longest bike ride was 117 miles.

My longest run was 27 miles.

I burned over 41,000 calories along in training that month.

We are always hungry.

5 Days before an Ironman

Drink a lot of water. I was told to make sure to get a little extra protein in my meals. I start to triple everything.

3 Days before the Ironman

This is where I start having fun. Midnight snacks become another meal. Meals become events.
I eating anything and everything I want. A box of cookies, a pint of ice cream, whole pizzas, even a sushi boat.

The Day before the Ironman

8 a.m. Nibble through half a package of lox for breakfast.
Sip cold brew coffee.

10 a.m. snack on cookies. 

Sip Gatorade
12 noon, waiting on lunch guest, I devour a bag of chips.
Drink a 16 ounce water.

1 p.m. Lamb Cholent & London broil & kugels.

More water

3-5:30 p.m. nap

6 p.m. pint of ice cream.

Sip Gatorade

7 p.m. Tub of hummus and crackers. 

Sip Gatorade

8 p.m. Snickers Ice Cream Bar. 

Sip water

9 p.m. Canister of Jalapeno Pringles.

Gatorade empty, sip more water.

Some how I was a half pound lighter than my normal weight on race day...

The Dress Rehearsal - 7 Days to GO!

Seven days before the Ironman Triathlon, I thought it would be a good idea to do a race.
(How is that a good idea?)
I wanted to road test my plans & see if there were any kinks to be worked out.
The plan was to keep it in zone three.
There are five zones of exertion. My plan for the Ironman is to race in zone three, so it made sense to race a smaller race like the NYC Tri in that fashion.
(What is "zone three"?)
Simply put, if zone one is walking & zone five is running as hard as you can for 30 seconds, zone three is in the middle.
You are racing at marathon pace.
(Or say Ironman pace?)
Now you've got it.

PROBLEM # 1-  SWIM PACE
Last year at Ironman Lake Placid (IMLP) I swam the first lap in 40 minutes & the second in 45 minutes. That means...
(You are getting old?)
That I lost momentum in the second loop
(You are old, so you got tired)
This year, I did swim workouts that were much longer than
the race swim to work on my endurance & build up my speed. The only way to know if this worked was to swim in a race.
(So how did you modify a 3,860 meter swim to a race of 1,500 meters?)
I resisted the urge to sprint. Instead I focused on swimming at my practice pace.
I wasn't going to wear my wet suit, but since this was a full dress rehearsal, I had to. Somehow, when I scooted my butt off the pier & into the water, an air pocket got trapped in my wet suit & gave me extra buoyancy. 

(Is that you in the picture reaching behind to open your wet suit?)
Leave it to the NYC tri to find this one picture of me from the swim.

PROBLEM # 2-  BIKE PACE
Last year at IMLP, I raced through the first 56 mile loop & was feeling dead on the second loop. This year I used a power meter in training. So during the NYC Tri I glanced at the meter to make sure I was in zone 3 as much as I could. It kept me from sprinting forward
(Which would have been bad since you need your legs to be rested for next week).

I wanted to break my course record of 1:21:23 (18 mph), but in zone three I finished the 25 miles at 1:31:39 (16.2 mph).
(That sucks)
No it doesn't. If I can hold that 16.2 mph, for 112 miles, my finish time will be an hour faster than last year.
(Huh? Did you say something?)
The ADD part of me needs to focus here.

PROBLEM # 3-  RUN PACE
At IMLP last year, & at the NYC Marathon last year my run pacing was off. At both events, I had to walk part of the way.
(Now the NYC Tri is not a marathon...)
But it is held on a very hot day, after biking & swimming.
Instead of sprinting, I ran at an 11 minute pace.
(That sucks)

Yeah, it's slow even for me, for a 10k (6.2 miles),
but for a marathon, that's much faster than I have ever held.
(I still don't understand)
I had to hold that pace running up hills from Riverside Park to 72nd St. & across 72 when I knew I could sprint. I continued to stay in zone 3 through Central Park as others passed me. 
I was even able to run up the "Harlem Hill" section of the course in Central Park.
(I guess all that running in the middle of the night paid off) 
I got stronger & I was home when the kids were home.
(Which might be the reason you cry every time you see them waiting for you at a race).
Like I'm doing in this picture.

The Immensity of It All- 13 days to GO

An Ironman Triathlon is:

2.4 mile swim. 
112 mile bike ride.
26.2 mile run. 
140.6 miles in under 17 hours.
(What happens if it takes you more than 17 hours?)
You get disqualified :(

It's a staggering amount of mileage in a short amount of time, but this number alone doesn't tell the whole story. Starting in May, when the last 8 weeks of training commences, the volume of miles looks like this:

Since I run before work, the longer the run, the earlier the wake up.
By the point I was doing 18 & 20 mile runs, I was going to bed at 11 & waking up at 2 to run.
DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.
I love running in NYC. The streets are always lit. Since it is a grid, there is no chance of getting lost. There are plenty of NYC landmarks to run past & there's no danger of wild animals.

I knew that ultra runners compete in events where they run for 24 straight hours, so I wasn't worried about training on minimal amounts of sleep.  
My body is ok with sleeping for 2-3 hours a night, running for 4 hours & then teaching a full day of classes.

Once again, do not try this at home.

In the last 8 weeks of training, there were long swims that lasted for almost 2 hours.
(With breaks?)
No breaks. Flip turn at the wall & keep on swimming. I kept repeated my mantra: Nose facing the bottom of the pool, arms outstretched. I wasn't bored, but when the swim was done my arms were sore & I was starving.

And...there were 100 + mile bike rides.
(With breaks?)

Only time I stopped was for red lights, stop signs or to buy more water. Spending the day, riding my bike, with the sun in my face is one of my happy places. I would pedal north, rolling through town after town. Teaneck, Leonia, Fort Lee, Englewood Cliffs, Alpine, Sparkill, Piermont, Nyack, Congers, Havestraw, Stony Point, Bear Mountain, West Point, Storm King Mountain...

(How long did those rides last?)
Over 8 hours.

(At that pace, won't you be disqualified at the Ironman for being too slow?)
I trained on 9W, a stretch of road with many more hills than the actual race.

The end result was that in 8 weeks I
Swam 47,000  meters
Biked  800 miles
Ran    155 miles 
These numbers are incomprehensible to me.
The swim is double of what I had expected.
The bike averaged out that I was doing 100 miles a week, every week.
The run...as someone who once struggled to run more than 3 miles at a time, I am just speechless.
I had a total caloric burn of:

And those were just workout burning calories.

I burn an average of 1,500 calories a day without training. 

So in 8 weeks, my total burn was about 165,000.

To avoid losing too much weight, I increased my caloric intake.

To find out what I ate, you will have to wait another week...

Carrying that Weight - 21 Days to GO!

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.” Anaïs Nin

It started with a photograph. My friend Peter shot a picture of me leaving the water at the Half Ironman in September of 2013.

There I was running for the transition area where my bike was waiting for me.

It was there, clear for everyone to see. I had a tummy.

"Psst, hey, this is our little secret. No one needs to know, right?" 

That was the what the voice in my head said.

I'm 5' 7, so I should weigh between 154-159. So what if I was 165? What's 6 lbs between friends?

I was 45 years old at the time. Being 6 lbs over was pretty good.

BUT...I hate dishonesty. Especially when it is coming from my own head.

I had been lying to myself. 

"You're a triathlete, you can eat anything you want."

NO, I could not. I was 45 & it was time to be honest about what I was doing.

I was eating with my eyes & not using my head.

On Saturdays, I would consume 750-1,000 calories for breakfast at Synagogue.

Then I would go home and repeat the same eating...grazing at lunch.

Peter's photo inspired me to make a change.

I was going to make smarter choices.

When given a choice, I would choose lean proteins vegis over processed carbs.

When I had to snack, I would eat a ClifBar instead of a whole box of cookies.

I would limit my meals to one serving...not three.

Result? I dropped 10 lbs in 3 months. 

              I went from this:                   To this: 

                                

The problem became, trying to keep the weight off. I started weighing my self every day. I started substituting coffee for food. 

When my weight hit 149, my wife started to worry.

I decided to gave up the scale.

The question then became, "What do I eat?"

I went back to my training as a coach. What had I been instructing my athletes to do when they were training?

A yogurt for breakfast.

A banana for snack.

A sandwich for lunch.

A plate of proteins & veggies for dinner.

Some hummus & chips for late night snack.

(So how has your weight been for the last 18 months?)

Between 160-163. In the last 8 weeks of training, my weight dropped to 158 & that is ok. That's what the post workout pizza is for.

As long as my pants fit, I'm good with what ever the scale says I weigh.