Karen writes: Nutrition

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I had a 2km wetsuit swim in the good-sized waves down at the beach last Friday,  had a reasonable 70km bike ride on Saturday, and the 19km run on Sunday was OK if uninspiring.  In fact, I almost did the half IM over the 3 days, there is no doubt that I am fit enough, it's just that I don’t feel good right now.   After a discussion with trainer Grant I can be a bit flexible with this week's programme, it asked for 2 training sessions most days but I will be building in a little more rest.  The other thing is to take care of two other neglected areas, the hypothyroid and the food.

So I had the blood tests to make sure that the thyroid thing wasn’t an obvious cause, the levels are not far off where they usually are, and then I asked for help with nutrition.   It turns out the rules we teach in health education-land  aren't always that easy to apply to endurance activity.  It doesn't seem to just be a matter of increasing everything across the board, or if you use the formula 'energy in=energy out', if you burn off 2000 Calories on a ride, you cant simply replace it with the equivalent in cake.

Anyway, after Taupo's poor showing, any solution would do, and I figure it makes sense that I can’t keep my body working as hard as it is without decent fuel (plus I am piling on weight in spite of running huge energy deficits), so I booked time with a nutritionist/naturopath with a sports interest called Cate.  Even before I met up with her though, I wrote down what I ate on a weekend day and realised how bad it must look to someone else, which was a wakeup call.   So this week I am keeping a proper food diary to submit at our next meeting, and if I don't want to have to lie to prevent further embarrassment I had better make some changes!  Starting tomorrow of course, after I have eaten the evidence.

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