NO LOVE HANDLES ALLOWED!

'It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.' Theodore Roosevelt 23 April 1910

Thursday 7 October 2010

What does a resting athlete eat?

Full English breakfast (2 eggs, 2 rashers of bacon, sausage, big mushroom, baked beans and toast).
Lashings of hot coffee.
Fresh cream apple turnover.
More coffee.
Fresh cream cherry scone.
Surf and Turf (fillet steak with fresh king prawns, green salad, peppers, onions, carrots with balsamic vinegar).
A Crunchie (and it wasn't even a Friday!).
3 small Dairy Milk bars.
More coffee.
Red wine.

Thought I should add a few more words about my race, so here goes:

As for my race (the bike in a relay team), it never really got going. We received a yellow flag in T1 because I wasn't wearing a number, despite the relay teams being briefed that there was no need for the rider to wear a number on their back during the bike leg. This had made me somewhat grumpy and set the tone for my day. Matt was the 4th relay swimmer out of the water in 49 mins and handed over to me and I worked hard through the twisty part of the town with a plan of letting things settle down once on to the main part of the bike course. Unfortunately, despite feeling very good, my breathing was under control and it felt like I was barely putting any effort on to the pedals, my HR was sky high and refused to come down. I reached the 1st turn in about an hour and took the opportunity to use the tailwind to try and get my HR down. I backed off to about 34/35kmh but still my HR would not come down (at the 3 hour point my average HR was 163). And just to make matters worse, from about the 2.5 hour point my stomach decided it did not want to receive any more of the nutrition I was attempting to put into it. If you've never been tucked on your tribars at 40kmh and puked I would certainly not recommend it! And this became the norm for the next hour. Take nutrition and a few minutes later I would receive a mouthful of vomit back from my stomach. Hardly a fair exchange I would say. At one point I tried to say thank you to a marshal and it came out as 'BARF!' It took me an hour of this for my befuddled brain to tell me to switch to water. This seemed to do the trick although by this time I was dehydrated and way behind my nutrition plan and my sub 5 hour ride was now nothing but a dream. I therefore chose to sit up and enjoy the view and spin my way home. I was surpised that even doing this I was riding comfortably at 33/34kmh. And my HR, at last, dropped in to the 140s.

So that's Challenge Barcelona done and dusted. I have the Dunsfold Sportive to look forward to on 17 Oct and then I will get into my winter plan (lots of gym work, weights and only a small amount of cycling).

Eat well folks!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

what does a resting athlete eat?
anything he bloody well wants, as long as its washed down with beer or wine! i think you have been taking it easy loking at that tiny menu! a mere starter.. wheres the main course?
enjoy the recovery MrT