Gym'll fix it

Although I was pretty sore and tired for about an hour after yesterdays marathon bike/run session I was fine this morning. Still a bit saddle sore and a little deep muscle tiredness but nothing to what it could have been. I thought I'd go for a swim and get some easy laps in to ease the muscles a bit.

However it being the weekend the pool was full of families, so I hit the gym for just under an hour. Usual 250 bench situps and then some work using the machines on my shoulders and chest. Finishing with free weights for my arms. Pretty knocked out at the end as I put in a pretty good effort and was pushing myself for 10 more on every repetition.

As part of yesterday's cycling I tried to work out a fuelling regime for the race. If you're doing hard exercise non stop for over 6 hours you run out of blood sugar quickly and you need to keep your available calories up. The ongoing danger of dehydration due to constant sweating obviously needs to be tackled at the same time. Normally if I run I'll have a single energy drink beforehand and that is enough to get me through anything up to 20K as long as I've had lunch or breakfast within 3-4 hours of the run.

There is no way to do the triathlon just by eating and drinking at the start. Its easy to run yourself dry in as little as 2 hours as I described last week, when I did the 62KM cycle run without having eaten or drank anything. So I know from this and previous experiences what it feels like to run out of juice before the end. Its a kind of light headed sensation a bit like the first beer effect but its accompanied with a hollow feeling in the stomach and worst of all a jelly/weak sensation in the arms and legs. So like a sober hangover in a sauna.

The secret to fuelling up is to make sure you do it before you need it, that way you don't have to go through a yo-yo effect during the race. Now its easy to say eat when you're hungry and drink when you're thirsty. However from ingestion to hitting your bloodstream and to doing you any good there is a time lag. There is also a time lag of when your body starts to run out and when it tells you. These two things compounded by constant exersion means you need to find the match of intake to energy use without any help and well before the race.

I set my watch for a 1 hour fuel up as its as good a place to start as any. I did the first hour and was pretty spent and could just feel the dizzy sensation in my head although my legs, arms and stomach felt fine. I drank half a bottle of sports drink(350ml) and within 2-3 minutes I felt fine and like I'd gotten a second wind.. So I will drop the time to 50 minutes next time out. That way I hope to avoid any ongoing nastiness or dips in concentration.

I'll then wait for another 50mins more on the bike at which time I'll eat some dried fruit and nuts and finish the sports drink. At the next 50 minutes and I'll take a sports gel(1500Calories) and a half bottle of sports drink. I'm looking to flood my system just at the time I'm getting off the bike and into the run. I don't really like drinking or eating when I run so I'll try as much as possible to bulk up on food just under an hour before I run. That way I'll at worst need to drink on the run and should have digested much of the solid food. You need to watch though as if you over do it on the drinks or food side you run the risk of being sick or getting the shits, both of which will make a hard day even harder.

Chapeau to Rob York for chopping off a half marathon in Liverpool this morning. When I woke up this morning I was glad it was you on the starting line and not me, especially with losing an hours sleep last night. Well done mate :O) The big question of course is whats the next race.