New eats. Well-Bred

Enjoying the basil strawberry lemonade from Laughing Seed.

I have spent many, many years figuring out the role of food in my life. While I want my food choices to positively affect my health and athletic performance, I have also worked hard to discover a way that I can eat, perform well, and still function well in life to enjoy the things that mean so much to me, like being with Karel, traveling and spending time with close friends and family.
Ultimately, my diet enhances my life and it does not control my life.

Seeing that my career and formal education both revolve around food, it would be easy to assume that I am obsessed with food.
While I am passionate about food and have dedicated my life to learning about food and how it impacts the physiology and health of the human body, food is not my life. I eat when I am hungry, I feel satisfied and I move on with my life. OR, I eat when I need the energy to perform, I train to maximize my performance, I recover and I stay consistent with training.

How about you? Do you find yourself at ease with your diet, comfortable when eating out or when someone else prepares your food and happy when you eat?
Or, do you find yourself stressing, obsessing, feeling guilty, restricted or overwhelmed by food.

There are no food rules and certainly no off-limit food lists in our diet.
Neither of us have ever followed a diet plan.
In my opinion, this is food freedom. 

I feel it is important for every athlete to understand what foods work best for your body and when.
Regardless if you have a clinical reason to avoid certain foods, you want to lose/gain weight or you feel otherwise healthy, I believe that every individual should have flexibility with the diet but with enough structure that assists in reaching health goals and athletic expectations.

While this is easier said than done and takes time (and consistency), one way that I achieve food freedom and a great relationship with food is not obsessing about my weight.

While Karel and I could both probably be leaner, skinner, thinner or however you want to describe the body image, there's a line that neither of us want to cross when it comes to our enjoyment of food and what it would take with our diet to be "less" with our bodies.

If you know anything about me and Karel, we absolutely love trying new restaurants, specifically when we travel. While I try to not be too adventurous with my eating before a race to ensure a happy tummy with familiar and easy-to-digest foods, traveling (especially for a race) provides a unique opportunity to be inspired by new foods, new recipes and new creations.

While returning home from our race (Lake James 50), it took a good 2+ hours or so before either of us had enough of an appetite to eat a meal. I looked up places to eat in Asheville, NC and came across Well-Bred Bakery & Cafe.



Seeing that the name made our mouth water, we couldn't wait to eat our first "real" meal of the day (around 3:30pm)


Decisions, decisions. 


Karel ordered the Tempeh sandwich with sauerkraut and melted cheese on marble rye with a side of pea salad. 

I ordered the breakfast burrito with eggs, potatoes, beans and cheese with a side of salsa and sour cream. 

For dessert, Karel ordered (his favorite) Key Lime pie and a piece of rugelach.

We both shared each other's meal as they were both delicious and we wanted to each share the yumminess with each other.
Lucky for me that Karel doesn't mind vegetarian food options as it isn't that often that I can eat what Karel eats at a restaurant.

After the meal, we left the restaurant with happy tummies, feeling absolutely great with our food choices.

2 time-crunched workouts

Everything in moderation. You have probably heard this saying a lot when it comes to the diet but what about when applied to an athlete's workout regime?

Well, I don't want to be a moderate athlete. I want to be the best athlete I can be.

Because my season is focused on endurance racing, I know that there is a specific training regime that I need to follow and accomplish to be mentally and physically prepared for my races.

However, just because I have training plan for the week, this doesn't mean that it can never change. Understanding that life brings changes, stressful moments and days when free-time to train is extremely limited. 

I never sacrifice my diet, sleep or work to train. Work pays the bills and my diet and sleep contribute to performance gains. I have learned through making many mistakes in my endurance training and racing lifestyle over the past 9 years that the quality of workouts matter more than the quality.

Additionally, I constantly remind my athletes that what you do (or don't do) between your workouts (when they do occur) is how we get stronger, faster and more powerful as athletes. Just because you can check off a workout, it doesn't mean that it will bring performance gains if you are sacrificing other things in life that will assist in physical performance gains. 

This past week has been quite busy for us and the planned training routine was modified almost every day. For me and Karel, one week of training never matches the next week of training, even if we accomplish every workout in our training plan.

On Thursday evening, it was nearing 6:30pm and I had a key bike and EZ run on my schedule. Although we rode in the morning with our athlete Justine for almost 2 hours, that ride was all about  her. We would have been just fine not working out in the evening but we both felt like we needed our own personal workout. Karel did a 6 mile run (starting from my mom's house because we needed to help her with something from 4-6pm) and I got on the trainer.

My main set on the trainer was 25 minutes and my main set for the run was 4 minutes. Here's the workout:

(disclaimer, although I share my workouts please keep in mind that they specific to where I am in my periodized training plan. It is important to focus on your development as an athlete and build a strong foundation and powerful body prior to doing any speed work). 

Thursday PM workout:

Trainer Bike: 

10 min mobility/hip/glute work

20 min warm-up (Z1-Z2, increasing cadence and effort every 5 minutes)

MS 5x's:

3 minutes heavy gear at Z3 power

2 minutes high cadence, Z3 power

Repeat

10 min cool down

Brick Run: 

2 min run to the other side of my neighborhood

8 x 30 sec hill sprints w/ 90 sec walk/jog in between (down the hill)

2 min run back home

On Saturday morning, we needed to be in the car to head to Asheville for a meeting at 9:20am (meeting at 11am, 1:20 drive to Asheville) so without sacrificing sleep or fueling before the workout, we planned to head to the Y at 7am. Things would have been different in terms of our run and available time to train if it wasn't raining outside so the treadmill run was better than no run and thus, we made a quality workout out of it.

Karel did his own workout and I did as follows:

Saturday AM workout: 

10 min hip/glute/mobility work (I will never skip this before a run even if that means running 10-15 minutes less)

Warm-up: 

20 min EZ run with 1 min rest at 9 and 19 minutes. 

MS: 20 x 90 sec hill runs at 4% incline with 30 sec rest (straddle treadmill) in between. 

#1-10 @ 7.5 mph (steady)

#11-15 @ 7.8 mph (strong, felt the burn the last 30 sec)

#16-19 @ 8 mph (strong, felt the burn the last 60 sec)

#20 @ best effort, 8.6 mph (felt the burn at 15 sec)

3 min cool down

Total: 1:05, 7.75 miles

The wonderful part of focusing on quality workouts  and making the most out of your available time is knowing that you are still moving closer to your fitness goals but you are not skipping the valuable steps in your development. Plus, if you use your time wisely, you will recover faster, perform better and still enjoy the awesome things in life that will make you smile on race day.

Like Campy exploring the Asheville woods. 

A few take-aways for the time-crunched athlete:
-There are going to be times when you feel so rushed to get it all done. Never sacrifice sleep or healthy eating and proper fueling at the expense of getting in a longer workout  or more workouts.
-Make sure you have a few key workouts during the week dedicated to your development. It's great to workout  with friends but your workouts need to be focused on you and your progression in order for you to apply those workouts to your race day.
-Never underestimate the power of a shorter workout. I challenge anyone to tell me that a 5K all out effort is easier than a 10-mile steady long run. In order to focus on quality workouts you need to get your mind focused and stop telling yourself that more is always better. 

-Your fitness development is based on consistent workouts and frequent workouts. Use this advice to have a global perspective on your training. If you are able to only work out 3 times during the week, make sure they are quality workouts and don't overdo it on the weekends to make up for time-lost during the week. If you can get in 5 x 30 min workouts during the week that is much better than 1-2 ok workouts during the week and 1-2 epic workouts on the weekend.
-A haphazard training plan where you are just checking off workouts to get them done, just going through the motions with an underfueled, exhausted body, following someone else's training or using fear based training to make you feel more prepared for race day, comes with great risks and consequences. Be smart with your available time to train. 

Love on two wheels in Asheville, NC

Yesterday was our very first trip to Asheville, NC. A 85 minute drive from our home in Greenville, SC and it was one beautiful drive!!
The fall colors were amazing and the mountains kept growing as we neared Asheville. We are absolutely in-love with Greenville and feel it is the perfect place for us to live and train but Asheville was a super nice treat.

We were invited to join a group ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway and Karel and I were joined by Maggie Rusch, Kelly and Megan Fillnow and a few others. It was lovely to be around such positive energy. 

I love nature, riding with fun people, being with Karel on two wheels, climbing mountains, descending and enjoying Mother Earth's beautiful gifts. It was a fantastic 2 hour ride as we also climbed/descended Mt Mitchell. 4100 feet of climbing and lots to love on two wheels. 

Here are a few pics for you to enjoy. I wish we could have taken more (Karel was taking lots of pics) but it was a little chilly and super windy and I was totally soaking in the view!

6 years ago I married someone who reminded me of my dad. Smart, funny, passionate, hard working, caring, great with electronics, athletic and loves cars. I'm so lucky to be able to spend the rest of my life with someone who loves me and wants the best for me, just like my dad.

Happy anniversary Karel! I'm looking forward to many more years of love, traveling, laughing, communicating, working together, training/racing together and living life together.