Recovery and Nutrition

Many folks have asked me about my nutrition and recovery strategies. Seeing as I get this question at least every two weeks, I thought that I would write an article about it. Now, these strategies work for me. However, we are all different so what works for me might not be optimal for you. Take these ideas with a grain of salt and experiment to find out what works best for you.

I decided to combine my recovery and nutrition thoughts because I see the two as linked. I find that when I get in a good dietary groove, my body seems to bounce back quicker from hard training. You have heard this before but it is worth saying again, You Can't Train a Tired Body. There is no point in doing a session when you are exhausted. You will be far better served from taking extra sleep and hitting the next day fresh. Of course, even better than this is to organize your life so you get that extra sleep before you have to miss sessions, but for the working athlete this is not always possible. With my athletes, I lay out their weekly schedules such that the key workouts are highlighted. Recovery workouts are also highlighted and can be skipped if extra recovery is required.

For the athlete that is prone to sickness, I believe that sleep is even more essential. Most of us are excellent at dragging ourselves out to do our workouts when we are tired. Where a lot of us (myself included) fall down is when our body is telling us "no more," and we try to push through. More often than not, this results in bringing on a full-fledged illness - where we lose close to an entire week of training instead of one or two days. It takes a lot of maturity to skip a workout. This is probably my toughest challenge - knowing when to back-off.

So how does the working athlete manage to get enough sleep? Well, we all have the same number of hours in the day - it is what we do with those hours that is different. Some ideas:

Take a hard look at where you are spending your time and identify junk hours. The biggest one for me is the Internet. I like surfing around and posting advice on various sites. I also swap e-mails with pals all over the world, and subscribe to a lot of mail lists. These activities suck time. I estimate 1-3 hours every day! When things get a little hectic - or when I just want to get more done in my life - I knock out all non-essential Internet. Internet is my vice. Yours might be TV, videos, movies, magazines, whatever. Of course, there is a fine line between time management and ruthless devotion to athletics. Quite often I cross that line, but my goals are to be the best athlete that I can be. I think it is important to keep things in perspective and to align your athletic goals with your commitment to the sport.

Weekend naps - These saved me last season. Last winter I read that Scott Molina (high volume psycho extraordinaire) was a big believer in naps. I started taking naps in the afternoon, but they always left me wiped out. So, I did some research into sleep patterns. Turns out that if you sleep for more than about 60 minutes, your body starts to go into a deeper level of sleep. So, I slept less to feel better. It worked. Here is what works for me. Saturday and Sunday - a 40-60 minute nap each day. Do your main workout early in the day - eat your recovery meal (see below) and then go to bed right away. Do not nap after 2:30PM in the afternoon as it will interfere with your evening sleep pattern. No more than 60 minutes (very important).

Wake up at the same time every day - Whether I am training or recovering, I always try to wake up at the same time every day. I think this helps your body/mind get in a groove and therefore, you both fall asleep faster in the evening and enjoy a higher quality sleep.

Avoid excessive alcohol - Some would say avoid all alcohol, but let's be real. Getting a decent buzz on messes with my sleep for at least the next two days. Back off the booze and you will find that your sleep patterns become more stable. If you have been used to a fair amount of booze, it will take a little while to get into this one. From my own experience, I think there is a form of chemical dependency that gets built up from the booze.

Trim non-essential social activities - You guys can probably imagine what it takes to get me to deem a social activity as essential! Well, I am pretty ruthless on this front. When you wake up at 4-5AM every morning, you aren't going to make it past 9PM, period. I have decided that my athletics takes priority, so I am comfortable going home early (or not going at all). My advice to you is decide where you are going to draw the line and explain it to your friends. My buddies understand because they know that I am working hard towards goals that are important to me.

There may be some other stuff. I will add to this as they come to me. My final thought here is a simple one - We do triathlon to have fun, if it stops being fun then back off, re-assess your goals, and decide the best way forward. Losing site of this goal will quickly result in burnout or illness.

So, you are well rested and training well. Now you want to maximize the speed of your recovery. Why? The faster you recover, the more training and intensity you can handle. It is recovery where you gain your fitness. I have found that after sleep, the next two essentials are hydration and nutrition. I will start with hydration first.

Year round, I have a bottle of water in the following places: my car, my bedroom, my bathroom, my desk, my fridge and my workout bag. I drink a glass of water in every meeting I have during the day. I drink a pint of water before (and after) every run or bike workout. I bring two large water bottles on every ride I do (even 45 minute recovery rides). I always bring a bottle down to the pool. I put a pitcher of water on the table for dinner every night. Do you see a pattern here? Basically, I make sure that I have ready access to water throughout the day. Sure I pee a lot, but I am never dehydrated. Dehydration has a number of effects on me: (a) it slows my recovery; (b) it increases muscle damage during my sessions, especially running; and (c) I get headaches and my motivation wanes. I am NOT super hydrating. Just sipping on water all day long. My intake varies a lot during the year, and you need to find what works for you. I think it was Tinley or Dave Scott that said you should be peeing clear once a day. That rule seems to work well for me. If you are peeing clear four times a day, you might want to back off a bit.

Now nutrition. It is probably easiest to start by telling you my "golden rules".

• No eggs, butter, cheese or anything containing dairy fat - will eat things like noodles and bread that have small quantities of eggs.
• No saturated fats or hydrogenated oils
• No fast food or junk food (evil!)
• Minimal red meat (and only beef when I do eat red meat)
• Unlimited fruits and veggies - 6-12 servings of fruit and 6-12 servings of veggies every day
• Lean protein (skim milk products, whey protein, poultry, fish) - 80 to 150 grams a day
• Starchy carbos (rice, pasta, bread) only during and after training - avoid in the evening

Have a look at the above and a some things pop out right away:

• I eat a huge amount of fruits and veggies. Very important for me. I get hungry during the day, and the fruit fills me up and keeps me from snacking on lousy food. The fruit, in particular, is also a source of water for bonus hydration.
• I am eating protein in the range of 1g per kilogram of bodyweight and 1g per pound of bodyweight. I determine the range based on my training volume and the way I feel. When I feel hungry all the time, I increase my protein and "good" fat intake. Good fat for me comes from cashews, avocados, olive oil, fish and poultry. You will need to drink more water if you increase your protein intake.
• Dairy - I eat a fair amount of dairy, but next to no dairy fat. I seem to be able to handle it. I did an experiment last summer and came off all dairy for two weeks. Didn't notice much of a change. However, I do tend to lose weight when I reduce my dairy. This is probably more to do with a lower caloric intake than the dairy products.
• I do not see my diet as low fat, but I do see it as very low in saturated fat.
• I eat a lot of protein and regulate my overall calories by my intake of starch carbos. When I am training hard, I eat a lot of starch carbos. I reduce this food source when I am training at a low level of activity.

Here is an example of what I eat during a moderate volume training day:

• Big bowl of fruit with non fat yogurt.
• Train 2 hours. Water only.
• Smoothie (about 20g PRO and 80g CHO), bowl of cereal with skim milk.
• Work, e-mail, write.
• Large veggie salad (includes kidney beans), can of tuna, olive oil and balsamic dressing. Can of V8.
• Work, e-mail, write.
• Large bowl of fruit salad.
• Swim 1-2 hours. 750ml to 2,000ml of gatorade or water.
• Powerbar immediately after.
• Dinner. Sole filets (two about the size of my hand, steamed), large amount of stir fried veggies.

My biggest meal of the day is my morning meal. When I am trying to lose a little weight, I reduce the size of this meal. Works well for me. I also try to get a minimum of 10-20g of PRO within 30 minutes of the end of every workout over 60 minutes. This seems to help me reload my energy stores.

Taking myself back to Boulder this summer.... here is an example of what I eat during a big training day:

• Two pieces of toast with cashew butter and all-fruit spread. Two apples. Glass of skim milk.
• Swim 90-105 minutes. Bike bottle of gatorade.
• Clif Bar right after along with a bottle of water, sometimes more gatorade.
• Two bagels, two pieces of fruit. Big bowl of cereal or fruit salad (take your view of a big bowl and double it).
• Rest, write, e-mail.
• A couple of wraps with turkey, green peppers, sprouts and horseradish sauce.
• 4-5 hour brick. Gatorade the whole time. 3-4 Powerbars starting one hour into the ride. Can of coke if my energy level lags.
• 2-4 scoops of R4 right after, and maybe a cashew butter and fruit spread sandwich (sometimes two).
• MONSTER bowl (you have never seen someone eat this much) of semolina pasta with sauce. Sauce is store bought and I add turkey chunks, olive oil and lots of veggies.
• Chill, sit around feeling dazed and content!
• Dinner will be either veggie salad with tuna, steamed fish/stir fry or maybe just some wraps with sprouts and chickpea spread. It's variable depending on how I am feeling. Sometimes my pasta feed was late enough in the day that I just went to bed without an evening meal. On those days I normally "carb-up" the following morning as well.

So, that's about it. Hope this helps and feel free to e-mail me any questions.

Cheers,

gordo - 24 September 2000

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