Nutrition Lesson Learned:

Nutrition Lesson Learned:   Whether you work out an hour a day 5-6 days a week or thirty minutes a day 3-4 days a week, how is your body able to sustain the endurance of your workouts?  When first starting triathlons it never occurred to me how much Nutrition played a factor in my training and racing.  Since being informed, researching and talking with others about nutrition I’ve seen great improvement in my races and how I feel training.   One thing I’ve noticed with nutrition is how easy it is to get off course with diet, vitamins, liquid intake, etc.  For me I needed to plan out what I would start with in the morning, drink and eat throughout the day.  One of the keys to ensure I started off right was checking my nutrition stock every couple weeks (Accel Gel, Accelerade, Sport Beans) and my nutrition stock weekly (Water, Gatorade).    I really started my nutrition planning back in January of this year and have been pretty good about sticking to it.  I was good until very recently when I got caught up with life’s fun distractions.  To ensure hydration is readily accessible I’ll overstock by keeping a case of water in my work office and my vehicle.  One case runs out usually on a weekly basis I have my vehicle as back up and know to restock that day.  Sunday’s are my normal check and restock, but a week ago Sunday I did neither.  Presuming I still had water in my vehicle come Monday, driving to work realized I had none.  Ok so I thought I’ll have some in my office, in which I had none.  Busy work day with no time to buy I went without water and other liquid intake.    I was able to snag about 12oz and food (starving) before swim practice and our Coach had a different “fun” practice in mind.  I’m about to swim with very little liquid intake and no extra nutrients, plus eating a decent meal before swimming.  I to say the least had the worst feeling during this swim practice.  My muscles were screaming right off the bat plus adding in different swim styles using other muscles.  Throughout the swim I could feel my stomach in knots from what I ate and my breathing was completely off.  I don’t know if the liquid intake had anything to do with it or the food, but my heart rate was higher then had ever been in a workout.  The swim practice was a great workout, but I wasn’t prepared for it.   Sometimes we forget what presumed are little things and this was a great reminder that nutrition is not a “little” thing.  I could feel how much my muscles were not fueled properly to perform the workout.  Yes I completed the swim, but I did myself a disservice by not properly preparing my body.    Nutrition should not be an option; it’s just as important as your physical workouts.  I’m not going to say never, but know I’ll remember that day when thinking about my workouts.