Post Workout Recovery Meal

For all of you wondering about what's the best post workout recovery meal, well after years of research it's proven that Franks West Pizza is the best recovery meal out there.

Guaranteed to feel sooooooo much better, feel great and tastes absolutely amazing!

Doktir B

Smithfield & RTC Sprint: Support helps push through

What do you do when you’re not 100% physically or mentally prepared to race?  It’s tough not having that confidence when you feel you’re giving good effort in training, but it’s just not clicking.  One of the downfalls of having a Type A personality is that competitive drive to always succeed and worried about failing.  The other side to this is that competitive drive also drives us to challenge ourselves and see what we’re made of.  The past few months I’ve had ups and downs with getting sick, shin splints and other issues which has caused me to question whether I’m capable of competing at the level I would like.  I recently raced the Smithfield and Richmond Triathlon Club sprints triathlons, the week of I had considered pulling out, but the day before each something clicked and I knew I had to race.  I knew that even if I wasn’t feeling great or compete at the level I would like, I decided to go out there and give it my all for the joy of racing.

During each race I struggled with several things, but the one thing that stayed true and kept me motivated was the support of my teammates and friends.  There’s nothing better than your body hurting and not thinking you can go any faster until you hear and see a teammate yelling to give you that extra boost you didn’t think you had.  The last couple months I haven’t been able to run more than a mile or two without my shins hurting and enjoying a nice long walk home throwing self-pity parties wondering why this is happening.  During the run at Smithfield and RTC I went about .25 mile and already ready to start walking from shin pain, but almost every time I felt like that I would see a teammate yelling in support to where I had to keep going.  I don’t know what it is whether it’s pride, adrenaline or knowing that your friends are trying to help as they know that you’re capable of more.  I remember somebody telling me that it’s more fun racing sprints now that they’re improving in which I can understand, but also disagree.  These two races I didn’t have anywhere near my best swim, bike or especially run as a matter a fact these were my worst runs in years if not the worst.  Was I happy with my times or how I felt? No.  After I completed the race even though my times weren’t great, I had a great time pushing my body as hard as it would go seeing what I’m made of.  I don’t think I could’ve pushed myself this hard if it weren’t for my girlfriend Ashley Gibbs, Coach Kyle and the rest of my teammates and friends. 

The season is still young and I’m not giving up on getting well and rockin 2014!

Sexy Felt DA4 Theme song

For us Type A triathletes we are always looking for ways to improve our training and racing. Sometimes those ways might be a little extreme, well to no surprise Kelly Hadiaris and I agreed that every triathlete's bike should have a theme song.

If your bike had a theme song for you, what would it be?

After careful consideration, Talk Dirty to me by Jason Derulo seemed appropriate. My sexy DA4 loves me! 

I'm that bike you get on, international
First class on my seat, riding fast as hell

'Cause I know what my man need
Richmond to Haiti
I got medal stamps on my passport
Making him ready to leave

Been around the tri world, don't speak the language
But my sexy DA4 booty don’t need explaining
All he really need to understand is
When I talk dirty to him
Talk dirty to Brian
Talk dirty to Brian
Talk dirty to Brian
Get riding on me

You know the words to my song
No habla inglés
Our races ain't long
But you know what is

 'Cause I know what my man need
London to Taiwan
I got medal stamps on my passport
I’m so good he’ll never need a new one!

 I want to know what yours is. Feel free to share.

Brian Lilley
Triathlete
Richmond, VA

Recover to Reward

Recover to Reward

 

It’s been a while since writing a blog, but I have a feeling this is going to be another PR season so I wanted to share my thoughts from the start and compare to the season end.  The last few seasons I’ve struggled with staying motivated and trying to maintain a consistent training schedule without getting burnt out.  I’ve tried different trends in training from the beginning and during but through all variety I noticed that I can sustain 6 months of great training before I mentally start caving in.  I’ve had different thoughts thinking it could be my not so great nutrition, training consistency, mental instability or trying to spread out races to stay focused.  This year I’m taking a whole new approach converging my training and main races into a 6 month window and see how I do. 

 

The last few years I would start heaving training November or December of the prior year and noticed around May I would hit my peak and start to wear off after.  I thought maybe if I planned an A race around May or June and another around September or October that I could do a quick recovery mid-summer, but that hasn’t worked.  After racing my first Half Iron distance June 2013 I didn’t want to break in worry of not getting back on the horse. I continued to train as normal, but when I raced Age Group Nationals in Milwaukee in August I didn’t feel motivated or have any gas left in the tank.  I gave it some serious thought and realized how I enjoy balancing triathlon with normal life activities and was like, “I’m going to drink and watch football this off season” and that’s exactly what I did. 

 

After Age Group Nationals I thought a lot about how I wanted to pursue 2014 and so I decided to continue base training and keep the muscles going, but nothing serious or overbearing.  My longest run consisted of 6 miles and some 4 milers here and there along with some bike trainer sessions.  My decision was to have fun and completely recover until the first of January and give it everything for 6 months and see how I do.  I had a feeling and so far it’s proven to be true that I figured the start of training would be rough and yes it has been as my legs are toasted!  As much as that doesn’t feel good I’m glad to know that I didn’t push to hard over the off season and fully recovered.  I’m anxious to see how my recovery will affect my upcoming season in regards to speed, endurance and if my body will stay motivated longer than 6 months.  I’m really hoping this theory works as I’ve tried different strategies and none have been successful so we shall see.

 

I’m still undecided as to take my revenge on the half iron distance or push for my true passion of racing Sprint Nationals in hopes of trying to qualify for Worlds.  Next blog post……..