All Triathletes Need ICE

[In Case of Emergency]

I've been told it's not a matter of IF, but WHEN you or someone you are training with has a fall on the bike. We were finishing up a phenomenal ride on Saturday when one of our friends "went boom" with only 1.2 miles to go. He's got some missing teeth, a few broken bones and one wicked concussion, but thankfully we know he'll be just fine in time. But we had a lot of things in our favor:

* Accident wasn't caused by or worsened by a passing or oncoming car
* Friend was riding in the middle of a pack of us which included a few really experienced cyclists
* First passerby was a nurse, and treated him immediately until the fire department arrived
* Friend's cell phone had some family members listed in address book

I wanted to post about that last point. We spend so much time making sure we are properly prepared for the physical and mental exertion of the endurance sports; planning out the exact science of nutrition, strength and flexibility to avoid common overuse injuries. We all have contingency plans in place for unexpected weather and even the occasional flat tire. But WITHOUT EXCEPTION, all endurance athletes should also be prepared for unexpected medical emergency.

It's easy and requires little training. Please read and send along to your fellow athletes this post for 3 Immediate and Simple tasks to train safely:

1. HELMET - I'll keep searching but promise you I will not find any story about a cyclist or triathlete who was spared worse fate by NOT using a helmet. Always use the helmet, no matter how fast, slow, short, long, crowded, or isolated your ride is. Bad pun to say this is a no-brainer, but...

2. Use "ICE" (In Case of Emergency)

Paramedics will turn to a victim's cell phone for clues to that person's identity. You can make their job much easier with a simple idea that they are trying to get everyone to adopt: ICE.

If you add an entry in the contact list in your cell phone under ICE, with the name and phone no. of the person that the emergency services should call on your behalf, you can save them a lot of time and have your loved ones contacted quickly. All it cost you is a few moments of your time to do.

The ICE acronym allows emergency officials to quickly access the right names from a cell phone's address book. It can save valuable time, since many people identify family members only by name in their cell, making them indistinguishable from other entries. Note this is a good practice for ANYONE!

3. Share your Route
No matter how skilled you are as a swimmer, runner or cyclist you should always let someone know where you are training and when you expect to be back. You may think this is a pain in the ass and you wouldn't want to bug friends or neighbors, but if you're missing and unclaimed in a hospital bed for days because nobody knew to look for you, you'll look like an even bigger fool. Make plans to enjoy a nice lunch after your long rides or runs - someone will know where and when to expect you, and you'll have something to look forward to during your training!

Be safe,
Jen

Breaking the Curse: Bike-Run Bonk

I just saw this fantastic article on TriathleteMag.com. Like many other triathletes I thought the infamous BONK was caused by a lack of fuel. In Matt's recent article on TriathleteMag.com, he points out the missing link to the myth: Bonking is not caused by lack of fuel, but by lack of the ability to properly absorb fuel! Read on to get a leg up on the competition:

April 10, 2008 [by Matt Fitzgerald]-- A few years back I flew to Penticton, British Columbia, to watch a couple of the athletes I coach compete in Ironman Canada. One of them had a day to remember; the other had a day to forget.

The latter, Paul, was doing fine through the end of the bike leg. He arrived at T2 right on his goal pace. But things fell apart quickly on the run. Almost immediately his stomach began to feel bloated and sloshy. His legs grew heavy and seemed starved for energy and soon he was even experiencing some light-headedness. By the 5km mark of the marathon he was walking.

This scenario—which I call the bike-run bonk—is common in long-distance triathlons. The athlete feels good or at least OK on the bike, only to suffer a gastrointestinal meltdown early in run. Fortunately, as common as the bike-run bonk is, it is completely avoidable.

The key to avoiding the bike-run bonk is understanding exactly what it is. The bike-run bonk is a simple case of over-nourishment with a twist. The twist is that the stomach is able to tolerate a greater volume and concentration of nutrition, and is also able to empty more quickly, when an athlete is bicycling than when that same athlete is running. So what qualifies as optimal nourishment during the bike leg of a triathlon suddenly becomes over-nourishment on the run.

The essential difference between cycling and running with respect to nutrition is the far greater amount of stomach jostling that occurs on the run. This jostling is the likely cause of the unpleasant sloshy feeling that often becomes full-blown nausea if the stomach volume is too great. Stomach jostling probably also contributes to a reduced gastric emptying rate (i.e. slower absorption of nutrition through the stomach and intestine) during running as compared to cycling. The result is a nutrition backlog in the stomach, small intestine and possibly the colon that’s not unlike the damming of a river and subsequent flooding of riverfront properties. Such a backlog and the resulting accumulation of fluid in places it should not be (e.g. the colon) is also a cause of that terrible bloated feeling.

If that wasn’t bad enough, when your pipes get stopped up in this manner, a secondary problem results: inadequate supply of fluid and energy to your blood and muscles, which can quickly result in a classic energy bonk. Isn’t that ironic? You crammed all that nutrition down your throat on the bike to prevent dehydration and glycogen depletion and it winds up causing these very things—in addition to gastrointestinal distress.

A few ounces of prevention

A key cause of the bike-run bonk, then, is taking in too much nutrition (and perhaps too high a concentration of nutrition) during the latter portion of the bike leg. It’s not too much with respect to the latter portion of the bike leg itself, but it becomes too much in the early portion of the run leg. The way to avoid the bike-run bonk is to fuel yourself during the final 30 minutes of the bike leg in a way that anticipates the reduced capacities of your stomach on the run. Here are four specific tips to help you avoid the bike-run bonk.

1. Go light

Throughout the majority of the bike leg, take full advantage of the opportunity to take in fluid and energy at a high rate. A typical cyclist can absorb 1.2 to 1.5 liters of fluid and 80 to 100 grams of carbohydrate per hour at race intensity. You can also tolerate a fairly full stomach on the bike, and it’s a good idea to keep your stomach as full as you comfortably can by taking in nutrition frequently, because the fuller your stomach is, the faster it empties.
But with around 30 minutes remaining in the bike leg you must sharply reduce your rate of nutrition intake and allow your stomach volume to come down to a level that is manageable for the run. I recommend taking an energy gel with water or a few swigs of a sports drink with 30 minutes to go and another drink with 15 minutes to go, and that’s all. If it’s hot, drink at 30 minutes, 20 minutes and 10 minutes.

This advice is precisely the opposite of what I hear many coaches and triathletes preaching. They encourage long-distance triathletes to stock up on nutrition toward the end of the bike leg for the same reason I’m telling you to cut back—because it’s impossible to consume nutrition at as high a rate on the run. What these coaches and triathletes are missing is that not only can you not consume as much nutrition on the run, but you also cannot tolerate as much in your stomach or absorb it as quickly, so stocking up on nutrition before the run is a recipe for disaster. In fact, one of the reasons the bike-run bonk is so common is that this advice is so frequently given, and followed.

2. Stay liquid

Fluids are absorbed into the bloodstream more quickly than solid foods. Therefore I recommend you get as much of your nutrition as possible from fluids (where energy gels taken with water count as fluids) throughout the bike leg. This will not only minimize your chances of getting blocked up after the bike-run transition, but it will also maximize the rate of nutrient delivery to your blood and muscles throughout the bike leg itself.

You may swallow more calories if you chow down on a lot of energy bars during a triathlon, but you will absorb more calories if you avoid solids and stick to liquids, because they are absorbed more quickly.

3. Choose fast-absorbing nutrition

Not all fluids are equal when it comes to absorption and retention. By consuming fluids that are absorbed more quickly and retained more effectively, you can actually get better hydration and faster energy delivery from less fluid. This will help you go light during the final 30 minutes of the bike leg, and throughout the run, with less risk of experiencing severe dehydration or glycogen depletion.

Two nutrients, sodium and protein, help you get more hydration per ounce of fluid consumed, while caffeine helps you absorb carbohydrate faster. Ounce for ounce, sports drinks with higher sodium concentrations provide better hydration, because they accelerate gastric emptying and improve fluid balance in the body. For this reason, use a sports drink that contains at least 15 mg of sodium per ounce.

Protein appears to enhance both fluid absorption and fluid retention. In a recent Spanish study, a carb-protein sports drink was found to empty from the stomach significantly faster than a carb-only sports drink in cyclists pedaling at 70 percent of VO2 max. And in a new study from St. Cloud State University, in Minnesota, a carb-protein sports drink was retained in athletes 15 percent better than a carb-only sports drink (meaning 15 percent less of it wound up in the bladder).

Finally, the results of a new study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology suggest that caffeine may enhance the effectiveness of sports drinks consumed during exercise by accelerating the absorption of carbohydrate in the intestine. So it’s a good idea to use an energy gel with caffeine or to supplement your sports drink with caffeine from another source, especially in light of the fact that caffeine is also proven to enhance endurance performance and reduce perceived effort.

4. Practice

There’s an easy way and a hard way to discover your personal fueling limitations. The hard way to find them is by experiencing the bike-run bonk in a long-distance race. The easy way is to do some long, race-pace brick workouts in training. In preparing for a half-Ironman, build up to at least a two-hour ride followed by a one-hour run. In preparing for a full Ironman, build up to at least a four-hour ride followed by a one-hour run.

During these workouts, fuel yourself at the maximum comfortable rate until 30 minutes remain in your ride, then go light and observe your body’s response during the run. If you experience gastrointestinal distress, you know you need to go even lighter. If you experience no GI symptoms but suffer an energy bonk, try taking in a little more nutrition next time, but don’t count on being able to get away with it. You may actually have to reduce your pace to avoid both the bike-run bonk and the energy bonk.

Too much is no better than too little

Triathletes are often panicked about getting in enough nutrition in these events, but it’s actually quite easy to consume fluid and calories at the maximum rate your body can absorb them. And on the run, it’s all too easy to exceed your limits, because they are so much lower than on the bike.

Make every effort to stay on the safe side of your limits, and don’t fret about not getting enough nutrition. Although it may seem paradoxical, by focusing more on emptying your stomach than on filling it, you will have a better chance of avoiding both Paul’s fate and the classic energy bonk in your next long-distance race.

About Matt

Matt Fitzgerald is a journalist and author specializing in the topics of health, fitness, nutrition, and endurance sports training. His work appears regularly in publications such as Runner’s World, Triathlete, Her Sports, and Experience Life, and in the Active Runner email newsletter. He has also authored and coauthored numerous books, including Triathlete Magazine’s Complete Triathlon Book, which has sold more than 60,000 copies since its publication in 2003.

Post-race report: Lessons from My First 70.3

It's been nearly a week since race day. Oceanside had picturesque weather, calm water, excellent road conditions and a gentle ocean breeze to greet runners of one of the season's first Ironman 70.3 series events. I had a fantastic time, and was quite pleased with my race times. I was definitely prepared for the physical and mental endurance tests of race day. But I still had a lot to learn from my first half Ironman event! So in good fashion I share a few rookie lessons with you.

1. Don't assume anything about the people who are there with you. The woman to my left in transition was shooting for a spot at the World Championships, the woman across from me had a freshly sprained ankle for the race and the woman to my right was doing her very first triathlon. There will be extraordinary people all around you who have beaten cancer, lived through combat, and have balanced training with work and family to boot. Show everyone on race day your greatest admiration and respect.

2. Do onto others...On that note, I found 3 types of participants in transition: type A knows what they're doing and get bitchy and annoyed when others do not, type B knows not what they do so, and type C knows as much as type A but are nice enough to help out the poor souls who are new. For the sake of the rapidly growing interest and participation in the sport, remember please there are new athletes all around you. Offer a helping hand, a word of advice ("hey, you probably don't want to hang your wetsuit up there, it'll get torn off by a bike..."). I am so thankful for the nice people around me who shared tips about their favorite parts of the course, how to set up the most effective, compact transition area, and what to think about just before and after each transition. To you helpers out there, thank you! You make this sport FUN!

3. Go hard, or go home! That swim surge article I read a few months ago in Triathlete Magazine was SPOT ON! In the swim, I started at the front of the pack, surged for the first 300m or so, and found that I was in great company w/some speedy swimmers to draft off of. This was the 1st triathlon swim I hadn't had to swim around anybody, or had someone backstroke their way into my path. Thanks, Tri Mag!

4. Don't blow your legs on the bike. This course (as are many, in California) had a hilly bike leg. In fact, the first big climb brought a number of riders off their bikes! It took a lot more than I imagined to resist mashing on the rest of the climbs and rollers and just spinning over them. I may have lost as much as 10 minutes on the bike in doing this, but I'm sure I would have suffered an additional 20-30 minutes for it on the run.

5. Speaking of the run, I made a bonehead move of having different socks on race day than I had been running with in training. There are SO MANY opportunities to stray from the path you've tread on race weekend!! Race expos offer so many new gadgets; sunglasses, ZIPP rentals, fast laces for shoes, "An Even BETTER supplement..." Make like Nancy Regan and JUST SAY NO to these temptations. Racing well is largely about how calm and confident you can stay; have confidence in your training, in your fitness level, and in the gear you've been using for the last few months.

So for other rookie triathletes out there, I hope these tips were somewhat helpful. For the veterans, thank you for being great sportsmen and competitors and I'll see you in transition again soon! /Jen Killian