The off-season is here! After a few days of doing little to no exercise after my last race, I start itching to get a little structure and routine back. The key is to keep a mix of things going that are light and fun, yet still active and rejuvenating. Here are a few ways I recommend getting that blend:

1) Sign up for a fitness class- for me, that is Pilates. It’s something I don’t get to fit in as much during my season. It’s hard work and uses all sorts of muscles. I feel great when I’m finished but never overworked. You could also try Orange Theory, Switch Playground, or other fitness programs you have near you. Plus, it’s a great way to meet new people.

2) Get into a healthy meal-prep routine. During the season, I find it hard to do all the meal prep I want to do. I always think I will have time but it rarely happens. For the off-season, I am taking some of that extra time to roast a bunch of veggies for the week. This week it was a head of broccoli, an entire cabbage cut in half and roasted, chick peas, carrots and onions. I will eat that for lunch and dinners throughout the week with some brown rice. The off season is a good time to take a break from all the carbs I usually eat to sustain my training.

3) Go on friend-dates. Schedule in some time to see friends who you don’t get to see as much during the season. I am making plans to see my friend and her new baby and to check out another friend’s art studio. Stepping out of your zone and being enriched by others is so rejuvenating.

4) Take some time for yourself. Go to the movies (there are so many great movies out this time of year), organize your closet (that’s what I will be doing!), make a spa appointment…and focus a little on you. During the season, I find I do a great job of focusing on myself for swim/bike/run but everything else gets pushed off. Now is a great time to recharge, and set things up for next year.

5) plan for next season. While you are recharging, relaxing, eating healthy and exercising for fun, make sure to keep your goals in mind. It’s a good time to explore options for new races, different coaching or training, new equipment or any other changes you have been thinking about.

Enjoy the off-season and see you on a starting line next spring!

Embrace the local races because this might be where you may achieve your best performances. You’ll be able to focus your energy on the race, rather than the logistical stress of travel. In addition, the boost from being cheered on by family and friends and the local tri community is huge. Plus, there’s no motivation to dig deep like earning local bragging rights.

Work with the seasons, not against them. Plan your races so that you don’t have to worry about training during the holidays. If you live in a place that is frozen in winter, use these months for maintenance training or skill building. It’s the perfect time to get hungry to train when the weather becomes nice. The goal is be fresh and ready to go when the weather is more inviting.

Go short, even if you are going long. Not all races have to be long triathlons. Mix things with sprint distance tris, 5k road races, bike time trials, etc. These races allow you to experience pure racing and to replace holding watts or paces with the pure grit of fighting to the finish line. Short races hurt, but are fun and create an opportunity to practice racing skills without putting the stress on your body.

Make your coaching work for you. Find a coach who understands your lifestyle outside of triathlon and who is willing to build a training program around it. Training programs should not be a cause for stress! Build a training program that embraces what you are easily able to do while minimizing the things that cause stress. For example, if you live really close to a pool, build your aerobic base by swimming more. If getting to a pool is hard for you, swim less and build dry land swim training into your program. There isn’t one set training program that works for everyone, so be willing to embrace something that is built specifically for you.

Gift the athlete in your life MOTIVATION this year. How do you accomplish that? In the form of new gear, a ground-breaking new fuel source, an exciting new race, or even a new coach.

1. Race Entry: give your triathlete the gift of motivation this holiday season! Nothing keeps you going to the gym like having a race on the schedule. A fun race entry to consider gifting is Challenge Daytona in December 2020. At this event, held at the iconic Daytona International Speedway, there are sprint, Olympic, and half distance races, and even a pro-am relay where you can compete alongside your favorite professional triathlete.https://challenge-daytona.com/race-information/entry-fees/

2. XRCEL: introduce a triathlete to a new race fuel source for the 2020 season by gifting an XRCEL Athlete Fuel 6 pack. This is the gift that will keep giving and giving all year long…in the form of bonk-free and mentally charged racing and training. https://xrcel.com/product/xrcel-orange-6-pack/. USE Code XRCEL4U for 30% off. Offer valid through 12-30-19.

3. Fleece Cycling Jacket: make winter riding outside that much more bearable and have the perfect thing to thrown on for those chilly race mornings (or dog walks!) https://wynrepublic.com/collections/keep-the-peace/products/thermal-cycling-jacket-joni

4. Private Swim Instruction: whether your triathlete needs a complete stroke overhaul or some minor changes, private swim lessons will give the gift of faster swim splits. Everyone’s dream, right?? In the New York area, contact Asphalt Green to set up a lesson with pro triathlete Laurel Wassner http://bit.ly/LWSwimLesson Thinking your triathlete could also benefit from some added inspiration and motivation to super charge your New Year, check out elite cyclist, personal development coach, and XRCEL ambassador Christine D’Ercole https://christinedercole.com/

5. Garmin Forerunner 945: this is the gold standard in endurance sports watches. It has a built-in heart rate monitor, accurately tracks miles in the bike and run, yards in the swim, and even will track your sleep. You can also listen to music and receive text messages through it. https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/621922

By Laurel Wassner, Pro Triathlete

Racing a triathlon is not an easy endeavor on its own, but throw in a rainstorm, or brutal heat? Well, things become even more difficult. But, you’ve signed up, paid the entry fee, hotels, done all the training… so there’s no backing out now!

Here’s a few tips on how to carry on when unexpected weather or other changes happen:

1) Keep calm. 

Don’t let the change in events rattle you. Remember, you have put in the training, you are fit, you are ready to go. Stay positive and carry on.

2) Be flexible and adapt.

You wake up race day and it’s pouring rain, these things happen.  Go on with your routine, BUT make some changes based on the weather. Don’t be afraid to pack some extra clothes to put on for the bike ride. Take a little pressure out of your tires. Be a bit more careful around the corners. Be mindful of the little changes that will carry you far.

3) Rethink your nutrition strategy.

Have the temperatures soared above 90F? Or, have they dropped below 50? These are times when you are going to have to look at your nutrition plan and make a few changes. When the weather is extreme you must make sure to get enough and in some  cases even more fuel than you think. Did your swim take longer because the waves were really big? Add an extra bottle of XRCEL when you come out of the water. When it’s very cold, your body is using energy to stay warm, so make sure you have enough fuel on board the bike to adapt for that. Pack more XRCEL than you normally would. When it’s hot? Well, you may not feel like eating. That’s where XRCEL is handy – it’s easy to get down (and stays down!). It’s better to have too much than too little in these circumstances.

4) Stay steady all day.

If you have made the adaptations in your fueling plan, you should be able to have the energy to stay strong throughout the day. Keeping a steady pace, rather than going out hard and fading, is a good strategy for racing in extreme conditions. You want to be the one who is still going when the race gets tough. If you stay steady, you will find yourself passing people who went out too hard.

5) Be smart.

Extreme cold, heat, wind, etc can be dangerous. Be smart about it, race accordingly. Adjust your paces, add 20-30 seconds a mile to your goal running pace and be ok with that. 

6) Don’t quit. 

A positive mindset will help get you through even the worst conditions. Remember everyone else is going through the same thing. Be the one who doesn’t quit!

By Rebeccah Wassner, Pro Triathlete

Bike packing. Even after 15 years as a pro triathlete, it still makes me nervous. It’s a dreaded, but necessary part of the job, but like most elements of triathlons, you can always get better at it. Here are some tips for making the process easier.

Do it yourself!

If you are traveling to the race by yourself, then pack the bike yourself. The very first time I traveled with my bike was to the age group nationals in Shreveport, Louisiana in 2003. My roommate, who knew more about bike mechanics than me, helped me pack the bike. But when it came time for me to put it back together I was frozen with fear. To the point where I felt like everything I was doing was going to break the bike. The struggle was real! To avoid that stress in the future, I practiced taking apart and reassembling my bike a few times before my next trip (…because at that race, once my bike was properly put back together, I qualified for World Champs in Queenstown, New Zealand). 

Consider the bag or case.

We prefer for the bag itself not to weigh very much because this makes the whole package that much easier to lift (on/off luggage belts or in and out of cars). One perk of a soft case, like those from the company Scicon is that they collapse down and don’t take up much space in a hotel room. Also, Laurel and I have often built our bikes in rental car parking lots so to that we could collapse the bags down and fit all of our stuff in the car.

Purchase pipe insulation + masking tape.

Cut the pipe insulation to the exact size of the tubes you are using it to protect and label each piece. Use the masking tape to secure things in place. We recommend Doing this even with a hard case because you never know what happens one the case leaves your sight. Things always move around.

Plan.

when you are going to pack your bike. Allow enough time so you aren’t rushed and, if you can, do it while a bike shop is open for business…just in case you run into a problem. True story: one time I could not get the pedals off for the life of me. They had been cranked down by a mechanic during my last tune up. I ended up having to track down the super from my building to help.

Pack your bike in an out of the way place where you won’t be distracted. 

Once I had the great idea to pack my bike in the front yard and every few minutes someone would stop and wonder what I was doing. A dog even ran over and got in by box. Cute, but I needed to focus on getting my derailleur off!

Consider what else you put in there with the bike.

I like to put my wetsuit in as extra padding. I also pack a lightweight pump (wrapped up in pipe insulation), my bike shoes, and my XRCEL supply.*

*Note: I also put some back up bottles of XRCEL in my rolling suitcase. No matter what happens, you’ve gotta have your race nutrition!

By Scott DeFilippis, Pro Triathlete and Head Coach, KIS Performance Team

When I first came into the sport of triathlon I was extremely lucky to run into the world’s best coach, Brett Sutton. I spent 5 years under his tutelage as an athlete and budding coach. The lessons I learned from this man are invaluable and so many of them stand out like a sore thumb. But the one that continues to ring in my ear day in and day out was him hammering away to his squad of 20+ all hailing from different countries, speaking different languages, and coming into the sport with varying sporting backgrounds…I can remember his words like it was yesterday, “The term, ‘overtraining’ is the most misused and overused term in our sport! Do you know how hard it is to over train a human being?”

 This was during my first heat camp in Subic Bay, Philippines. For 3 months we lived on the former U.S. Army Base training day in and day out all the while he used himself as an example of just how hard a human being can work. Running sometimes 3 x per day Brett would show up to our training sessions dripping in sweat after running under the hot tropical sun for 1,2, sometimes 3 hours, “Look at me, this fat old man, logging 40kms today. If I can do it, so can you! Don’t tell me, you are tired or over trained. The human body can handle so much more than you think it can,” Ready for this…”As long as there is fuel in the tank! Put the petrol in and you can go all day long!” Wise words from the crazy Australian!

Over the years I have done a ton of experimenting on myself much like the great Australian run coach, Percy Cerutty (Please note I am not comparing myself as being at the level of a coach as the great man himself).  I’ve trained in all sorts of environments, hot places, high places, wet places, and perfect places (like my current home in Southern California). No matter what environment you are faced with, the constant lesson learned is, keep putting the petrol in the tank! There is a current fad going around, ‘low carb, high fat’. If not done correctly and under a physician’s guidance, it will prove to be a very slippery slope! This sort of diet is very, very extreme and although it may work for the very few, it will no doubt leave athletes burnt out in 18-24 months, if not sooner!  A warning to all age group athletes, YOU DO TRIATHLON TO ENHANCE YOUR LIFE, NOT TO CONSUME YOUR LIFE! TRIATHLON IS NOT WHO YOU ARE AS A HUMAN BEING SO PLEASE STEER CLEAR OF SUCH FAD DIETS!” 

Keep it simple! Eat normally; when your body is craving something, you are most likely missing something in your diet…Craving meat? You are low on iron. Craving cheese? You are low on calcium! Craving fruit or vegetable? You are low on Vitamin C or magnesium…LISTEN TO YOU BODY!

But, back to my point…When one is over trained or under fueled, the feelings can be very similar. The difference is, if someone is really truly over trained, they would need a serious reboot, I’m talking months of off any kind of aerobic work other than a brisk walk will only set you back to where you started.  If, however, someone is feeling similar symptoms (weak, unmotivated, high heart rate, achy) Chances are, they have strung together too many days with way too many calories put out without being replaced. A simple way to fix this problem is pull up to a McDonald’s drive through and order a Happy Meal.  If you don’t eat meat, order the fish combo with a milk shake!   

Most people training for an ultra-endurance event of 4 + hours are most likely burning the candle at both ends. What do you think gets overlooked first? Yep, eating…we forget to eat as we are too distracted with work, errands, picking kids up at school or sport activities. All the while trying to balance their own personal endeavors in sport…Thus, most endurance athletes are already riding that slippery slope of not having enough fuel in the tank. 

This is why I personally always carry an XRCEL with me for any training session over 1.5 hours, just in case I start to feel that bonky feeling in the brain.  

Within our own KIS Performance Squad based in San Diego we try to swim first in the day at least 3 x per week. Why? Because in triathlon we swim first so it makes sense to get your body used to being horizontal while forcing it to be in a hypoxic state before trying to ride a bike or run. Just like on most race mornings, before swim training it is hard to eat and if we are carrying fatigue of a heavy load of training, for example a Saturday long ride, Sunday long run, Monday am we might be under fueled. This is a great time to carry an XRCEL or other carb source with you at the pool. You will notice that during the warm up you might start to feel a bit bonky in the head. If, so…take an XRCEL gel before the main set… You’ll save yourself from getting the week off to a bad start and most likely save your next session.  

Here’s another example. 9 months out of the year our San Diego squad typically does a long aerobic brick (BIKE/Run) on Wednesday. We then back that up with a long fartlek or steady run on Thursday. Because the Wednesday session is relatively easy in intensity it’s sometimes easy to overlook fueling. (Please note that such sessions its best to try and consume half the amount of energy or carbs that you would in a long distance event.) This is a way of teaching your body to be more fat adaptive without the use of an extreme diet.

But, sometimes we get lazy or if the weather is bad in the winter months we push on and don’t stop for fuel…slowly a hole is being dug…Then we get up the next day for our run and bam, like a ton of bricks, you have very little left in tank and struggling to put one foot in front of the other.  Again, this is a perfect situation to carry a carb source such as XRCEL with you so you can save your session. I can’t tell you how many times XRCEL has saved stopped sessions such as these from going sideways…

Please note I am not a physician but through experienced based coaching, I’ve seen enough athletes come and go to recognize when someone is under fueling and not over trained. There are ways to make you more fat adaptive, which will help you in your long distance racing but only follow the advice of a trusted sports doctor who also has plenty of field experience advising endurance athletes!

Happy Training

It is no secret confidence comes from being prepared, and by failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.

In endurance racing we train ourselves every day to prepare for race day – what we eat, what equipment we choose, what physical and mental training we do. Everything we do prepares us for how we will perform when race day comes. But, there are some things we just cannot prepare for through our training, things that are out of our control, things that we aren’t expecting, things that happen in a split second that can ruin our hard work and leave us feeling completely shattered. Things that come to mind, for me personally in my racing experiences and for which I have not been prepared for, have been as small as simply going off course, to more significant like leaving my entire bike nutrition in transition, to catastrophic events such as crashing my bike in Embrunman 2018. Sometimes, I will admit, things happen that we cannot recover from, and all that can be done here is learn, don’t dwell, and look forward to giving yourself another opportunity to test yourself. But many times, we can recover, do our best problem solving in that moment, and still have a great day – perhaps an even better day because you know you went beyond what you had prepared for and challenged yourself in a way you have never done before.

Here are a few tips to remember if on race day you find yourself in a position you may not be prepared for:

Stay calm.

The best way to be able to make rational decisions is with a calm mind. Remove emotion from what is going on in that moment and then make your plan to move forward.

Act, don’t react.

Or react, then go back to step one, and act again in a better state of mind.

We all quickly react with emotion when something happens that is out if our control. But it is important to not get caught up in just reacting to the situation, but to ACT, and fast. If you find yourself wasting valuable time simply reacting to what happened to derail your race, stop, breathe, take a moment, and when calm, make your plan to move on.

Be positive and confident. Back yourself.

This can be a hard one when things go pear-shaped. Most of our confidence comes through training, but when things go wrong, it is easy to forget everything we have trained ourselves for, and react in a way we would not usually plan for. This is a time when you need to trust your instincts, even trick yourself to be confident, be positive and when you carry on, do so with confidence and don’t look back.

Be present.

Everything I have just mentioned about how you can navigate an unknown situation really comes back to being present. Not letting your emotions carry you away into thinking of outcomes that you can control in that moment if you deal with them IN that moment. Your race is not over, you have not failed, you can still do this. Take the emotion out, stay calm, bring yourself back into the moment and SEE what is happening. Deal with it with a calm mind. And move on.

When it is all over, reflect, learn and know you are a better athlete and person because you were able to take something out of your control and make lemonade out of lemons. In endurance racing you can NEVER be prepared for everything. It is impossible. So, don’t try. Train, prepare, be confident and ALWAYS trust your instincts.

Summer produce is hitting its peak in upstate New York’s Hudson Valley, where Laurel and I have been training for the last several weeks. We often plan our runs to end at the local farm stand so that we can refuel with just-picked peaches alongside our Peach Tea Xrcel. Or we’ll make pit stops while riding to fill our bike jersey pockets with enough vegetables to create a big salad or pasta dish. 

Here are some of the recipes we’ve been fueling our training with this summer. 

Try this for breakfast, lunch, post-workout snack, or as a no-cook, no-fuss dinner. 

Tomato Toast

Here’s how to make it:

On a slice of whole-grain toast, layer the following:

whipped cream cheese

sliced tomatoes

sea salt & pepper

drizzle of olive oil

Corn And Peach Salad with Mini Peppers and Mint

Serves 4 as a side dish

3 large ears of corn, kernels cut off (*the fresher the better)

2 firm, but ripe peaches, skin on, diced (or 3 donut peaches)

8-10 small “snacking” sweet peppers, chopped (or 1 regular red pepper)

1/2 small shallot, minced

juice from 1 lime

pinch of sea salt

10 mint leaves, chopped

Toss all ingredients in a bowl. Or, put all ingredients in a container with a lid and shake.

Note: For more of a meal-sized salad, add cubes of fresh mozzarella. For a kick, top with a few slices of fresh jalapeno. 

Pasta with Peas and Ricotta 

1 box of penne pasta

1 cup of reserved pasta water

Olive oil

1 shallot, thinly sliced

1 cup (or more) peas

red chili flakes

Salt & pepper

1 cup ricotta

1/4 fresh mint, chopped

Boil large pot of salted water. Add penne and cook, reserving 1 cup of pasta water.

Drain pasta and put in large bowl. Add a little olive oil to keep it from sticking together (especially for #glutenfree pasta).

Return pasta pot to stove and heat up 3 tbs of olive oil. Add shallots and cook for 1-2 minutes until they are soft.

Add peas, salt, chili flakes and pepper to taste. Cook until the peas are bright green and still crunchy.

Add pasta back to pot. Add ricotta and reserved cooking water and combine. Heat up will pasta is warmed and coated by all the ingredients.

Remove from heat and add the herbs and lemon zest and mix well.

Put in bowls with more herbs on top and eat!

Fancy Fruit Salad

Cut a rope cantaloupe in half and remove the seeds. Use a melon baller to scoop out spheres of fruit. Return balls to scooped out cantaloupe, along with blueberries, strawberries, and whatever seasonal fruit you have on hand. Top with plain yogurt, a drizzle of maple syrup, and fresh mint leaves. 

By Scott DeFillipis Pro Triathlete and Coach

April has come and gone and many triathletes based in North America have already begun their seasons. Some are feeling encouraged with their early season result while others who may not have fared as well have themselves feeling down in the dumps. Well, I am here to tell you that it’s ok to not be super fit in May and it’s ok to not have a personal best in your first race out of the gates.

I see more often than not athletes trying to rush into the season, forcing the training, when their mind and body are simply not ready. This can result in an injury leading into the race or sometimes happening during the first race of the year. Sometimes, unrealistic expectations can result in a bad race leaving them feeling down in the dumps come May-June which can send a season spiraling downward.

We need not look any further then the most talked about triathlete in the world, Lionel Sanders. Mr Sanders had a sub-par year in 2018, which started to go downward after the disappointment of losing to the greatest triathlete we’ve ever seen, in Jan Frodeno.  He let his own expectations affect the rest of the year. Post Kona rather than let his body recover from yet another long year of training and racing at an extreme level of intensity.  He jumped back into training and won Palm Spring 70.3 but then immediately looked towards nailing Oceanside 70.3 in early April with the goal of qualifying for Kona a few weeks later at Ironman TX. Well, he pushed and pushed and didn’t make it to the start line in Oceanside and is now forced to rest for 3 months as he is sidelined with a pretty bad stress fracture.  

This is not completely Lionel’s fault as the way the calendar is set up, WTC has jammed some of the most important races of the year all within the first 8 weeks of the season (With the year starting early April) with 3 of the biggest races in the USA all being run between April 7th and May 5th. But looking back now I am wondering if Lionel is thinking perhaps he should have shut things down after Kona last year and taken his 3 months for his body to recover, then built slowly into the year, perhaps skipping the April and May races???? He should now look to what Mr. Frodeno is doing at this very moment. Jan nailed his season opener in 2018 beating Lional and then went onto win Ironman Frankfurt and the 70.3 World Championships…But the same stress fracture that Lionel now has, Jan also had back in September.  Rather than force the early races, the greatest of all time is taking his time. He passed on a rematch with Lionel in Oceanside and still has nothing lined up as we exit the month of April.  He will race when he is ready to race and not before. 

As a coach I am constantly trying to pull back athletes’ ambition and expectations until we can get in at least 6 weeks of outdoor riding (for those that live in colder climates). We have a strong group of athletes that live in the Tri State are of NYC and every year many want to travel to Puerto Rico in March to start their year. I get it, they have been cooped up all year and want to be warm. But I tell them, “I’m happy for you to go there and race, it’s seems like a lovely place, it’s any easy flight from NYC. But, you have to have zero expectations!” If Puerto Rico 70.3 was held in August or Sept, after weeks of hot humid weather and a full spring and summer of training under their belts, they would nail it!  But, realistically, it’s not going to happen in March or April and sometimes not even in May….

So my advice to many and especially those that live in cold climates…Ease into the year! It’s ok to be carrying a few extra pounds on you in April. Don’t force anything! Use early season races to shake the cob webs, try new equipment, and practice your nutrition strategy! If you are new to using XRCEL as your fuel source, early season races are the perfect opportunity to experience just how effective it’s extended release formula will keep you moving forward all the way to the finish line! Build your confidence with each passing month and race so that come early-November you are really peaking into the offseason, not limping into the offseason!  By season-end you want to still be just as in love with your bike as you were after that first ride, rather than having the urge to stick it in the closet to collect dust until Valentine’s day.