Work Hard, Eat Well
I'm reviewing old notes from Ironman races, and I came across a few tidbits from the Ironman Medical Conference of 2006. This is held every year in Kona during the week before the race:
"From a lecture on the athlete heart I discovered that a well trained heart works the same at any age. Meaning that it's not the heart which loses its oomph (medical term: compliance) as we age, it's other things. A 75 year old athlete's heart works just as effectively as a 20 year old's. Good to know, and strive for. And in a nutrition lecture, I was told that, when exercising more than 90 minutes a day (my average daily amount of exercise, day in and day out, for the past five years has been close to 2 hours a day), it's OK to eat LOTS OF CARBS. The only thing that matters is: is your weight stable? Finally, someone who supports my serious addiction to the bathroom scale." - 10/16/2006
Confirms what I;ve observed about myself over the decades: my cardiovascular fitness is NOT my limiter as I get older; it is my muscular strength and hormonal recovery, IMO. Also, my weight has been stable both in-season and out, for the past 25 years, never lower than 143 # and never higher than 148, despite not having succumbed to any nutritional fads during that time. Bagels, cookies, ice cream, lots of nuts, bacon - whatever I eat, my weight stays stable.
Comments
Another gem, from my journal entry on the pre-race "banquet" before Kona 2006. Paula Newby-Fraser spoke, and here's what I heard her say:
"She articulated in a very personal way the essence of what I feel is the key to success in an Ironman. After briefly acknowledging that training, pacing, nutrition, and hydration are all important, she went on to what she felt was the final lesson she had learned on the big island - letting go of any thoughts or plans for objective outcome in the race, meaning time or placing. Humility, suppression of emotion, and attention to moment-to-moment detail, coupled with an underlying passion (which is best understood as an understanding of and commitment to your fundamental reason for being there, not emotion) are the final keys to success. I believe I have learned this lesson at last in my last two races, and am ready to see it all come together here. There may be a stage beyond this, but, hey she's won more times at Kona, and more races overall than anyone else, and if this is the final place she's come to, who am I to argue, or look further at this point?"
@Al Truscott parts of that reminded me of an old Brett Sutton blog/article on nutrition. I’m sure you’ve read your fair amount of Sutton in your IM career, and he doesn’t come without controversy, but no one can challenge his success. Recently I read a swim blog from him I thought was great, I really gotta read more of his stuff. Here is the article your thread made me think of.
https://blog.trisutto.com/the-weight-debate-nutrition-and-ironman/