Power to Weight Ratio

In the weekly training plan that Coach Scott wrote up immediately following Easter/Passover weekend, he asked us (only slightly tongue in cheek, I think), how our power to weight ratio is doing following the holiday weekend.    He elegantly put it as maximizing functional mass and minimizing non-functional mass.  After a holiday weekend, that meant added fat poundage, though it could also mean, in other contexts muscle bulk that has no positive impact on performance, and is, in effect dead weight one is unnecessarily hauling around that makes one go that much slower and work harder than one would without the added poundage.  A great resource for more on this subject, including optimum weight charts, and projected improvement is "Racing Weight" by Matt Fitzgerald.

Now, as I said in the last post, I was really good over that weekend.  The following week, however, between not training for three days straight, and carb binging like I'd never see another gluten-free cookie again, my weight found itself on the wrong side of 130, a place where I haven't been since being pregnant all those many years ago, and certainly not where I ever wanted to see myself again!  It wasn't just a fluke of the scale, either.  I felt each of those added 5 pound on the weekend's long run and ride.

So when Coach Jay asked me how I was doing on the ride, I mentioned my struggle with the PWR, and we had a lovely conversation about the right foods and wrong foods to eat, and what general eating rules apply and which don't when training for an Ironman.  Specifically, normally my diet consists of plenty of protein, fruit and veggies, with some GF carbs thrown in.  However, there's a lot of talk in endurance training of replenishing glycogen stores, taking in enough enough calories pre-workout, during a training session, and immediately after.  Most of that talk seems to be about simple carbs, or sugars of one form or another.  Indeed, the Gu's, Accelerade's,  and other supplements one takes while racing or training are primarily simple sugars with flavoring, sometimes caffeine, sometimes a little protein.

As someone who normally eats relatively cleanly, as close to natural as possible, trying to incorporate these new nutritional suggestions has been a struggle, and one which I failed at last week.

What Coach Jay told me confirmed what I read in Joe Friel's book and what my buddy Fred Hahn has been telling me, namely high protein, low carb is the way to go.   Jay suggested that I eat high protein, healthy fats, plenty of clean fruit and vegetables, most of the time, and leave the sugary carbs for those training rides and runs.  He told me that he eats to satiety of the former, and allows himself one "cheat" day a week.

Fair enough.  Totally something I'm on board with, so I tried it.

The result thus far?  Those carb-binge 5 pounds are gone.  I had an extremely successful run session yesterday, including a 7:55 mile (mile 7 of an 8 mile run - intervals of 1/2 marathon effort, 10k effort, and 5k effort).  Oh, and that's in less than a week.  I think I'm a believer.  I do believe that this is only a small step.  I think that optimally I need to be about 5-7 pounds lighter still, and increase strength in my legs back and abs, ideally without increasing muscle mass too much.

So This will be an ongoing area that I'm working on, as I try to lose weight, eat the way I like to, and hopefully replace the primarily artificial energy supplements with something a little closer to nature which is also easily processed.

Also trying to figure out where the chocolate fits in.