Running to Think

In this post I will write about how to run with a heart rate monitor, which, let's face it, is not a novel trend at all. We all know that running champions do not even need such a gadget, since they rely on times and more complex types of analyses such as VO2Max, blood test, etc.
It is not a matter of being a champion or not. The problem is that we run ultra distance. If Mo Farah can control himself on a 10k, on the track and field, where he can count the laps and all is flat, well... we cannot. We are ultra runners and we do it on the trail.
After 30 km we tend to forget who we are and how much fuel is left. We barely keep in mind the next 30 km ahead and 20 more after that. Not to mention those who run 100km. Add to this tragedy that the track is dirty and we need to jump that root, that stone, dig a leg into water and sand. And the hills. Don't forget the hills. We prefer to say "I go out for a run, 1500" where that number are the meters that separate us from the ground. You know what I am talking about.

How can we control ourselves in such a hell of a track?
The purists would agree with me that there are no technological instruments that can tell a runner how far he can go, for how long and how fast. They say that the best and most reliable way is to know ourselves. I'm sorry, not in such a scenario.
There is an instrument that, if used with care, can give us precious info about our condition during a long long run.
Training with a heart rate monitor is one of the best ways to avoid to burn ourselves on the trail.
An example I already wrote about was the one of the Ecotrail 2013 in Paris. That race became a nightmare for one specific reason: I was ignoring my heart.

Unless you have access to a specific lab in which they can measure your VO2Max value, one good heuristic to measure your aerobic threshold is by using the heart rate monitor of your watch and the track&field.
One test is the Conconi test which is easy to run and quite reliable. It consists in running each lap at a speed 10% faster than the lap before, until you cannot hold it anymore. The difficulty consists in convincing yourself that you are really on your limit. There are mechanisms of our body that will prevent from getting there. Just be aware of it.
At home you plot velocity and heart rate on a graph. You should see a straight line during your low pace running and a different slope at some point, which seems to split the graph in two. That is a good estimate of your anaerobic threshold. In my case it is around 155 bpm, which is indeed correct.

There are many other formulas, from trivial ones such as MaxHeartRate - 0.7*Age , also known as Tanaka's formula.
I never used such formula and could not find any empirical evidence of its usability.

The test should be run at least twice per year, in order to check if our heart is responding to specific training strategies designed to increase the aerobic threshold, which I will describe in a later post.

When in doubt, follow your heart.
Run safe!

Running at the best pace can be tricky especially on the long distance. Physiology can help, of course. However, mathematics can assure of the optimal running strategy to follow, regardless of our training in the last weeks or the current shape.

Some applied mathematicians found out the best strategy to run at the fastest pace, with the least energy expenditure, in physiological terms, of course.

I highly recommend to read this post, in which they explain exactly how we should run.

Run fast!

Hi friends,
today I want you to introduce a fantastic sport to you. It's called CrossFit. Crossfit has been founded by Greg Glassman and Lauren Jenai back in 2000. It is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes, worldwide. Promoted as both a physical exercise philosophy and a competitive fitness sport, CrossFit workouts incorporate elements from high-intensity interval training, olympic weightlifting, plyometrics, powerlifting, gymnastics, calisthenics, strongman and other exercises.

Why you should give CrossFit a chance?

I did several sports in my life such as dancing and tennis, running and fitness. With CrossFit I could find all I am familiar with: group mentality, competition, cardio, strength. Moreover, I can do it where ever and whenever I want. The fun part of CrossFit is that all workouts are short and very intensive. You can find the Workout Of the Day, WOD, on the official website. You can also find videos, explanations of movements, articles, competitions and much  much more. 
I got in touch with it several months ago. The fitness I work at recently started a training room, called the box, in the jargon of CrossFit. It took me one workout to be part of it. 
I basically loved it! As a Crossfit fan, I have assisted to a competition in Nivelles (Walloon Brabant) organised by the Belgium fitness league. It was quite inspiring and motivating.

Here is a video which summarised the WOD. Don't get discouraged. These girls are athletes and practice hours and hours per week. 

Let me give you one tip: never load too much weight at first. But try to do every movement with the correct technique. Only when you feel you master it, don't hesitate to push it up. 

World champions CrossFit 2014 

With the hope to inspire you I feel like throwing yet another observations: it is not a guy-only sport. Girls can kick asses too, believe me!
Maybe i see you around for a WOD ;)

Love,
Caroline

Hi my measuring freaks,
if there is anyone who does not like to measure her or his own progress, please raise your hand. Thing is that you get a boost when you have the feeling to be close to your target. And that, my friends, can happen only if you can measure it.

The easiest  and most well know method is measuring your weight with a scale. The cheap ones that you find in supermarkets are in my opinion not very accurate. Once you get a decent one there is a way to define your ideal weight by measuring your height and use the formula for BMI (body mass index) = weight / height². A healthy BMI should be in the range 18-25 but of course this number should be taken with care because it doesn't take into account body composition. Namely, a fat person can have the same BMI than a body builder.

Below you can find a BMI chart, provided you would like to know if you are in the green zone:

Table 1: BMI chart

More accurate scales for medical usage such as those that you can find in pharmacies like wellnescentra and fitnesscentra can do a great job. One brand I suggest is Tanita.
It uses BIA (Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis) technology, which sends a safe, low-level electrical signal from footplate and hand electrodes through the body. BIA is quickly calculated and it is also non-invasive. This is considered one of the most reliable ways to measure body composition, even clinically comparable to DEXA (dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry) and hydrostatic (underwater) weighing. These methods usually return your weight, fat percentage, fat mass, fat free mass, total body water, muscle mass, bone mass to provide a very complete profile of your body. 

Those scales are also quite expensive, one more reason to keep reading.
If you can have access to one of those scales in your city or gym, fine. Otherwise you can use other cheaper techniques which go under the term of kinathropometry.

Kinanthropometry is an emerging scientific specialization concerned with the application of measurement to appraise human size, shape, proportion, composition, maturation and gross function. It is a basic discipline for problem-solving in matters related to growth, exercise, performance and of course nutrition.


The measuring tools you need are:
1) a scale
2) a calibre (to measure skinfolds)
3) a measuring tape

Figure 2: Calibre

Figure 3: Skinfolds to measure

You got all, now what? What should you measure, where, how and what formula should you use?

Let's get busy.

Biometry

They are a lot of things you can measure such as height, weight, the circumference of the upper arm, waist, hip, calf, thigh and some other stuff but those are not really important. The skinfolds can be measured with a calibre.
In Figure 3 you can see the correct places that you should measure. Measure each twice or more to make sure you did it well, then take the average of those measurements.

Body Density (BD)

The measures at hand will allow you to calculate your fat percentage. There are 3 different formulae to do that. I will explain the two ones that I consider as the most accurate. These formulae adapt quite well according to your age, gender and the amount of skinfolds you measured.

1) Jackson- Pollock (3 site skinfold formula)

2) Durnin - Womersley (age 20-29)

Fat Percentage

Running long distance takes a consistent part of my life.  When the target of the week is mileage above 130 km, it is not possible to train every day less than 2 hours. To this I add shower time, post-workout relaxation, eating. Then the worst part, going to work. Taking the train, then commute by bike for about 40 minutes. Another hour and half is gone.
Sometimes I think that they really should have made 28-hour days, at least.
It turns out that running has the priority on almost everything else. We are runners after all. Usually this means sacrificing time for girlfriend, friends and yourself.
An effective way I have been experimenting so far is to run to work, which allows me to easily save those two missing hours of the day.
Preamble: I need 30 min train and 40 min bike (or 25 min bus) to get to the office and as much to get back home.

For the commute, a preparation is needed though.
First I had to set a laptop at the office. This laptop is a replica of the one at home, namely it synchronises all apps and data that I change from home to the office. Running with a laptop is absolutely discouraged, even in the case of those computers provided with SSD disks.
Leaving a laptop at the office and use internet services is the solution.

An internet service that allows sharing data with others and more importantly with your own devices is copy.com. In addition, Gmail, Twitter and Strava are device-agnostic services and they provide the functionality I need independently from the laptop at my disposal.

An important device, however is the running backpack. There are plenty out there. These ones are probably the best.  I personally use a Salomon trail 10L without hydration pack. It easily gives room to keys, mobile phone, a couple of rechargers and some money. More than enough for a daily running-to-work session.

What is really important is the clothing strategy. I carry with me a spare t-shirt. But the rest has been placed beforehand in the office. Cool working places usually have showers. Make sure your working place is cool enough ;)

Last but not least, your legs. Make sure they are capable of doing it, every day.

Run happy. Work smart.

October means fall, trees losing their leaves, the sky getting greyish (a bit more here in Belgium) and people getting more lazy. Not us.
October for us has just one meaning: running more and getting ready for the winter season, in one word, actually two, half-marathon of Bruxelles. Due to the race-of-the-year, scheduled on October 25th, I decided to run it at a gentle pace and be Caroline's bodyguard in the first part. I ran with her for the first 5 km at the pace of 5':09" per km, a pretty fast one for her. I had no reason to mentally push her as I saw she was enjoying the run, measuring herself in the first three hilly tunnels at the beginning of the race and projecting her condition on the long distance of 21.1 km.
At km 5, I got her approval to go, crashed my lips on hers as a mere sign of good luck, and gave free rein to my legs, which were waiting for the signal. Unchained, they galloped me towards the finish line, which was only 16 km far. I passed a number of runners and put myself (and my backpack) in front of 3500 people in about 12 km.
I enjoyed it, a lot. No pain, no stress, no rush, at the moderate pace of 4':05" per km.

I hereby thank Bernard for the beautiful image and post-production.

The best came in the last 3 km when I decided to taste the delicious flavour of strain and increase the pace to 3':29" per km. A joy you can appreciate in this picture of me almost approaching the finish line.
I had no bib number with me. We need none in the forest. Caroline did. Therefore she could get her diploma and the official race time of 1h:55':54".
Not bad at all as her first time.

Dear ladies (and gentlemen),
we all know how hard the battle of losing weight is and our attempts to shape the body to what we consider ideal. Big thighs, flappy bellies, hanging arms... all things we don't like and we wish to change by means of exercises specifically designed to destroy that garbage (and us), sometimes in concert with a well-balanced diet. 
To begin with, we claim to target a certain body shape. Bad news is that genetics will dictate the uncontrollable. Good news is that we do have the power to change a few things that might actually contribute to our overall satisfaction. 
Today I want to be more specific and show you different types of bodies that we usually have to deal with. I'm sure you already heard about hourglass shape, apple shape and so on. 


But what you want is probably some technicality. And there you are the categories (somatotypes) into which we are most likely:

Endomorphs – “fat retainers”
Mesomorphs – “athletic”
Ectomorphs – “skinny”




Actually i have some kind of bad news. One thing we cannot do is choosing where we want to loose weight. Detect and target a specific spot to be reduced. Just fiction.
Remember how the layers of an onion are? For most people, fat acts exactly like that. It doesn’t just disappear from a specific place, but rather it comes off layer by layer from the whole body. However, some people have localised areas where fat loss (and of course gain) is more pronounced, and while fat is still shed from all over the body, the loss is proportionately different in different areas. 

What I experienced was a mix of both the conditions. When I am losing weight, that occurs everywhere with more emphasis on thighs and breast. Exactly! My breast!! 
A nightmare for every woman. 
Why does that happen? Well, during the initial stages of weight loss, women tend to lose fat in their breast, which is mainly fat tissue, indeed. Those with the shape of a pear tend to carry excessive body fat in their buttocks, hips and thighs as well. 
So, what can we do to prevent this terrifying situation? 
Not so many people know that the most important thing for those women to do is to keep their cardiovascular (cardio) activity to a minimum. Specifically to a level that reaps health benefits without excessive loss of fat, while emphasising resistance (weight) training in the effort to increase the size of the muscles that lie underneath the breasts.
While it is not guaranteed to keep the fat of the breast, your breast can very well be perked up by strengthening the main muscle group of the chest supporting them. Think of the pectoralis major and minor.
What I personally suggest is phrased in a kind of motto "eating clean, training dirty", especially those area's you don't really like of yourself. Then try to accept the body you have. I know it's not easy but, at the end everyone is unique and beautiful in his/her own way.
My body changed when i started to eat clean.  But let me be honest here: we live only once so have that piece of chocolate staring at you, on the desk, begging you to bite it, once in a while. 
After all, that will cost you 3-4 times/week of cardio and strengthening exercises.



Love,
Caroline

Dear runners,
a lot happened since my last trips to Finland and Vienna. Buying a house that I don't really need has probably been the stupidest thing I've ever done so far in my life. Even more stupid when I realised that being a gipsy is indeed my attitude, at least for the time being.
Thank God, sad things never come alone. The grateful smile of Caroline is one of the most fulfilling experiences I have day by day.

With this said, I should be here to write about my running experience rather than my personal life, right? Well, running is about my personal life. No off topic.
The last weeks have been partially dedicated, as I said, to working in the house, working in the office and eventually maintaining a good condition by running in the forests and hills around Liege.
Before each running session and especially during many of them, however, I often felt tired, with that feeling of emptiness in the legs, not in the mood at all and kind of bored. Have you ever had such a feeling?
Life was never meant to be easy, as the lyrics of a song say. I do agree. But running with no enthusiasm can be more painful than interval training itself. I was even hoping to find some good pals out there who experienced the same at least once in their life, when, one day, I got enlightened by my own schedule.
Actually there was no schedule!
I was lacking the most important component of a runner's plan: the plan indeed! No target race planned any time soon, no training schedule, no goals to achieve, no weekly mileage to keep up to... Basically, I was just running. I don't know how good or bad that is. Many people just run. Many go out every day, after work or during a break. Some even at lunch time. I was probably becoming like those people. Nothing bad of course. Except that... it was killing me. It was like I was not running at all. That feeling of disappointment brought its consequences also in my diet, with a consistent increase of sugar, chocolate and frangipane cakes. Not to mention ice cream.
I am a runner who needs a plan. I've always had one.
To let things work out again I did it: I decided to run the Bear Trail this year. A 56 km trail with 1200 mt elevation gain near the belgian-dutch border.
I don't have much time to train for it. Four weeks are definitely not enough. But I have the feeling that those weeks will be intense, full and meaningful.

The running philosophy is the best lecture with which I deal on a regular basis. Goals keep me alive and remind me of one important fact: I might fail them, trying is already successful.

Keep running!

The schedule of the last week has been quite tough. Especially if I think that the left knee is still recovering from an injury and rule #0 says "watch out! don't push too hard".
Some running sessions of 15 km for three consecutive days, some drills and intervals did a great job to exhaust my legs before the long distance session.
As expected my legs today were not exactly responsive. But that was the training indeed: running on numb legs.
The course was not extremely difficult, but a bit technical in the beginning with about 400 mt of elevation gain mainly distributed in the first part. The second part was indeed quite boring due to the road, straight and clear. With cars...
I am still not an expert of Finnish roads and I will probably never be. Definitely not in one more week, the duration of my staying.

One important fact that I should consider in my next training sessions regards the fact that I lose too many salts, finding quite disgusting white spots on the hydration pack and shirt that becomes sand when dry. Today I drunk the whole 2 liters provided by the pack, ate 1 gel and 2 bars on the total distance of 40 km.
The real story goes like this.
At km 39.5 I sucked the straw harder than usual and nothing was coming up.
"Damn it broke!" I thought.
Nothing more wrong than that, Frankie.
I just had drunk it all. No water. Nada. Niente.
This fact is curious and I will need to fix it with Caroline, because the pace and the weather gave me no reason to drink like a camel.

Anyway, as the first long distance session after a period of active recovery, I can consider myself satisfied. Tomorrow, I will check how legs respond to some short drills on the track&field.
Greets from Finland.

Run happy!

Only one month ago, Garmin decided to declare ANT Agent obsolete and forced me (and many other runners) to switch to their new SuperDuper Garmin Express.
The very first issue came when I was uploading my activity on Strava: not possible anymore. A small search on Google told me that indeed there was no viable way for Strava to communicate to Garmin devices. One workaround was to export the activity from Garmin Connect and import it manually in Strava. Time consuming and really annoying.
The worst occurred when the first activity got lost before upload. That was not happening since about two years.
Yesterday the most dramatic one: three activities I completed in Finland, on hilly tracks and one personal record on the distance of 15 km around the lake Jyvasjarvi in 59' got lost too.
I was furious and disappointed at the same time.
Garmin Express is not mature enough to go out as production software. You should know this, Garmin engineers!!
What annoys me the most is that we, poor users, can only suffer Garmin's mistakes. Therefore I suggest that Garmin engineers (or the project managers responsible for such a failure) should  pay the price of their own mistakes by running the miles that have been destroyed. At the same pace.

Not possible?
Fine. Pay us back, Mr Garmin!

Here is my review of these wonderful shoes I bought during my holiday in Southern Italy. I found a great deal, last number, last color, last everything and got a super discount, which was the perfect reason to buy running shoes for half the price.

Adidas Supernova Glide Boost presented themselves as really soft shoes since the very moment in which I took them in my hands. Quite a lot of marketing around the Boost technology was indeed attractive and worth trying. Yes, I had to wear and run like an idiot around the shop to prove that the cushioning was indeed comfortable.
At the beginning it seemed to be very soft. Probably too much. But I gave these shoes the amount of kilometers they needed to express themselves and decided to get an opinion only after 100 km.
The springy feeling of the Boost technology is not really nice for a runner like me who is used to run in the trail and wants to stay in contact with the ground. But things are different on the road. As a New Balance 890 v3 heavy user I must say that Adidas did a good job with the Boost. The springy feeling, too accentuated just outside the shop, literally disappeared after 100 km leaving only the good part of it.

As a result they provide a soft cushioning that is discrete on the heel and present on the forefoot. I am mainly a forefoot runner and some cushioning helps a lot there. The shoe in general is not stiff at all. It wears your foot like a sock and gives you the freedom that you need if you are a neutral runner. There are no stability features. Therefore watch out if you have been diagnosed with pronations.

One more thing: forget the trail. These shoes are made for the road and should stay on the road. Rocky tracks and dusty roads are not the perfect terrain for them. The tread is made by Continental, which also designs road tyres for cars. That should say a lot.

Happy Boosted running!

Still in hot Puglia, Southern Italy. Long distance running in the heat seems to be not well indicated, especially when there is no water support, but a Salomon belt with only 400 ml of hot fluid and a fruity gel that gets hot just after 5 km.
This morning I had intervals, which usually give me more stress due to the fact that keeping a moderately high pace is the actual exercise. Not today.
Running a shorter mileage was such a relief, because of those 30 degrees (and more) around me.
There are several aspects of the country side that are worth mentioning.
Nice roads and no cars whatsoever are invaluable. Ok, some barking dogs sometimes. But if they're not in a gang they're actually harmless.
A million cicadas chirping so loud in the middle of nowhere, more than just breaking the silence, at the point that the beep of the Garmin at every km was barely audible.
The weak wind blowing at its best to dry the litres of sweat on the chest and the arms, dropping on the quads in a continuously interrupted flow.
Finally, the scarce shadows of the crowns of olive trees on the left side of the road, like they were inviting me to cool down for a fraction of a second before going back to the road, exposed to that sun, yellow and white, stubborn to deliver that amount of degrees every runner would fear to go into.

And he would be so right!

  

An update from hot Puglia, southern Italy, the heel of Italy, geographically speaking. We decided to spend our holiday this summer. Running here is just awesome even thought it has to be an early-morning activity. In fact, heat is a big problem here.
I have been running both intervals and long distance in the country side of Molfetta (check my Strava) and, indeed, the hydration belt revealed to be absolutely essential, even not sufficient after 25 km in the sun. Thankfully I can stand the heat quite well. But I usually get rid of my running shirt in crazier conditions. Have a read at this, if you don't stand the heat at all. Except that, well... we use underwear or running shorts ;)

What else? I bought new road shoes. Still putting some miles on them and preparing my review on this very blog.

Stay tuned and happy warm running!

Hello folks!
Yes indeed. I'm back. It has been long, it has been painful, discouraging, depressive. It basically tore me down. Two months of no activity (almost), dealing with a patellar tendon that really didn't want to be fixed, are not a joke.
I am not in the mood to shout out loud how I dealt with it. Read some of my recent posts and you will certainly find out. What else? Well, let me give you some numbers: 33, 44, 55, 66, 77. These are the kilometers that I covered every week, in the last 5 weeks. As every physiotherapist would advice "get back to the road, but do it sloooowly". I added some spicy intervals to my schedule only recently. The rest is happening on the trail, as usual.
So far so good.
Rehab is almost finished, even though it's always good to make some recalls once in a while in order to test the strength of those little tendons around the knees that seem to be so innocent but they are actually fundamental during the landing phase. And you know how important is landing well on the trail. Don't you?

Wish me luck!
Run happy ;)

What's the news? I could finish with no pain and no bad feelings about my knee whatsoever.
Then building up some mileage again and hopefully go back to the trail.

Long story short: everything, just in the right amount

CARBOHYDRATES

Most endurance athletes and coaches know how important it is to maintain the body's carbohydrate (glycogen) stores. They are also aware that, despite the fact that the depletion of glycogen may be delayed to a degree, by consuming carbs during activity, the body's stock capacity can only provide enough energy for about 90 to 180 minutes before fatigue sets in. 
It is when these stores are exhausted that runners 'hit the wall', cyclists 'bonk' and everybody is doomed to slow down. Some even to quit.

It comes without saying that prolonged exercise forces athletes to get the energy they need from additional sources. The basic rule is to load low glycemic index carbs 3 or 4 days before the race (will digest slowly) and high glycemic carbs during the race so that the body can absorb fast and efficiently.
Here is a table that you better remember by heart.

When?	How much?	Why?
3-4 hours before	2-4 g/kg bodyweight  = ± 210g = 840 Kcal	·   Liver glycogen will be filled ·   Blood sugar will be maintained ·   No hunger feeling
1 hour before	1-2 g/kg bodyweight = ± 140g = 560 Kcal	·   Keep the glycogen reserves high
During	0,7 g/kg bodyweight every hour of sport in intervals of 15-20 min = ± 49g =196Kcal/ hour è 50 kcal every 15 min NB: You can go until 70-75 g/hour = 280- 300 kcal / hour è 70- 75 kcal every 15 min	·   Keep blood sugar high ·   Increase carbohydrate oxidation ·   Delaying fatigue
Recovery (until 2 hours after race)	1,1-1,2g/kg bodyweight (preference for high GI) = ± 84 g = 336 kcal	·   Recover the blood sugar value ·   Resynthesis of muscle glycogen ·   Restore muscle tissue

Main sources:  Whole grain, apples, bananas, peaches, asparagus, carrots, rice milk, lentils, just to name a few.

PROTEINS

Proteins alone do not provide energy unless glycogen and fat are depleted and like fat, they can slow down your metabolism. You will typically get enough protein for race day if you eat high quality proteins, such as whey, egg whites, milk, soy, as part of your daily intake. Small amounts of protein during a race may reduce muscle damage. Recovery, however, requires protein. The recommended ratio is of 3 carbs to 1 protein.

Main sources:  Eggs, meat, fish, chicken, cheese, beans... But you probably don't want to go for meat ;)

FATS

Another good source of energy during exercise is fat. Fat has several advantages over carbohydrates. As a matter of fact, it yields over twice as much energy as carbohydrate (9 kcal v 4 kcal). Add the fact that our body is usually loaded with a good supply of fat and you get a consistent amount of calories and energy. Typically, the body has approximately 50-60.000 kcal of energy stored as fat compared to about 1500 kcal of glycogen. 
One of the effects of endurance training is to make the body a more efficient fat burning machine. Fat is not the enemy, if your body knows how to deal with it.
However, despite the abundant store of this substrate, it is not totally clear where the fat used in exercise comes from. Most fat in the body is stored in the form of triglycerides in adipose tissue. Some fat, known as intramuscular triglyceride, is stored directly within the muscle fibres. It is now believed that the greater utilisation of fat by trained endurance athletes comes from this source. This has a very important implication, because the amount of energy which can be derived from intramuscular triglyceride is thought to amount to only 2000-3000 kcal.

Depletion of the intramuscular triglyceride stores is now thought to limit endurance performance in much the same way as glycogen depletion. It has been shown that the replenishment of glycogen stores alone is not enough to restore maximum work capacity. Therefore, it may be just as important to restore, or strive to spare, the body's intramuscular triglyceride. 

Although fats are vital for physical activity, most individuals have enough body fat stored for energy during prolonged workouts. 
However, increasing the fat intake will only lead to less consumption of carbohydrates impeding glycogen stores (glycogen being the immediate source of fuel for physical activity). Moreover, fats have the tendency to slow down metabolism in general. Consider fats as a reserve tank of fuel, but keep them to a minimum during training and racing (20-30%).

Main sources:  Fatty fish such as salmon, nuts, cheese, avocado, …

Last but not least (and not to forget)

1.    Fibers: prevent gastrointestinal distress, they are difficult to digest, especially during high intensity training. Avoid whole grains and fruits with skin. In general, keep fibers to a minimum, at least on race day.

2.    Maintain proper fluid balance. This is vital for an optimal performance

Have a nice race!