Endurance athletes put a large emphasis on their training programs, their equipment and their nutrition to assure they reach their goals. First Endurance consults with hundreds of these athletes primarily on nutrition and how to best fuel your body for long distance racing. Through these consultations with beginners, veterans, elite amateurs and professionals it is quite clear that carbohydrates and how they should be used is vastly misunderstood.
Much of what is misunderstood is likely driven by the media’s generalization of nutrition topics. Often you hear “eating too much sugar makes you fat and is bad for you.” Furthermore clinical data performed on the general population is often extrapolated to endurance trained athletes, who do not fit this category. This has lead to some misunderstanding and misconceptions about carbohydrates. Below are the four most common.
#1 Misconception: Sugars are high glycemic* so they give a sugar high then crash.
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Incredible new running shoes recently released from Pearl Izumi are ready for action. I got my hands on a couple pairs of the Streak II’s recently and can honestly say that they are the best running shoe I have ever run in. That is a big statement, but it’s how I feel. I have been running in Pearl shoes for the last several seasons (Asics and Brooks before that) and they have been good. My favorite Pearl shoe over the last few seasons has been the Peak XC trail shoe. The new Streak II’s blow them out of the water!
- The new Streak II
Your first priority with Base Training is build your aerobic endurance. Your goal is to be able to ride and run longer distances and at faster speeds while maintaining aerobic heart rates. Training at lower effort levels early on allows for adaptations and improvement in you body’s ability to use fat for fuel, spare glycogen (carbohydrate), and develop a more efficient cardiovascular system; all benefits of improved aerobic function. Once your aerobic base is established and you can easily cruise around over varied terrain while maintaining aerobic heart rates, you can then begin to cruise at faster speeds, through aerobic intervals, to really maximize your aerobic speed as the second component of Base Training. The final piece of Base puzzle is strength. Developing sport-specific strength will allow you to apply more force to the pedals and ground to get you even faster, especially when you’re faced with greater resistance from headwinds and gravity. Once your aerobic function has improved enough to allow you to climb hills while maintaining aerobic heart rates, you then can begin to add sport-specific strength workouts to your training schedule to improve your muscular strength that will in turn increase your power output.
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