Reply To: Congratulations Musselman participants!

#13045
CoachAJ
Participant

Thank you for the helpful feedback, Brian! They’re definitely seems to be a few areas that might be worth you exploring in the future. It does appear that you were light on both calories and fluids. As a learning experience for everyone in the training program, as you continue to race long course triathlon, I encourage you to start thinking about your nutrition in terms of calories and ounces instead of bars and sports drink. This works for short course racing. However for long course racing, we must think calories and ounces (from a general terms standpoint).

In addition, you are drinking a lot of water during the day. This is likely why you ended up with an electrolyte imbalance. So keep up with the electrolytes and magnesium supplementation to ensure you keep that cramping away.

On a final note, during a marathon, cramping or “hitting the wall” usually comes down to pacing. For those athletes who pace the distance properly, they never ‘hit’ a wall.

In the end, as you can see, long course racing and perfecting it, is both an art and science. It requires a true understanding of all elements to make them work together like a well oil machine. It is not black and white! It takes time, patience and lots of knowledge and understanding.

Hopefully this training program has helped everyone continue to gain strides along this effort!