There is an important relationship between body weight, body composition, and racing performance. Athletes perform best when they are at their optimal race weight. Keep in mind, race weight tends to be lighter and leaner than normal or average weight. Athlete’s training or normalweights are at least a few pounds above their optimal racing weight. Please note, optimal race weight is not something that should be maintained for a prolonged period of time.  It should coinside with your training "peak" and "A" race(s).  Athletes struggle to achieve their optimal racing weight for the same reasons non-athletes struggle to achieve a healthy weight: their appetite is being tempted by our modern food environment. The human appetite was not designed to deal with the abundance of calorie-dense foods, nor the incredible amount of cheap/fast food that is both a blessing and a curse of our time.

Endurance athletes typically determine their ideal body weight, which, in their case is better termed optimal performance weight, through exercise performance; a good proxy for general health. Through experience in training and competition, endurance athletes learn their optimal performance weight, or the body weight at which they perform best. A recent scientific survey of 3,000 endurance athletes by researchers at St. Cloud State University found that more than 90 percent of respondents were able to identify a precise optimal performance weight. Fluctuations below and (more often) above this optimal performance weight over the course of the year were found to be normal, but the normal range was small: fewer than 10 pounds in the majority of those surveyed.

The one topic I am asked most often to comment or talk about is nutrition. There are many different directions we can go with this topic including weight manage ment, training nutrition, race day nutrition, recipes, etc…. The best advice is to first have a goal, understand how your body works, understand how changes in your nutrition can help meet your goal, and be prepared to make a life style change. With that said, where do we start? Let’s begin with a basic understanding of food types, nutrition labels, and, portion controls. Future articles will further discuss these and other nutrition related topics.

In the past 15 years, I have participated in various endurance activities including double centuries and Ironman. I have experimented with various hydration and liquid nutrition products. Throughout, one products remains by my side; SPIZ.

Randy Ice, founder of SPIZ, has sponsored many of my endeavors including previous bike and tri clubs and today Triathlon Connection. In fact, Randy supports thousand of armature, pro, and everyday athletes.

Nutrition is one of the most often asked questions regarding triathlon training. “What do I eat? There is an endless list of nutrition do’s and don'ts. Everyone seams to have an opinion. If you want to eat better but don’t know where to start, here are a few suggestions to you fuel your body better.