The Bread Business Blog

This past weekend, Great Harvest sponsored a Spinervals triathlon training camp with Coach Troy Jacobson.  Troy and I have worked together for close to ten years now but this post isn’t about training.  It is about what it takes to succeed.  Troy says that he sees incredibly common traits between successful athletes and successful entrepreneurs.  I agree.

Just this past Saturday I ran a half marathon with some friends in Bozeman, MT. It was a blast and thankfully a beautiful day! I properly fueled prior to my event and consumed a gel midway through the race to help power me to the finish, but as I gathered with my friends at the end of the race and started to feel my stomach grumble I started contemplating what exactly I wanted to eat to celebrate our accomplishments.

 

After you’ve finished your race, what and when you eat is not necessarily a ‘big deal’ unless you used that race as a training tool for the ‘big one’ you are ultimately preparing for, or if you’re planning on a good workout within the next 24 hours. This is because your post race meal can have a huge impact on energy stores for tomorrow’s workout, rehydration, and muscle repair, which will all have a direct affect on how well you perform the next day. The better you can consistently train, the more prepared you will be for your next event.

Fueling during exercise isn’t always necessary, but if you’re an endurance athlete exercising for one to two hours or more, it may be something you want to consider.

The main goal with fueling during exercise is to maintain your available energy (glucose levels) and to replace any fluid loss you experience through breathing and sweating. This will not only prevent you from hitting that proverbial wall during your event but also improve your overall performance.

This is particularly important if you did not do a good job properly fueling prior to your event or if you are exercising in extreme conditions such as high heat, cold, or high altitude which demands more from your body.

Here are Five Tips on How to Properly Fuel During Exercise:

This week I’m expanding on my last post about the basics of  how to eat for improved athletic performance.

Vitamins and minerals play a very important role for everyday life and the importance of proper intake increases for athletes as they strain their bodies requiring muscle use, repair and growth; signaling their bodies to build bone; stressing their immune system; increasing a demand for oxygen; and overall requesting more of the body’s systems.

Although vitamins and minerals do not provide energy themselves, they do facilitate energy yielding chemical reactions in your body. They act as coenzymes – or little activators - in your body to speed up and enable processes within the body related to not only energy production, but also immune function, bone health, tissue repair, collagen growth, muscle control and hemoglobin (what carries oxygen in your blood) synthesis. If they are absent from your diet, deficiency can develop and they no longer are available to act as coenzymes that jumpstart reactions and, as a result, processes do not work properly.

Signing up for a marathon, half marathon, 5K race or a triathlon is a great way to motivate you to workout regularly.

You’ll even be surprised how addicting they can be!

Whether you are a seasoned endurance athlete or one who is new to the sport, proper eating can improve your performance. Simple diet changes can help you become stronger and more energized.

So here are the basics on how to fuel for optimum athletic performance:

  Guest blog by Randy Steuve, a regular customer of the Farmington, NM, Great Harvest Bread Co. and our first customer guest blogger.  Randy is the Director of Pharmacy at Pagosa Springs Medical Center and an avid triathlete. He has been practicing hospital pharmacy for over 15 years and has been racing triathlons for nearly 10 years. After getting his start in shorter distance triathlons, Randy progressed to the full ironman distance in 2006. He has competed in over 50 triathlons including 8 Ironman triathlons. He recently raced in Ironman St. George where he qualified for his third Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii.