The Winter 100 race report – End of the 2014 season

#Winter100

Why? Why? Why? That is the common question I get when I tell people I’m running 100 miles. To be fair, at times during the Winter 100 over the weekend I was asking myself that same question. Inevitably during a race that long you’ll suffer quite a bit but the joy and feeling of accomplishment of crossing that finish line make all the pains and aches more than worthwhile. A feeling I plan to experience many times over the next few years.

The Winter 100 wasn’t on my plans for 2014, I usually race very little but when I saw spaces available I couldn’t resist and signed up. Training for this race was unusual, I completed Ironman Sweden, one of mine A races for 2014 just weeks prior, I raced hard and did well there but it took a lot out of me, for a while afterwards I felt tired and suffered from niggling pains and aches, so my strategy for the Winter 100 was to train less, recover hard and be at the start in the freshest way possible and of course grow a beard to look more like an ultrarunner! I knew with the fitness I accumulated training for the Thames Path 100 and Ironman Sweden would help me get through my last challenge for 2014. This time also coincided with my wife and kids being away in New Zealand, free of any family responsibilities one would think that I would have all the time in world to train but my common sense dictated that this wouldn’t be the smartest choice. The upside of not having the family around for a while was that I was able to get plenty of good quality sleep. During the time my diet (as far as metabolic efficiency is concerned) was pretty close to perfect with the exception of a few treats, I decided that since I couldn’t train as much it would be a sensible idea to try losing a bit of excess body fat, metabolic efficient eating worked a treat. In comparison to my Ironman Sweden race week weight I was more or less 5 pounds lighter, it doesn’t sound a lot but when have to run 100 miles and it will help a long way.

My main tactics to lose a bit of excess body fat were to reduce my portions a bit and try to exercise just before my main meals so that it worked as my recovery food. I never counted calories or went hungry. If you want to know more about metabolic efficiency you can read this post, but essentially it’s a way of eating that emphasises the reduction of insulin spikes and control of blood sugar levels with the aim of enhancing your body’s ability to use its own fat stores as fuel.

When race day arrived I felt ready, niggle free and lighter, let’s go and finish 2014 in style. The Winter 100 race is a series of 4 different 25-mile spurts along the Thames Path and the Ridgeway, with spurts 1 and 4 being flat and spurts 2 and 4 hilly, the course resembles the shape of a cross, what I loved about this race was being able to return to the starting point where my drop bag would be with all my favourite foods and spare clothes/shoes. My race strategy was to start at a sensible pace, run the most I could during spurts 1 and 2 whilst in daylight and hang on during later sections. The first 50miles went without a problem, the rain that was forecasted never arrived and it felt very warm outside, I had started the race wearing a base layer but soon felt it was too warm for that. I got through some of the hills at the start of leg 3 and around mile 55 I suffered my first ‘bad patch’, you just have to try to stay positive and accept that these patches will come and go, I walked for a while and all of sudden I felt re-energised and able to run again. It felt great arriving at mile 75 back at headquarters and see some familiar faces before the last spurt. Two miles into spurt 4 I was crossing some fields and up to now I am still not sure what exactly happened but being tired and with my concentrating levels dipping I managed to turn around on myself and started running towards the finish, I ran about a mile in the wrong direction and realised of my cock-up when I saw the bridge near the finish line. Very annoying but all I could do now was to pay better attention. At around mile 85 I suffered another bad patch and had to walk for a while, that must have lasted a good 20-25min, it still felt warm and muggy outdoors, even for my Brazilian body, I was still just wearing a t-shirt despite being autumn here in the UK. The rain came down at this point and it felt refreshing and I started running again. During the last 15 miles or so I really didn’t feel like eating at all, at the time the thought of chewing food didn’t appeal to me at all, with a few miles to go I started sipping cold and flat coke mixed with a bit of water and salt sticks. I know some of you that follow my blog will be curious to how much and what I ate. I ate roughly every hour and consumed in the region of 90 calories each time for the first 60miles or so, during the later stages it all becomes a bit of a blur really. My foods of choices are cheese/ham sandwiches, peanut butter/banana sandwiches, Generation UCAN sports drink, Nakd bars, crisps and flat coke. As I left the last aid station with 4 miles to go something just clicked, the pains and aches disappeared. I was on the home straight, even taking a tumble in the mud with a mile to go.

I crossed the finish line in 21h09 and 18^th overall and with a big smile on my face. I’m very chuffed to own my second ONE-DAY buckle. 

Super thanks to all the volunteers, no volunteers means no race, thanks to my co-runners and Centurion Running for putting a great event.

The 2014 season

That’s it; it is the end of my season, I’m here writing my blog and sipping a cold beer. What goals did I have in mind when I planned for 2014. My race goals were to complete a 100-mile ultramarathon at Thames Path 100 and to go sub-11 hours at Ironman Sweden in August. My other goals were to become a better cyclist and remain injury free.

Every goal has been ticked and I couldn’t be any happier. My debut at 100-miles at Thames Path 100 exceeded my expectations earlier this year; you can read my post here. My attention shifted to Ironman Sweden from May with lots of cycling. I had a really good race and pb-ed with 10:57, during training for this my FTP power improved as well as my power/weight ratio, you can read about my Swedish adventure in here. Another year and I remain injury free, in actual fact I haven’t suffered from injuries since 2008, I’m not superman, far from that and I do suffer from niggles from time to time, more of them in 2014 though. I don’t have a secret but a combination of ideas some may find useful. I listen to my body, if something isn’t right I don’t ignore it, I see my physiotherapist regularly and I back off hard training, especially running when I feel the need to. I am bit anal with my sleep, I like 8 hours a night, fuck the TV, sleep is the best recovery there is and it's free. I swim, bike, run and also perform conditioning and strengthening work, this combination keeps training entertaining and gives me a complete body workout. I also don’t race very much and have breaks every year. And of course I eat the metabolic efficient way.

More than race times and power meter data, 2014 has been about building my confidence and knowing I’m heading in the right direction. I don’t have any special athletic talent or favourable genetics but I’m learning that my hard work, my faith in my training methods and being patient are allowing me to achieve more than I once thought possible. It’s been a great learning curve and experience and I look forward to the future.

I now embark on a two-week end of season break, no exercise at all, time to give my body and mind a break. Plan is go to the cinema and a few trips to the pub of course.

I have one goal for 2015, well, one goal with four parts though. That is to complete the Centurion Running Grand Slam and finish four 100-mile ultramarathons from May to Oct, the Thames Path 100, the South Downs Way 100, the North Downs Way 100 and finish off with the Winter 100. I really look forward to this challenge. I’m love with ultrarunning at the moment! I’m going to start my season in style though, I’ll be racing the Tarawera 100k ultra in Feb and the Motatapu off-road marathon in March , both in New Zealand and great preparation for Thames Path 100.

If you want to keep in touch you can follow me on twitter @braziliangunner

Thanks for reading my blog.

Ironman Sweden Training and Race Report

Don't ever let anybody tell you that you can't! You are much more capable than you may think… if you are realistic, work hard and have a bit of patience, then good things will come to you...#findyourgreatness

Ironman training isn't easy. Combining swimming, biking and running with a full time job and a family takes a lot of dedication from the athlete and tolerance from your loved ones. This year has been no different. In order to keep my family balance in check I have been very selfish and it was a rare occasion for me to train with others, it just doesn’t work, waiting around for people and finding a suitable time for all parties is difficult and often results in the loss of precious time I could spend with my kids. I usually train very early in the morning and since I work shifts I do the bulk of my training during weekdays, preferably when my daughters are at school/nursery, or still in bed. Long distance running and triathlon is what I love and I’m willing to make sacrifices to keep my passion going.

To make this blog more readable, I'm going to break it down into sections:

Swim - swimming has never been my forte, I don’t remember how I learned the front crawl as a kid, I never attended swimming classes when I was young and I'm not passionate about swimming, although I do enjoy swimming in open water these days. To make the most of my limited time this year and make it more interesting, I have decided to follow a pattern in my swim training which went like this: technique drills swim, speed intervals/time trials swim and long swims. Most weeks I could manage 3 swims, sometimes 2 and on the rare occasion 4. I also decided to read a bit more on the subject and got a copy of Swim Smooth, which is the methodology used by British Triathlon as well as my Tri Club, a really great read. The combination of the reading plus my swim training pattern gave me a new focus on what I do in the water and I looked forward to swim sessions more than in the past. For Ironman Sweden this year I opted to start with the slightly faster group so that I could draft other athletes. A tactic I believe has helped to achieve my swim time of 1h17. Despite the swim being held in the Baltic Sea, the water felt warm and before I realised it I was in T1.

Bike - I feel that the bike section offers the best dividends in terms of your finishing time in an Ironman. I'm not the best cyclist out there and this year my plan was to heavily invest my time in cycling in the hope of a breakthrough. Looking through my weekly training schedules this past week I can see I consistently spent 10 to 12 hours a week cycling. Training doesn’t have to be complicated and most weeks the training sessions were the same, what changed was the amount of time I cycled, the number of intervals I did, or the recovery period given in between sets. I have to thank my friends Harvey and Paul who gave invaluable advice and tips on bike training during this time. I am a big fan of power meters for triathlon racing and training and to monitor my progress I routinely tested my functional threshold power (FTP). My wattage steadily improved over the weeks and months, my time trials were also very consistent and riding at Ironman wattage seemed comfortable during my long rides as I got closer to race day. In comparison to last year, (when I did my first Ironman in Austria) I started Ironman Sweden this year with a significant increase in my power budget. Progress had been made and I had high hopes for this race.

My strategy for the bike race was as follows: to pedal smoothly with high cadence, without spikes in power and spend as much time as I could close to my self-selected power output budget. Well, it's easier said than done and in practice I opted to do this at 1hour-laps, whereby after each hour I'd press lap on my bike computer and spend a couple of minutes stretching my back and eating before I was ready to concentrate again. I managed 4 x 1 hour laps doing this and for the remainder of the bike portion I got out of the aero position more often as my back had started to ache. Looking through my bike data at the time, I saw my normalized power (NP) was exactly my budget of watts for the day and my average cadence was also high as I'd planned. Despite my sore back I was confident I was in for a good marathon. Cycling has definitely grown on me in the last few years and despite making progress this season I think there is a lot more I can improve and this excites me. My bike split was 5:52 in Sweden. During the bike portion I consumed just over 100 calories per hour, I used Generation UCAN, Nakd bars, water and salt sticks. T2 here we come.

Running - Since completing the Thames Path 100 miles ultra earlier this year, my running has gone from strength to strength. Yet, whenever I felt a niggle coming or excessive fatigue, running would be the first one to be dropped in training. For Ironman Sweden I did a mixture of hill training intervals, long runs and long runs with Ironman pace, miles reps as the race approached and brick sessions.

For nearly a year now I have been using the Maffetone method and training with a heart rate monitor, I have made great progress in terms of pace at a given heart rate since, for Ironman Sweden I had decided to run at a pace that coincided with roughly the top of my aerobic ability according to Dr. Maffetone, as this felt fast yet comfortable. When I left T2 I set into a pace of 8min/mile, I set my watch to beep every mile and I consistently got in the range of 7:55/8.10s. My back felt great and I was in high spirits with favourable weather conditions for running. It was great seeing my family every time I got back to the centre of Kalmar on each of the laps of the run course. By the time I got to mile 17 I felt cramps starting in both my calves, I had been consuming electrolytes and salt sticks throughout the race so my initial thought was that fatigue and overworked muscles just weren't capable to keep up that sort of pace. Cramps came and went until mile 22 and I managed to clock 8.40s miles during that time. The last four miles were tough as the cramps became more permanent. It's funny to remember, but it was very difficult to try making calculations, especially when I was in pain, it just doesn’t work, but all I thought was that if I could tick each mile at sub 9min/mile I would reach my dream goal of sub 11. I remember ticking 8:45s each mile and starting to dream of the finish line. I normally enjoy picking up the pace in the run up to the finish line but in Sweden I just couldn’t. I had given my all in that marathon. The last few hundred meters were emotional; you do feel like a rock star finishing an Ironman with the crowds and the red carpet. There it was, I was an Ironman again. I was super pleased with my marathon time of 3:38, only a few years ago I would dream of running a solo marathon at this speed, never mind after swimming 3.8k and cycling 180k beforehand. Nutrition wise, I consumed just under 100 calories per hour during the marathon, a mixture of Generation UCAN, High5 Isogels and a bit of flat coke, as well as water and salt sticks.

Nutrition - the last few months I’ve been writing all these long blogs on metabolic efficiency (ME) and its benefits and during a big race like this I just wasn’t going to mess up my race nutrition. Overall I consumed less than 100 calories per hour during Ironman Sweden, yet I didn’t bonk / hit the wall, or suffer from any GI discomfort and I saved precious time by not stopping/slowing down in the majority of the aid stations. When you race and eat, both your muscles and digestive system are competing for oxygen-rich blood, so if you can tap into your own fat stores by working on your metabolic efficiency you will spare that blood for your working muscles, it’s that simple yet so elegant. Metabolic efficiency works without a doubt. Did I do the traditional carbload 3 days before the race? Nope, the only thing I did was to eat some good sources of carbohydrates (a bit of sweet potato, UCAN and couscous ) the day before the race to simply restore my carbohydrate stores.

Overall I finished Ironman Kalmar in Sweden in 10:57. An Ironman Personal Best for me and mission accomplished, all on less than 100 calories per hour. 2014 has been perfect so far and I have one more goal later in Oct when I'll be competing in the Winter 100, a 100 miles ultra along the Ridgeway and Thames Path. I am really looking forward to it!

IRONMAN VS. 100-mile ULTRA - A few of you have asked me what is harder, an Ironman triathlon or a 100-mile ultramarathon. Well, if you train hard for the demands of your race and then race at your potential, then they will both be hard and test you to your limits. Every race is hard if you give all you have got. There are no easy options. J

My tops tips for a wannabe Ironman

Sleep, sleep and sleep: unless you are a professional athlete, you won’t have the time to sit around and rest after training sessions, so the bulk of your recovery will be done when you sleep. Your favourite football team is no longer important when you badly want to achieve your goals. Switch the telly off and zzzzzzzz!

Be selfish with your training time. Training with friends is great but you normally end up going too fast or too slow defeating the purpose of your training. Unless you are in charge of the session leave group sessions for the off-season.

Listen to your body - no training plan overrides how you feel. Training with niggles and excessive fatigue could lead to full blown injuries. Remember, resting is key part of your training and getting stronger. #trainsmart

And last but not least, get yourself metabolic efficient! No brainer!

My journey through Metabolic Efficiency

The last time I wrote a blog on metabolic efficiency (ME), I gave the readers a couple of ideas on what a ME meal could look like. This time I’m going a step further and I’m going to show you a typical 3-day food and exercise diary while I’m training for Ironman Sweden. But before I do, let me tell how ME came to into my life.

When I started racing back in 2008 I was using sugary sports nutrition such as gels and sports drinks and I started worrying about what their consumption would do to my teeth and as a precaution I started brushing as soon as I got home from a race or a training session.  But like most athletes I had been brainwashed that as an athlete I had to consume these sugary products as well as a lots of carbohydrates to give me a chance of finishing these endurance races. 

By the summer of 2012, I suddenly found myself with more than the state of my teeth to worry about.  I started to wake up at night a lot to visit the toilet for a pee and at work I constantly had the same problem.  I booked an appointment with my GP who suggested a couple of blood tests and unsurprisingly I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic. My family has a history of Type II Diabetes of the young (MODY diabetes), despite us all being generally slim in stature. I hoped that I was the lucky one who had escaped this fate, but my genes ruled out on top. 

A bit later that summer I was racing a local half ironman triathlon and Harvey whom I knew from Twitter was coming all the way from Georgia, USA to visit his family and do that race too. I offered to drive him along the bike course a couple of days before and we talked a lot about everything to do with triathlon as we checked the course. I asked him what gels he was taking during the race and he said none, he said consumed a lot less calories when racing and he was using a product called Generation UCAN. My first thought was ‘Is this guy for real?’ ‘Is he not worried about bonking? I remember Harvey telling me after the race that he consumed under 400 calories during the race without carb-loading, while I had consumed nearly 700 calories as well as carb-loading for 3 days beforehand!

Well, Harvey went back to Georgia and left me very curious about his race nutrition. I emailed him a few days later and he explained ME to me and pointed me towards Bob Seebohar’s book ‘Nutrition Periodization for Athletes’. Everything made perfect sense to me but I decided to not make any drastic changes to how I ate until after the season finished. During this period I exchanged meal ideas with Harvey and asked him for tips. Once the season ended, I jumped right into eating in the metabolic efficient way. I contacted Bob Seebohar via email and he critiqued my food and exercise diary for 3 days, providing some excellent revisions and answering several queries and doubts I had.

ME has been a game changer for me and I will never look back. The following year I raced Ironman Austria taking in about 160 calories per hour, which in comparison to the 300/500 that is usually recommended is a huge reduction. Although changing my diet has not reversed my pre-diabetic state, I do sleep better, I no longer wake up at night to use the toilet or feel desperate at work to use the bathroom. For most of my training sessions I now only consume water, which is saving my wallet and my teeth. I no longer feel lethargic after longer sessions and I don’t suffer from GI distress whilst racing. Eating the ME way keeps my energy levels stable and my cravings for sugary foods are a distant memory.

This season is going really well and I have no doubt that becoming more metabolically efficient has been an important factor. I raced the Thames Path 100 miles ultra and felt great on less calories and I’m sure it won’t be a problem at Ironman Sweden in less three weeks. I have recently had Dina Griffin, a dietician from Bob Seebohar’s team, analyse my food and exercise diary again to make sure I’m not making too many mistakes, and we also discussed my nutrition strategy for Sweden. I am very happy to know that I’m on the right track following Dina’s feedback. People are always curious to know what I eat so I’m going to post what my diet looks like and how it fits in with my training. But first a recap of what is ME.  ME is a concept developed by Bob Seebohar, whereby you manipulate your daily nutrition in order to maintain blood sugar levels and keep insulin spikes to a minimum, by doing this over a period of time you will adapt your body to be able to use more of its own fat stores and as a result you’ll require less calories during racing and training, as well as experience all the other benefits I mentioned previously. And the way to do that is more or less like this… 

1.       Eat when you feel hungry, rather than at set times

2.       Make sure to eat a good source of protein and fat at every meal/snack

3.       Add  a good source of fibre to your meal/snack

Below is my 3 day food and exercise diary during Build phase for Ironman Sweden:

Day 1 –

5:45 wake up - Cup of coffee with a dash of milk and double cream

6:20 1500m easy swim with technique drills in 35min followed by 20min strengthening exercises. Nothing consumed

8:00 Breakfast: 4 tablespoons of my seeds and nuts 'muesli' recipe (brazils, almonds, shredded coconut, walnuts, pumpkin & sunflower seeds, pine nuts and dried cherries) with full fat Greek yogurt mixed with protein powder and fresh blueberries, raspberries and strawberries plus a cup of coffee with some milk and double cream. Off to work.

11:45 Feeling hungry - Leftover roast side of salmon and salad with snaps peas, red onion, mixed leaves, feta cheese, griddled peaches, olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.  Drink of water.

15:20 Feeling a bit hungry so had a slice of a flour & sugar free banana loaf and a cup of coffee with milk plus a dash of double cream.

17:30 Turbo session 1h30min, set of 6x7min at FTP with 3min recovery. Water only consumed.

1920: Dinner Chicken tagine with tomatoes, onions, ginger, and apricots served with cauliflower rice, grated cheese and broccoli. Mug of vanilla chai tea and 3 squares of 85% dark chocolate.

20:45 Sleep.

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Day 2 -

4:30 Wake up. Small slice of my sugar free/flour free banana loaf with a spoon of Greek yogurt  and berries and a coffee.

5am 16 miles run (to work) with 4x2miles at IM pace. 2h20 total. Nothing consumed.

7:30 breakfast Seeds & Nuts 'muesli' as the day before with Greek yogurt mixed with protein powder, some pieces of avocado, strawberries and a peach. Water and a cup of coffee with a dash of milk and cream. Multivitamin taken.

11.15 Feeling hungry. 4x mini Almond flour/Protein pancake (recipe to follow soon) with tuna/mayo mixture and a slice of cheese with some cherry tomatoes and a cup of coffee with milk and a dash of cream.

14:20 Feeling a bit hungry. 2x mini Almond flour pancake sandwich with sugar free peanut butter and raspberries as filling and drank some water.

15:15 Swim, 40min with 1900m time trial. Nothing consumed.

16:15 Some Greek yogurt mixed with protein powder and berries and a small handful of almonds + plus a cup of vanilla chai tea.

17:50 20min of conditioning exercises while dinner is cooking.

18:30 Dinner. Turkey steaks in an almond flour crust with roast salad (aubergine, red peppers, black olives and onion with olive oil) and roasted cauliflower and steamed brocolli with a bit of mayonnaise. A peach and a nectarine for dessert.

2200 Sleep.

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Day 3

5am Wake up

5:20 Breakfast of bacon, eggs, avocado pieces, artichoke, sundried tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, walnut and a peach seasoned with salt and pepper and olive oil, plus a cup of coffee.

6am Off to work.

8am Coffee with a dash of milk and cream.

11am Feeling slightly hungry. Leftover turkey steaks in almond flour crust with roast aubergine, red peppers, olives and onion salad and some cherry tomatoes. Cup of coffee with milk and dash of cream.

15:00 Feeling peckish. Seeds and nuts 'muesli' with a bit of greek yogurt mixed with protein powder and blueberries and a glass of water.

17:00 90minutes turbo session with 4x12min at high end of Sweet Spot Power (93%). Nothing consumed.

1845 Dinner was rump steak with a salad of radishes, tomatoes, cucumber, mixed leaves, crumbled Stilton cheese, nectarines and walnut dressed with extra virgin olive oil. Half glass of red wine. Dessert was a cup of vanilla chai tea and 2 squares of 85% dark chocolate.

20:45 Sleep.    

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Remember that this is not the only way to achieve metabolic efficiency and it’s not perfect. Because I’m pre diabetic I choose to stay in the low end of carbohydrate consumption, the key is to find the optimal level of carbohydrates that supports your individual needs and the period of the season that you are at. This particular week when Dina analysed my food and exercise diary I trained for over 16 hours with 4 bike rides, 3 runs, 3 swims and a bit of conditioning and strengthening work, I can confirm that I only used sports nutrition (UCAN Generation) during my long brick workout where I rode my bike for over five hours followed by a 1h20 run, for that particular workout I consumed 270 calories in total, during the other workouts of the week I either consumed water or nothing.

FAQ and Comments:

‘Is it the Paleo diet or Atkins?’ No, it’s not a diet at all; it’s just a way of putting a meal or snack together even though my diet may look a bit like that at times. Bob Seebohar described it recently as a ‘lifelong journey of blood sugar control and [as way of] forming a healthy relationship with food’.

‘Is it going to make me faster?’ Not per se, appropriate training stress coupled with recovery will help you adapt and make you faster if that is what you want. Saying that, my personal experience of  eating meals low in simple sugars allow me to sleep better at night which in turn allow my body to recover properly from hard workouts. As well as that you are less likely to suffer from GI distress when racing which could save you lots of time! I often hear this from Ironman athletes: ‘I was close to finish my Ironman in subXX hours but I had to spend 15min in the toilet because I ate a dodgy gel’.

‘Maybe if you had consumed more calories you would have been faster’.  People that say this miss the point completely; you can adapt your body to use more of its own fat stores simply by manipulating your meals the metabolic efficient way, eating more calories during racing in form of carbohydrates could potentially make it worse.

‘I only do short distances, ME only works for ultrarunners and Ironman’:  If you can use more of your own fat stores in training and racing for any distance then it is an advantage, I really hate when I see athletes drinking sugary drinks or gels for 10k road races, you really don’t need it.

‘But I’d miss cakes, ice creams, chocolate, alcohol…’: Bob Seebohar recommends ‘missing the target’ 10% of the time to make sure it’s sustainable, so don’t worry, I do have my treats too, my wife is a terrific baker so I can’t say no to all the stuff she prepares in our kitchen. What I can say is that my cravings for sugar have greatly reduced. This is having a good relationship with food, enjoy your treats guilt-free and move on.

‘Can I loss weight on ME?’: First of all you should rephrase this, you should aim to lose excess body fat but retain muscle. Weight loss is a hot topic and it hasn’t been a goal of mine for a while, my weight fluctuates very little these days. If you would like to lose excess body fat then the combination of fat, protein and fibre in your meals will help you feel full for longer which in turn will make it easier to create a daily calorie deficit without going hungry. Be careful if you are a triathlete, losing weight may make you a faster runner but you might lose power on the bike and your finishing times won’t change much. If your goal is to lose weight then maybe you should try this during the off-season.

MY TOP TIPS

• Go and grab yourself a copy of Seebohar’s ‘Nutrition Periodization Athletes’ and download the 2^nd edition of Metabolic Efficiency Training.

• Treat ‘healthy tips’ from the TV and newspapers with an air of scepticism.

• Try Generation UCAN, a sports drink not made with simple sugars which will allow your body to use more of its own fat stores when racing and training. UCAN and metabolic efficiency make a great partnership. Now available in the UK from here. Ps I am in no way affiliated to this company, I just REALLY like their products.

• Don’t be afraid to eat fat, simple sugars is what you need to worry about. Did you know that Sweden is the first country to recommend to its citizens a diet that is higher in fat and lower in simple sugars, as a way of combating the obesity epidemic? Let’s hope that other countries will soon follow suit. (Throw away your food pyramid!)

• Keep away from highly processed oils like corn, sunflower, vegetable and rapeseed oil. I use olive oil, coconut oil, butter and butter ghee.