Maui Video Volume 2

Here is the much anticipated second video from Maui. Last time I was in an un-competition with Paula, and this time we are up against the joint efforts of some boys from Hamilton (Andrew Yorke, Andrew Bysice, Johnny Rasmussen, Karsten Madsten...?Maybe? ). We tried to wait until their video was done before posting ours, but they are taking too long. Plus ours will win despite the advantage they will have.

In case you were wondering what the "we" is about, Kyla joined forces with me for this one. We hope it is the best triathlon training video yet.

When the boys post theirs I'll add it to ze blog, and then we can see whose is better.

Teach me how to dougie, teach me-teach me how to dougie...

My Video!

Alright, Paula made a video that you can check out at her blog, and so here is my video on my blog. This isn't a competition. Our videos are of totally opposite nature. While her video is 2 minutes long, and appeals to any 'ol web surfer, mine is closing in on 9 minutes, and so you probably have to like me to some degree to watch it. Secondly her video is fierce, showing the intensity required to run out of the waves wearing fins, or to run slow-motion through the cane fields. Mine on the other hand strives to create an envy for our obviously optimal lifestyle. Whereas Paula is famous across the globe, and random people would probably vote for her video on a given day on a whim, I am.... ok she wins in that respect. So folks, this isn't a competition. But if you want to watch my video ten times so that I get more views, I won't mind.


Maui 2012 from Alexandra Coates on Vimeo.

Maui Week Three

Here we are already in the third week of our Maui camp! There have been some exhausted days but overall I think the camp has been a great progression, and good consistent training.

Paula on her napping bed

Since the last update we have ridden the rode to Hana. We thought it would take 3 hours, but it only took 2:40. Since I train with crazy girls, we did an extra 20 out and back to make it a solid three hour ride. We then put on our bikinis and went for a little swim in the Ocean.(Don't worry, we did a solid "real" swim before we did the ride). Then Pat drove us all the way back. Thanks Pat!

Quick stop on the rode to Hana

We also did the winery ride, which was very beautiful.

Paula and some pals at the Winery

Our runs have been solid. The heat gives them an added challenge, as the cardiac drift hits you 20 minutes in, and you begin to wonder if your "steady" is really steady at all. You begin to think, maybe this is tempo. Actually maybe this is race pace.

Girls before a run in the cane fields

After my first ocean swim which was a fail, I have done much better in the next two swims. Despite the choppy conditions I have figured out a good ocean stroke which seems to work. Hopefully I can hold onto it.

On top of training we have had two easy days, and so the first day we hit up some shopping and beaching in Wailea.

Kyla and Ellen in Wailea

Cute girls

Yesterday's easy day was a bit more recovery focused. I woke up ten minutes before a yoga session, so I ran over there, and then found out the long way that it was a 90 minute class. I then hit up the Normatech, got a massage, and had a little rest on the local beach. In the evening we went to the movies, and got some frozen yogurt!

As of right now I have no clue if I am racing soon or not, but there is potential that I am, and so I shall continue to train purposefully.

Aloha

Our family BBQ

Maui 2012

Maui week one is almost over, so I'll do a quick update on how it's been going. Maui is definitely one of the most amazing places on the planet. I always remember that I love it here, but I never quite remember how much.

I have progressed pretty smoothly from school first semester to small break at christmas and now full time triathlete. So far on this trip we have done most of our swims at Kihei pool, which is an awesome pool, although sometimes kind of warm and so in the middle of a hard workout your face begins to explode. We also joined U of A for their last swim in Lahaina, which was fun. We also have done one open water swim, and I saw four turtles.

We have done a bunch of base rides and some harder rides, and have gone up the giant hill to Kula, as well as farther than I have ever gone on the road to Hana, and farther into the West Maui Loop!

Our runs have been fun too. Cane fields, normal fields and even a little jog on the beach.

Here are some pics. I don't have a camera here, as Kyla was bringing her's, but then she forgot her battery at home. These are all iPhone pictures.

Alison on the first ride of the camp

Kyla and the TRX

Paula and Ali in Kula

Ali hiking on Haleakala

Kyla napping

Flower in front of our house

View from West Maui Loop

Update

Time sure flies when you are having fun, or if you are too busy to rest. This last couple of months have been the latter, but it definitely flew by. I did my first semester ever of 5 courses, and it wasn't optimal, but it is nice to have 5 less courses on the plate. I think I have 11 or 12 courses left of my undergrad. This semester I was in Chemistry (which was way harder than it should have been. Any first years out there, take chem 101/102 while your high school chem is still fresh in your mind!), Exercise Physiology, Health Psychology, Medical Anthropology (which I highly recommend), and finally Golf. Before you laugh at golf, I will say it is required to take 3 activity courses for kinesiology, and we had to do a presentation, a biomechanics analysis of our swing, a midterm, a final and they marked us on our shots. So basically I am whining about having to take golf. Okay now you can laugh.  I am envious of Dorelle and Angela in Ontario, who have both finished up their degrees (they started at the same time as me), but the road is full of choices, and I have picked the scenic route. Not to say I regret it. Last year I travelled to Maui, Australia, Mexico, Quebec, San Francisco, France, Spain, and finally Beijing. Pretty neat stuff.

After Christmas it is looking as though I will not be taking any courses, despite my growing anxiety to get my degree done. Need to let go of the ego. I am taking advantage of the fact that Paula is going to the Olympics (Yay!) and plan on (hopefully) following her around and living life as a triathlete. Eat, sleep, stretch, strength, yoga, swim, bike, run. Easy stuff. I look forward to improving on last year. This will be my first time (believe it or not), taking second semester completely off, so I plan on getting super fast. No big deal. 

Anyways, I leave you with this picture of us NTC-ers in our new hoodies. 

Merry Christmas!!

Fat burning and Performance

I wrote this brief paper for a presentation I did in Exercise Physiology. I found the research super interesting. I read a lot of papers, but I couldn't fit all the info in my time limit. ANyways, thought I would share it seeing as I think it is cool, plus I haven't written on my blog for a long time and don't want everyone to forget about me. Ps. the below cartoon makes me laugh every time I look at it. Ha ha. Ha

Role of Diet on Fuel Utilization during Endurance Exercise

“Hitting the wall” in endurance sport is a common phenomena, in which there is a definitive point where performance declines. This can generally be attributed to a depletion of endogenous and exogenous glycogen stores, and not a lack of stored energy. One way to prevent this is to increase carbohydrate consumption during extended periods of exercise (McCafferty, 2011). Another way, I hypothesized, would be to increase fat oxidation for as long as possible, thus saving some of the glycogen stores for the end of the race or training session. This paper is aimed at discovering whether there is such thing as “fat burners” and “carb burners”, if someone can change from being a carb burner to a fat burner in order to limit glycogen depletion, how diets can affect fat oxidation and carb burning, and diet’s impact on performance.

In the literature, it appears as though people do tend to be better at either burning fat or burning carbohydrates, making them either “fat burners” or “carb burners”. One study looked at 28 Pima Indian families on controlled diets, and found that family membership explained 28% of variance in 24 hour respiratory quotients (24h RER). This points to a genetic factor influencing substrate utilization (Zurlo, Lillioja, Esposito-Del Puente, et al., 1990). However, more recent research indicates that preceding diet highly influences macronutrient oxidation, and because families tend to share similar eating habits, the 24h RER could have been influenced by the diets normally eaten (Toubro, Sorensen, Hindsberger, Christensen, & Astrup, 1998). Toubro et al. preformed a study with 71 siblings from different families, and found that some factors towards RER variance could be explained by age, gender, energy balance, current dietary intake, fasting plasma insulin and free fatty acid concentrations, however this also had a strong familial resemblance. Another factor which was not considered was physical fitness, which is known to affect RER and which may also be influenced by familial habits (Toubro et al., 1998). Finally, a study done on 61 trained cyclists showed varying determinants to affect RER depending on intensity, but one important conclusion was that training, dietary intake and consequent muscle glycogen content and circulating substrates consistently predicted RER at rest and during exercise, demonstrating that being a carb burner or fat burner may be mostly controlled by diet and training (Goedecke, Gibson, Grobler, Collins, Noakes, & Lambert, 2000).

Diet can be used to modify RER and to increase fat oxidation. Both acute and chronic nutrition choices will play a part. An increase in carbohydrate will rapidly suppress fat metabolism as insulin is released to lower blood sugar, decreasing the release of glucagon (Jeukendrup, 2003). Both acute and chronic high carbohydrate consumption will therefore cause an increase in RER. A high fat diet will increase fat oxidation so long as there is minimal carbohydrates involved, although several days of adaptation are needed for optimal fat oxidation to come into effect (Jeukendrup, 2003). A diet high in protein will cause insulin to be released as well, which also inhibits fat utilization to a certain extent, although not as much as carbohydrates. Using carbohydrate supplements during training is not ideal, as training without glucose allows for greater GLUT 4 response and number, as well as increased basal muscle glycogen levels (Nybo, Pedersen, Christensen, Aagard, Brandt, & Kiens, 2009).

High fat diets and performance are an interesting and much debated topic. Firstly, from looking at various sources, performance in endurance activities of high intensities will generally be more successful if glycogen stores are full (Goedecke, & Havemann, 2008). Therefore, although a diet consisting almost purely of fat will be completely sufficient in submaximal conditions, performance will be hampered at high intensities if resting glycogen stores are not full, and doubly hampered if the individual has not adapted to the high fat diet (Phinney, 2004). Carbohydrate loading, long seen as crucial to performance, has now been shown to be unnecessary, as an increase in carbohydrates one day prior to an event can super-compensate muscle glycogen stores adequately (Goedecke, & Havemann, 2008). However, fat loading is now seen as a new approach, as a diet high in fat for 5 to 10 days, followed by a day of high carbohydrate intake seems to be associated with higher rates of fat oxidation, as well as the ability to draw on glucose stores as intensity rises. This is described as the train low, race high theory. A number of studies have been done on high performance athletes and high fat diets. One study looked at high fat diets versus habitual diets prior to carbohydrate loading on cycling time trial performances. It was found that the high fat diet trial increased total fat oxidation, and reduced carbohydrate oxidation but did not alter plasma glucose concentrations during exercise. Also, muscle glycogen and lactate oxidation were lower in the high fat trial. The high fat diet was also associated with improved time trial performances (Lambert, Goedecke, van Zyl, Murphy, Hawley, Dennis, & Noakes, 2001). Another study using trained cyclists on either high fat or high carbohydrate diets demonstrated that there was enhanced endurance during moderate intensity exercise as well as lowered RER values and decreased carbohydrate oxidation in the high fat diet group. Also, there was unimpaired performance at high intensities, and the rates of muscle glycogen utilization were similar despite lower initial muscle glycogen stores (Lambert, Speechly, Dennis, Noakes, 1994).

All in all it appears as though a high (in healthy) fat diet along with training can help to decrease RER and aid in fat oxidation during exercise, thus diminishing the chances of “hitting the wall”.

References

Goedecke, J. H., Gibson, A. S. C., Grobler, L., Collins, M., Noakes, T. D., & Lambert, E. V. (2000). Determinants of the variability in respiratory exchange ratio at rest and during exercise in trained athletes. American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism, 279, E1325-E1334.

Goedecke, J. H., & Havemann, L. (2008). Fat as fuel during exercise. Continuing Medical Education Journal, 26(7), 347-349.

Jeukendrup, A. E. (2003). Modulation of carbohydrate and fat utilization by diet, exercise and environment. Biochemical Society Transactions, 31(6), 1270-1273.

Lambert, E. V., Goedecke, J. H., van Zyle, C., Murphy, K., Hawley, J. A., Dennis, S. C., & Noakes, T. D. (2001). High fat diet versus habitual diet prior to carbohydrate loading: effects of exercise metabolism and cycling performance. International Journal of Sport Nutrition Exercise and Metabolism, 11(2), 209-225.

Lambert, E. V., Speechly, D. P., Dennis, S. C., & Noakes, T. D. (1994). Enhanced endurance in trained cyclists during moderate intensity exercise following 2 weeks adaptation to a high fat diet. European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology, 69, 287-293.

McCafferty, S. P. (2011). Methods to optimize substrate utilization during endurance performance. Glasgow Theses Services. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/.

Nybo, L., Pederson, K., Christensen, B., Aagaard, P., Brandt, N., & Kiens, B. (2009). Acta Physiologica, 197(2), 117-127.

Toubro, S., Sorenson, T. I. A., Hindsberger, C., Christensen, N. J., & Astrup, A. (1998). Twenty-four-hour respiratory quotient : The role of diet and familial resemblance. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 83(8), 2758-2764.

Zurlo, F., Lillioja, S., Esposito-Del Puente, A., Nyomba, B. L., Raz, I., Saad, M. F., Swindburg, B. A., Knowler, W. C., Bogardus, C., & Ravussin, E. (1990). Low ratio of fat to carbohydrate oxidation as predictor of weight gain: Study of 24-h RQ. American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism, 259(5), E650-E657.

Globe trottin' 2010-2011

This past year was definitely a break-through season for me. All years come with a bad race here or there, but looking at the season from a broad perspective, I am very happy with it. I am especially pleased to have achieved my goal (existent since my first year as a junior in 2006) of qualifying for World Championships. Now that's what you call a long range goal!

Following Kyla's example, I am going to do a year in review in pictures.

Started the year off with some cross-biking in Victoria!

Got to participate in an early season (January) training camp in Maui. It was the best camp ever! 

In March I did a training camp in Australia, and then finished the camp off by racing the Mooloolaba Oceanic Cup, and surprised myself with a 7th place finish.

Raced the Ixtapa Continental Cup in May, and finished 9th. It was definitely the hottest race I have done to date.

Finished 2nd at Coteau-du-lac in June! This was my breakthrough race for sure, and I achieved the top 5 needed to qualify for U23 Worlds.

Two weeks later I raced in San Francisco! I was tired going into the race, but still finished 4th, which solidified my U23 Worlds team position. I then got to tour around with my Mom and Dad the next day! This is a pic of Matt and Sarah, who both won the races.

Went and did a camp in France in July, and then raced in Banyoles, Spain. It was my worst race of the year, but I gained international racing experience. I placed 19th. This picture is of Matt and I in Barcelona.

In August I came 8th at Nationals in Kelowna, and 4th Canadian. This is me on "the Hill". I think that is a pain face, not a smile. 

Competed at U23 Worlds in Beijing at the beginning of September! It was freezing! Finished 10th and was very happy!

Finished the season off by training solo (and by solo I mean with my sister) in order to  get my World Cup Standards (Unfortunately I didn't quite get the swim. Soon!) Here I am about to go do a late September swim in Lake Matheson.

In the last post I thanked my coaches and support staff, so this post is definitely where I thank all my sponsors and partners! First off, Nineteen wetsuits supplied me with the amazing wetsuit you see in the above picture! As we do a lot of open water swimming, it was definitely a huge help! Trek Procity and Ridley's (Calgary) always help me out with my biking needs, so thanks guys! Thanks to Tri-It for all of their continued support (I definitely would check out their amazing tri-store if you are in Calgary), you can also order awesome Biknd bike bags through them. Thanks to Kiwami for the awesome race suit, and finally thanks to Spartan Controls for their financial support. All of the logos on the right of my blog are links to the shops sites if you wish to check them out!