The benefits of Coffee

A lot of use love coffee and we must have in the morning. But did you know that the caffeine in coffee could give you a performance boost. At the right levels, caffeine can improve your training and races. There are three proven advantages that caffeine has:

-Improving focus & mental performance

-Increasing physical endurance

-Reducing rate of perceived exertion

But there has also been studies done that show caffeine can help you recover. I will get into that later on.

To have these effects on your body the caffeine levels must be correct and taken at the right time. The right amount of caffeine is different for every person. But studies have shown that 2-3mg per kilogram of body weight is optimal for sports performance. Having too little caffeine won’t impact your training at all, but most of us are familiar with the side effects of having too much. For this reason it is important to track the amount of caffeine you are taking in.

I personally like to use caffeine pills before a race because I know the exact level. I will be trying a new kind of coffee called TrueStart coffee that gives you the caffeine levels in your coffee. Since it is very hard to know how much Caffeine you are getting in a cup of coffee there are just so many variables like the type of bean, the roast, altitude, the weather, and more. It gets even more complicated when it comes to roast and ground coffee.

Caffeine takes about 45 minutes to fully be absorbed and has a half-life of 5.7 hours. I personally like to take my caffeine about 1 hour before I workout or race to make sure it has settled in.

There are two tips of Caffeine.

Type 1 – Synthetic Caffeine

-Found in traditional energy drinks, gels and pills

-The great thing about synthetic caffeine is it is regulated, so you know how much you are taking in

-Synthetic caffeine is it gets absorbed through the digestive system much faster than naturally occurring plant caffeine .

-Synethic caffeine options also tend to come hand-in-hand with extra sugar

(TrueStart, 2016)

Type 2 – Natural Caffeine

-Caffeine is naturally found in coffee, tea, cocoa and approximately 60 other plant species

-The great thing about natural caffeine is it gets slowly released into the bloodstream, providing more sustained energy

-Natural caffeine is it is unregulated, so you don’t know how much you’re getting. A single cup of coffee can vary from less than 20mg to over 300mg caffeine.

(TrueStart, 2016)

Caffeine has also been shown to help with recovery. The study was conducted on seven high-level endurance cyclists who partook in four sessions.

‘Glycogen, the muscle’s primary fuel source during exercise, is replenished more rapidly when athletes ingest both carbohydrate and caffeine following exhaustive exercise, new research from the online edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology shows. Athletes who ingested caffeine with carbohydrate had 66% more glycogen in their muscles four hours after finishing intense, glycogen-depleting exercise, compared to when they consumed carbohydrate alone, according to the study, published by The American Physiological Society.’ (Hawley, 2008)

The study used very high levels of caffeine to get these effects, 8 mg per kilogram of body weight. That is about 5-6 cups of strong coffee. Further research is needed to see if lower levels of caffeine have similar effects. But any reason to have another cup of coffee right.

Sources:

Hawley, John A. (2008). The American Physiological Society. http://www.the-aps.org/mm/hp/audiences/public-press/archive/08/24.html

(2016). TureStart. http://www.truestartcoffee.com/learn/train-harder-for-longer

(2016). TureStart. http://www.truestartcoffee.com/learn/caffeine-uncovered

Winter Training #TaylorTime

Training in the snow.

Beyond training

Beyond training: A day in the life of a professional triathlete.

I thought I would give a little insight into what a Professional Triathlete does on a daily basis, beyond their training. There is a lot more to a professional triathlete’s day than training, eating and sleeping. A usual day of mine consists of three workouts, or about 4-6 hours of actual training, but in reality my workday is 8-10 hours long. The day mainly revolves around swim times, since these are fixed. All the other workouts and things I have to do are built around that.

 I wake up and have breakfast. While I am doing that I check my e-mails and social media to see if anything has come up over night that I need to address right away. Then it is off to the first workout (usually a swim or a run). When I am home in Ontario the pool is about 20 minutes away, so not a bad drive.

The first thing I do when I return from the swim is eat some food. Then it is back on the computer to work on a sponsorship proposal, write a blog post or look for a possible sponsor I can contact. In the early and late part of the year a lot of my time is spent going back and forth with sponsors and ironing out contracts. This can be a drawn-out process, and the athlete must find the right balance of not asking for too much but also not selling out. Some of the top pro’s will have agents to do this work. But I enjoy this part of the sport.

Then it is off for the mid-day workout. After eating lunch I usually see if I can come up with a good social media post. Most of them come to me while I am in a workout or just spontaneously, but I need to put some time aside to make it look good, to check that everything is spelt correctly and to make sure it is appealing to my audience. With contractual obligations revolving around my social media I also need to make sure I cover all the bases in that respect. Next, I spend a little more time working on sponsorship proposals, sponsor phone calls or writing articles. If I am lucky I may sneak in a little nap. If I miss that nap then coffee is my savior.

Then I am off to do my last workout of the day. My evenings are usually spent doing some foam-rolling. If I have a video on the go I will usually work on that or anything that has not been completed. I also like to keep the evening a little more free to socialize with family and friends.

Sometimes I get the opportunity to give back to the community by giving a talk, running a workout or volunteering at a race. These are very enjoyable and a nice change of pace. It is very important to me that I give back to the people who support me and that I help nurture the next generation of the sport.

What is in my fridge?

I am sure you have heard every story about how to eat right and what not to eat. There are millions of diets and foods that are unhealthy for you. But I am going to give you a little glimpse into what I have in my fridge. Remember I am training 4-7 hours a day, now let us begin.

We will start with some of the basics. I have milk sitting in the door beside the juice. But this is not just any old white milk no this is chocolate milk. I use it in my cereal in the morning and just to drink after workouts with a pinch of salt added. I find it is a lot easier to drink than regular milk and a great post workout drink. I like to keep eggs handy for my second breakfast, after my morning workout. There usually is not a lot of time until the next session so it is something easy to make. When it comes to green things I keep broccoli, asparagus, peppers and salad handy. I can usually mix these things up to add to my lunch and dinner. For meet I like to really change it up but ground beef, sausage and chick are great. There are a lot of different dishes that can be created with them. I really like to keep ice cream on hand for those hard days when I cannot get in enough food no matter how hard I try it fills in an gaps. Cheese and yogurt are usually in there too. The cheese for sandwich’s and the yogurt is a good snake food that can be mixed with other things. When it comes to sauces I am a big fan of sweet baby rays BBQ sauces and caesar dressing.

Some staples I have in the pantry are, Coffee! Could not live without it. I keep some tea for the end of the day when I am winding down. I like to keep a big bag of chips around. I like tortilla chips mainly because they have a good amount of salt and are an easy carb to take in even before a workout.  On the topic of carbs pasta is a staple for dinner. I have cookies in there too. But they usually do not last for very long especially if they are Oreos.

These are a few things I like to keep in my fridge.

#TaylorTime 2016

My first Video for 2016. Hope to make two mini series this year. One leading up to Ironman 70.3 St. George and the second leading up to the Ironman 70.3 World Championships.

Early Season Training

I went down to California on January 11 to kick start off my season. With this being my first year of training after I have finished my University degree. It is very exciting to be able to spend a large amount of time in the warm weather to prepare for my 2016 season.  I spent the first 6 weeks of my training in Caledon just getting back into the groove of things and putting in a large amount of base miles.

Once I got down to California the real work started.  Paulo put me right to work with the group that consists of some top USA ITU triathletes. This group is very key to my training giving me some top end people to train with. There is always some one to push me on the hard days.

The California weather has been cold in the mornings but it quickly warms up. It is very nice to be outside on my bike and just working hard. During this camp I will be focusing on my swimming. So that I can start to make up some ground on the lead swimmers and come out of the water in a better position. We have up my swimming to 8 times a week. Matt Macory and myself have been great training partners working hard in the water. Tuesday and Thursday we get up at 8 am for a 5km swim set and then at 3pm return for a 3km technical swim work. With this kind of swimming I have seen some major improvements and I really look forward to putting them to the test on April 2 in 70.3 California.

For the bike and run we have just been getting in the work. It is just a matter of staying injury free. There are two hard bike and run work outs a week. The rest is just long miles. My racing season is far enough away that I can build up properly.

It is great to get outside and just work hard. A video is soon to follow.

Austin 70.3

Ironman 70.3 Austin, was the last race of the season and it was not an easy one to get my head around. In the weeks leading up the race I was feeling very tried and ready to end the season, but I had committed to this race.  My coach Paulo Sousa had my back, making sure I stayed focused on the last race of the year. The last thing we wanted was to perform poorly, I was going there to get the job done. It is interesting to think of Triathlon in this way. I love the sport and live every day to become the best I can, but at the same time this is my job/living right now and sometime it feels just like that, a job.

I had planned to fly to Austin on Wednesday but my flight was canceled due to a shooter near the airport. By chance, flight paths were within range of the shooter so the airport was locked-down for 24 hours. All I could think was ‘this is America’. I was able to get on to a flight out on Thursday, still giving me plenty of time. When I arrived in Austin my home stay Jenn and Jeff met me at the airport. They were fabulous and helped me to and from the race site. It worked perfectly since Jeff was racing as well.

The morning of the race was cold and windy. The water temperature (19 C) was warmer than the air, which made it wetsuit legal. At 7:00am the pro men went off. It was a rather choppy swim and I just missed the main group. I came out of the water 11^th of 28, a little down from where I wanted to be, so my next task was to I focus on chasing down some people on the bike.

The bike course was rather rough.  Austin had recently experienced flooding, and some of the roads were washed out.  You had to keep your head up and watch were you where going. I was able to bring back a few riders over the first 30km and as an added wrinkle, also needed to avoid multiple dog chases. There were a few close calls with some big and fury animals as we rode through the rural back-country of Texas. I caught up to the main group at about 40km and just rode through them. The course was rolling hills and I was testing out a new sponsored set of wheels from Alto Velo. By the end of the ride I had the 4th fastest bike and I came into transition in 4^th place, about 8 minutes down from the leader and 4 minutes from third. This was going to be a real chase to make it onto the podium.

The run was a three-loop “hammer-fest” with a strong wind and hills to boot. I was able to stay relaxed on the first loop and cut 3^rd place’s lead down to 1:20. By the end of the second loop I was able to overtake 3^rd place and was in a world of suffering. All I could think was, ‘this is your last race don’t you dare back off, everything or nothing.’ By 20km I was surprised that I was still moving forward, but I was close enough to taste the finish and I was running on pure adrenaline. I ran into the stadium to clam 3^rd place behind Sam Appilton and Andy Staycwitz. I was very happy to wrap up the season with a podium finish.  I look forward now to some rest and can begin planning for next year.

This season has been incredible. I accomplished almost all that I wanted to do and I have learned so much. Highlights of the year were my two first place finishes, at Ironman Silverman 70.3 and Challenge St Andrews 70.3, a second at Ironman Mt Tremblant 70.3 and third place last weekend, Ironman Austin 70.3. As well, I fulfilled my goal of qualifying for the 70.3 World championships in my first year as a 70.3 professional. I have started an awareness campaign about dyslexia and I look forward to continuing that work in the off-season and next year. I will be setting my goals even higher.

I could not have completed this year without he support of the Triathlon Squad, C3, Kinetico, Royal Containers, Caledon Hills Cycling,  Saucony, Nineteen, Compressport, SMITH Optic, Vorgee, Polar, Riplaces, Awake Chocolate  and my parents.