Go Nuts With Your Nutrition

Stock Photo: Markus Mainka

I wouldn't say that I am a nut person, yet I do enjoy the occasional handful of these crunchy pieces of nutrient-dense foods. I also enjoy dried/desiccated fruits.

As an active endurance athlete, I use nuts as a supplementary source of nutrients. Here are how I eat them:

1) I sprinkle them over my raw salads. I enjoy pumpkin seeds, walnuts, almonds, cashews, chia seeds, dried fruit and raisins. They provide a protein boost to the pigmented leaves. I, sometimes, spruce up my nut count if I eat my salad at home.
2) Drink water when eating nut by itself. It can dry your throat.
3) The easiest way to consume nuts is from a bag. Ensure that unused nuts are kept in a resealable Ziploc bag.
4) Although nuts and dried fruits can be refrigerated to ensure shelf-life, consume them as soon as possible. The refrigerator is a dehumidifier, and may cause precious essential oils from the nuts to escape. The same goes for coffee powder.
5) I enjoy nuts as a snack, especially when I feel peckish on a long indoor-ride. I get a mild feeling of satiety or fullness, whilst enjoying the energy from the oils. I have also raced with nuts in Ironman races.
6) Certain nut oils complement the essential and stable cooking fats (extra-virgin olive oil, butter and coconut oil).
7) I developed an appreciation for nut butters (mainly peanut and almond) after I ate some during my time in the Boston Marathon 2014. A trip to Trader Joes convinced me of the relevance of buying a prepared version, or a home-made, bespoke recipe.
8) Invest in a powerful blender/grinder and make your own nut butter flavoured with Himalayan salt, raw honey, bee pollen, berries, and other oils.

Nuts and the nut oils are a relevant complement to our dietary needs as serious athletes. There are many nut-based products you can create in your kitchen like health-bars, smoothies, and spreads.

Nuts can vary in pricing, source, agricultural treatment and preparation. The website 'NUTS.COM' incorporates the expertise of a dietitian to recommend simple treats and solutions for your nutritional needs. Check it out to learn more about healthier solutions about nuts, dried fruit, and other tasty treats for your energy, recovery, and racing needs.

How To Be A Better Runner

How do you become a better runner?

Stay injury-free and improve on your weaknesses, is the simplified answer.

How do you stay injury-free?

By training within your limits (we have more physical limitations as compared to our mental ones), you can keep serious injuries at bay. Mild injuries may be unavoidable when you step up on intensity, prior to a race. Thus, my promotion of 'Run Less, Run Faster' is pertinent, if you are already plagued by persistent niggles and soreness. 

Your build-up to the race needs to be sensible and realistic. Give yourself SMART Goals, and be mindful of how well you can prepare. Thus, in your off-season you would do better to focus on lower-intensity, fat-utilising, pace. I recommend lower-heartrate running, swimming and cycling to enhance your 'aerobic engine'. Drink Bullet Coffee (or coconut-oil infused beverages before training on an empty-stomach) to engage your body's ability to tap into your endurance system.

Get quality sleep to recover fully and reduce stress. Eat 'clean' to assist your body to assimilate new body tissues. Eat all major food groups, and eliminate food that cause you allergies. Consume more antioxidants, protect and nurture your gut flora (bacteria), and be well-hydrated. Go 80:20 with your nutrition/meals, and treat yourself,occasionally, to some 'comfort food'. I am a fan of craft-beers after hard training, and appreciate indulging in my sweet tooth. Your fitness will assist you in your day-to-day activities; not just for racing and earning PBs. Focus on building an organic machinery that enhances your life, and promotes your sporting lifestyle.

Training-wise, be smart and enlist assistance in ensuring you optimise your efforts and structural abilities: running-gait, footwear, core-strength, muscular-strength, balance and proprioception, joint-health, and muscular weakness (critical point of incidence). Diagnose your abilities and do a SWOT analysis, and tap on your collective potential and work on reducing your weaknesses. Race occasionally, so as to familiarise with your race-pace (5km, 10km, 21km and marathon).

More of these will be covered in my new Ebook.

Leadership Values Gleaned From The Sports of Decathlon

I was watching the ninth leg of the decathlon of the London Olympics. It focused on the javelin. The best performance was about 76 metres while the weakest bordered around 50m. The differential is quite significant and is evidence of the comparative strengths of each decathlete in each of the 10 events: three jumps, three throws, and four runs. One weak link can affect the whole chain of performance, through over-training or under-training.

World record holder Ashton Eaton (USA) won gold (8,869 points) in the decathlon, while American teammate Trey Hardee picked up the silver. Cuba's Leonel Suarez claimed bronze and was 346 points behind Eaton.

Decathlon legends Bruce Jenner (USA) and Daley Thompson (UK) were regarded as the ‘Best Athlete In the World’ when they each broke world records. The cumulative points for all 10 disciplines describe the overall performance of each competitor. Thus, they attempt to score as many points as they can for each sport however good or better they are. Often, the decathlete has a few pet events that they capitalize on. What shows up clearly is if they are better jumpers, throwers or runners. Therefore, the extreme difference in distances (100m versus 1,500m) tests the limits of running for each decathlete. Each sport involves long hours honing the skills and techniques required for each discipline. Therefore, it is a grueling sport where total time spent to train can be enormous. When considering sports like biathlon, triathlon, Modern Pentathlon and the decathlon – there is so much to do to display ‘higher, faster and stronger’.

Leadership Lessons: How much hardship can you endure? When in a long-term project, how do you remain patient and committed to completing the task? Do you focus on enhancing your strengths or doing your best in all your abilities and competencies? How often do you address your competencies, or lack of it?

Entrepreneurs As Marathoners

If art imitates life, then, does life imitate art?

Many active sportspeople, especially those in endurance sports, seem to also be highly-driven people in their professions and vocations. They demonstrate qualities and values that are mirrors of national and professional athletes.

A business project may be viewed and treated as a race. When developing the business, the entrepreneur or businessperson plans and executes the plan, with timing and precision. Little is left to chance, if one is to ascertain success. Values engaged include endurance, persistence, determination, innovation, passion, diligence and discernment. These values help sustain your business, for they support your motivation, providing the energy to reach your goals.

Be in business for the long run. Be a marathoner. Keep going.

Are You the Hunter of the Hunted?

In 2009, Craig ‘Crowie’ Alexander chased the lead pack during the marathon leg of the Ironman World Championships in Kona and found his victory. He patiently ran as he sliced of 40 seconds per mile, as he found his true place in the race. In 2010, Andreas Raelert, finally, caught up with Macca during the last few miles of the marathon, only to be spent. Chris ‘Macca’ McCormack applied mind games with him, and beat him up the hill and won his second world title in Kona. My friend, Tobias Frenz overtook a former-professional rider at the 300K mark of the double-Ironman race in Abu Dhabi. Tobias won, back-to-back, the single and double-Ironman races held on two days!

There are both positive and negative connotations of being a hunter. If you are the hunter, you will be managing your pace so as to overtake any stragglers or competitors? In running, you make your pass, increase the lead, and hold it. Unless the overtaken runner challenges you, it means that they have conceded the pass to you (until the next opportunity). A hunter can also be perceived as combative, militant or threatening as he is seeking the bounty. Legal bounty-hunters assist the law with search-and-arrest of criminals. Sales professionals and top legal-eagles focus on the ‘closer’. To be able to ‘close’ is to be able to successfully influence the panel of decision-maker to ‘buy’ into the concept or contract.

The hunted, is pursued by the relentless. They will be eyed as a 'prize', and the fitter and faster runner will make his move upon closing in on you. You can prevent it from happening, by increasing your pace, and applying tactical interventions that are offensive or defensive in nature. Last Saturday night, for the first two kilometres of the 21K of the Sundown Marathon, a female runner ran closely with me. As I shifted ground, she followed opting to run side-by-side with me. Instead of shrugging with mild annoyance, I elected to shrug her off by increasing my pace. My watch showed 9:30 for the first 2K's, which exceeded my initial pace. Thankfully, I held this pace for most of the remaining 19K's in case I was further hunted. In my second-half of the race, I overtook 32 runners and was overtaken by three others. Pretty good returns on my investment, if I may say so.

To be hunter or the hunted requires values of patience, persistence, endurance and tenacity. If you surrender too soon, the game is over. If you insist in chasing, the game is afoot. Set your values alight, and trail-blaze your way to the finish-line.

Other times, what is hunted is not the position, it is the timing or ranking. Beating your personal best time may mean qualifying for the Boston Marathon or the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. Whatever your intellectual, physical and emotional investments, your holy grail may be worth the price of purposeful pursuit.

Leadership Lessons: How are you making yourself sought after as a valuable resource? How often do executive search professionals (headhunters) call on you? How do you make yourself the hunted in your field of pursuit? How enduring are you when chasing your dream, or dream job?

Going Long

I found this week to be a busy one for me. In common parlance, I experienced a ‘long week’. This weekend will be no different for Coach has designed my program to comprise longer sessions, with immediate runs off the ride, and longer running sessions. I have been tossed the ‘bricks’ (two disciplines done back-to-back).

This morning, with minimal sleep for the last 48 hours I rode 4.5 hours (easy/moderate/hard) followed by 45 minutes of running in the pool. I coincided my ride with friends from TriFam (Desmond, Hui Koon, Matthew, Craig, Robert and Conrad). I caught up with them after my late start, and did three loops of Selarang (30K each with some mild hills) and the dreaded Hendon Road hill (a nice spanner to thrown in after hitting Selarang Hill). I was supposed to run on the road, however decided to play it safe as I was not sure of the physical condition of my left heel (residual plantar fasciitis?). By far, in the last two meso-cycles today has to be my longest session I have undertaken. I missed a similar cycle last week as rain wiped out any chance I had for a similar hard ‘hit’.

I have found that riding solo (save for other riders I meet on my ride) develops my sense of independence and alertness. It is also a useful simulation of race-day conditions: no-drafting and keeping to 7-10 metre rule; focus on nutrition and pacing; playing its strategically, as it is all about the marathon, not the ego.

On Sunday, I will have two sessions for running: A two-hour morning run (with intervals), and a shorter afternoon/evening (with short bursts). I look forward to the discipline in my pacing and accessing how my body holds after a 15-hour week (within a tight working schedule). Coach focused me on running stronger off the bike, as that has been my relative weakness within an Ironman race. He believes I can hold a 4:50-5:00 minutes/K pace, and score a sub-4 hour marathon that has eluded me for years. I have my work cut out for me for the remaining 6 weeks till I arrive in Lake Taupo, Auckland.

Leadership Lessons: What is your comfort level about working alone? How well do you take to autonomy? How do you take to prolonged projects? How do you respond to extensions on deadlines? How tolerant are you of delays, distractions and indecisiveness? Endurance, tenacity, persistence and determination are values to latch on when going long and far.