RESULT!!

so the dare adventure race went pretty excllent, just found out we got 5th place out of over 200 teams !!!
and i haven't cycled a bike or ran over 3 km in the last 3 months!! crossfit rocks!

so nutrition-wise i changed things up a bit from the original plan ,  i tried the mix with protein in and it was a bit to thick for in race , so i axed the pro and just went with the glucose and electrolytes, which worked pretty well , although my legs started cramping seriously bad after running up the 16 flights of stairs in liberty hall , which also came after a 3k run and a 20 k cycle, (it was the cycle that destroyed my legs) i was definitly taking in enough carbs ,water , and electrolytes so the only reason for the cramps is muscle fatigue, basically i needed to do more long distance conditioning before the race, but this was an experiment to see how well we could do with just crossfitting  and nothing else, and it went pretty well if i do say so myself,
a brief synopsis:
we started off from the rds running , collected two checkpoints along the way and collected our bikes in sandymount green, then we cycled at full tilt across the east link and through east wall , up the coast to the wooden bridge where we hit another check point ,then down the beach to the "assault course" which was the lamest joke ever, the hardest part of which was getting sand in my runners (epic fail bootcamp ireland@! ) , then back on the bikes across the coast road and up to raheny where we took a left down the howth road(eamo and niall whizzing along on their sleek road bikes and me trundling along in tow on my mountain bike :()

then down through marino for another check point and on to croke park , back up sherrif street and across beccet bridge to grand canal dock for 2 km kayaking,  during which eamonn and niall in their 2 man, managed to ram about 3 boats ,including mine :)
then onto the orienteering section which had us running\limping  all over town including many landmarks- trinity, graftonstreet, o'connell street, merrion square, smithfield, dublin castle to mention a few,
towards the end we ran into danny and marco aka team "better late than never"(9th place finish!!!)
 ,  and the five of us hobbled back to grand canal dock to get our bikes and cycled across the finish line as a five man wolf pack:) love you guys!
marco had his gps tracking and we travelled over 53 km during the race!!

in retrospect , it was a great experience but i think in future i will do a bit more specific training on top of my crossfit when going for an event of this type , just to save myself the severe pain of those cramps-not nice-lesson learned!

Nutrition for competition-DARE adventure race

The dare race is coming up this Saturday 21st,
EXCITEMENT! ;) this will consist of:
20k cycle
10k running
2k kayaking
And an obstacle course;)
fueling up for this event will be a totally different animal than the CrossFit comp last week,
While it will still have a lot of unknown obstacles and high intensity efforts,  it will be more of an endurance event with probably 3.5 hours non stop overall time.
This presents very different nutritional expenditure and therefore,  the nutrition will have to be tweaked accordingly.
The energy expenditure for this type of event will be mainly from the glycolitic pathway (the medium intensity setting on your metabolic "engine"), this means that you will be burning carbohydrate ,stored in your muscles and liver as glycogen.
Your glycogen stores are quite limited, and once they are expended,  you feel a very sharp drop in performance (what runners call "hitting the wall") which you obviously want to avoid at all costs!
The way you do this is to take in regular amounts of carbohydrate (preferably glucose) at regular intervals as you race. This keeps the glycogen stores topped up.

you need about half a gram of glucose per pound of bodyweight per hour to replace the used glycogen in your muscles

In a prolonged event like this you will also lose a lot of sweat, sweat presents two problems for the athlete.
1. Water
2. salt

It is possible for athletes to lose between 500 and 800 ml of sweat per hour! This must be replaced or you are on a fast track to dehydration or hyponatreamia, both located in Sadfaceville :(
You need at least 600 ml of water per hour, plus half a gram of sodium per 600 ml(if you drink lots of water without taking salts, your sodium levels get dangerously low, not fun)

The other thing to be considered is protein,
Adding protein to your in-race nutrition has the benifit of stopping seretonin release , which leads to central nervous system fatigue, it also helps with post race recovery and muscle wastage. 1/4 gram per pound of bodyweight per hour is optimal.
This gives a 4:1 ratio of Carb to protein, which is perfect

When all of this info is put together,  we come up with a formula for optimum in-race nutrition, for a 4 hour event the body needs:
2 liters of water
2 grams of sodium
360 grams of glucose
180 grams of protein powder

Take all of these throw em in a blender and BOOM!
HOMEMADE SPORTS DRINK (tailored exactly to your bodyweight and performance needs)
No sports drink on the market comes near this in terms of optimum nutrition, they are all low in sodium,  and only one that I know of contains any protein at all!

Save the money-make your own!

Sick as a dog

Woke up.this morning and a serious case of rusty bum water, not sound. I had some chicken last night which I thought was the culprit, turns out that lots of the lads that went to the CrossFit comp are in bits too so it must be a bug or something. ;(
Ate nothing all day but a banana, managed to keep half a chicken fillet down at 7 o'clock, and had two apples and 2 mandarins. In bed now feeling terribly sorry for myself :(
Hopefully ill be OK in the morning.

every victory deserves a failure :)

ok , i'm just going to come out with it , i've let yuk yuk down , after my 3rd place in the crossfit comp yesterday , i had a massive celebration fatty feast,
i had a snack box from the chipper , (oh the shame)
and THEN: i went to the cinema and got a bag of popcorn and some ben and jerry's ice cream , (im sorry yuk yuk, but where were you when i needed you most?)

i know i fucked up , but it was soooooo good :) and soooo worth it.

in loren cordains book "the paleo diet for athletes" he recommends eating some starchy goodness after a hard event because your cells need to recoup their glycogen stores -
anyone buying this bullshit ?
didn't think so :)
ha ha not to worry i'm back on the wagon now
no more.
i promise :)

competition nutrition - paleo style

today i competed in the crossfit ireland invitational no 7. heres the workouts:

workout 1

3 Rounds of:
7 Deadlifts (140Kg/90Kg)
7 HandStand Push Ups

workout 2

3 Rounds of:
Run 400m
7 Snatches (50Kg/32.5Kg)

workout 3

3 Rounds of:
7 Clusters (45Kg/30Kg) - squat clean and thruster
14 Burpee Box Jumps
21 Pull Ups

i have been resting most of the week, some very light training and eating lots of food ,
last week i bought a book by doctor loren cordain called "the paleo diet for athletes"
i would recommend it for anyone who trains and eats paleo , although you should probably read his original book "the paleo diet" first to familiarise yourself with the basics.

this book goes into detail about adressing the more specific needs of athletes especially in relation to simple carbohydrate, it also discusses the timing and nature of meals that should be consumed before ,during,and after a competition,
i decided to use the crossfit competition as a guinea pig for trying some of the strategies outlined in the book.

in the week coming up to the event , i upped my fruit intake in order to top of the glycogen stores , plenty of dried fruit ,fresh fruit , tons of water and lots of protein too,
basically i just ate a shit load more than usual :)

the first thing was to ensure i ate my last solid meal between 2 and 3 hours before the event ,
as the first workout was at 0900 , i got up at 0600 and ate a cantoloupe and 3 eggs(he advises eating low fiber fruit such as melon and bananas as it wont sit in your stomach or gut for a long time but will give you a nice slow release of fructose into the bloodstream, especially when coupled with the protein in the eggs)

between breakfast and the  1st event i drank nothing but water, (eating anything now will leave food in the stomach and probably give you a sugar dump which will leave you feeling tired going into the event.not good!)

10 mins before the event i drank 200 ml of home brewed "sports drink"
(cordains recipe is 700ml of water 200 ml of fruit juice(slow release fructose)
2 tbsp of glucose powder (fast release sugars)
this tops up your glycogen stores and doesn't give you a sugar dump because when you start training , your cells become very receptive to glucose and this is basically sucked straight into the muscles, neat eh.

as soon as workout one was finished , i consumed one of cordains homebrew recovery drinks:
4tbsp of glucose -instant glycogen replacement
600 ml of fruit juice -slow release fructose to keep the glycogen stores topped up and keep you fresh.
1 banana - potassium and electrolytes
3tbs protein powder- amino acids to replace any used muscle fibre and slow the release of the sugars,

this provides a 4:1 ratio of carb to protein which is what you're looking for in these recovery drinks

besides being delicious , these recovery drinks really did the job, they left my feeling fresh and energised for the next workout, without feeling hungry or full, perfect!

this is the strategy i followed with workout 2 and 3 as well , "homebrew sports drink" 10 mins before  and "homebrew recovery" after, i think it worked a treat and i was well happy with my podium placement of 3rd considering the quality of the competition  :)

i think all to often you can mess yourself up on game/race/event day with bad nutrition management , which is a shame considering all the effort you put in for weeks and even months before an event, this gave me a clear concise proforma to follow, and this experience has cleared up a lot of grey areas for me,
i highly recommend loren cordain's books (the paleo diet , and the paleo diet for athletes) very interesting reading.

adventures in dehydration

so my food dehydrator arrived on sunday ,an i've been engaged in some serious preservation since, i've just been playing around with different stuff like meat , fruit ,berries , haven't tried any veggies except for tomatos (yeah yeah ,i know its a fruit smartarse)
the main reason i got this bad boy was to make jerky, paleo style,
dehdration is the oldest form of food preservation , it removes the moisture from the food , which stops bacteria forming,but it doesn't remove any of the nutritional value like cooking does. meat will keep for 2 months after dehydrating, up to 2 years if you vacuum seal it !!
(vacuum sealer is next on the list:)))
fruit and veg will keep nearly twice as long-amazing
you can even rehydrate food at a later date by soaking in hot water, think soup mix.

first project-banana ready to go

finished banana-chewy and delicious

homemade sundried tomatos anyone?

first attempt at beef jerky
i used chilli powder, cumin, paprika, pepper and cider vinegar
spicy and delicious

finished product

turkey jerky ready to go
added extra chilli to this

banana and apple fruity crisps -amazing

finished turkey jerky-this didn't last too long :)

i'm having so  much fun with this puppy , i'm just eating everything as soon as its dehydrated, not much actual preserving going on:)

when the harvest in the garden is ready , the dehydrator will come in handy for any excess fruit and veg.

halfway point-

30 days down, and feelin goood! :) still haven't cracked. yuk yuk's spirit is strong.

on saturday , i was on 24 hour duty , the food they give you when your on these duties is real filth ! even for a non paleo warrior, so i had to bring a full 24 hours worth of food with me ,
i cooked up 4 chicken breasts , half a fillet of ham(250 grams), a shit load of fruit , a tub of nuts and dried berries, and a load of coffee(the good stuff)

on top of all this , i also ate 12 eggs and more fruit that i got from the kitchen(2pears 2bananas an apple)
:) some pile of food eh? definitely got my five a day in anyway:)

its just boredom on these duties, nothing better to do than eat.

almond butter recipe

this is the simplest recipe ever - works out way cheaper than buying it in the health food shop (8 quid a jar!!)

• two cups of almonds
• some nut oil(i got some in tesco for cheap - walnut or sesame works well) olive oil- not so nice
• roast the almonds for 5 mins at 190(this gives a nice nutty flavour)
• stick them in the blender and blend like hell for ages till they start to stick to the sides
• start adding oil - use the pulse button in quick bursts from now on to avoid killing your blender
• keep adding oil till you get a nice smooth butter ( i try to keep the oil to a minimum)
• you can add a a bit of sea salt if you like for taste

AMAZING

day 25-backwards running hurts!

got up at 0900-
had an espresso  and then went to the park to do a wod:
the workout was
"GRIFF" - check it out here

then i did the gymnastics wod: check it here

breakfast/ post workout meal:
2 mancakes with a dollop of homemade almond butter

then went rock climbing with my bro in ucd  indoor wall ,
did about 2 hours climbing , such a great workout in itself , really fried my arms out ,

after that at about 1500: had lunch in danny's house ,
which consisted of a beautiful mussel and prawn stirfry with courgettes and brocolli and lots of chilli OUCH! and 3 delicious mancakes with stewed apple for desert YUM!

when i went home there was some diced lamb in the fridge that had to be eaten so i whipped that into a frying pan with some delicious cumin and courgettes and whole baby tomatoes- so delicious !

i was grazing on fruit all day too .
oh and i had a herring fillet and some nuts straight after climbing :)

STILL WAITING FOR MY FOOD DEHYDRATOR!!
GRRRR  ANGRY CAVEMAN!

day 24

had a good day today , 

did two workouts , 

hit a short metcon  at 1100 -

"jeremy"

21-15-9

overhead squats @ 42.5 kg

burpees

8 minutes 14 seconds

it is named "jeremy",  after a kid that died a few years back , his parents were crossfitters ,

i tried to keep that in mind as i was training and hit it as hard as i could for the little guy,

i felt slightly low on energy though , my legs are still abit fried from sunday! i cant believe how hard that wod hit me.

then at  1230 i did 5 x 5 front squats ( 5 sets of 5 reps, increasing the weight each time to try hit a max on the last set) heres the numbers for each set 

1. 75kg
2. 77.5kg
3. 80 kg
4. 82.5kg
5. 85kg 

this is a new personal best for me so i'm happy as a pig in shit :)

breakfast : 2 eggs , half a melon , blueberries , and milled flaxseed , 3 sea kelp ,6 fish oil

lunch : half a kilo of prawns and a massive bowl of salad,3sea kelp , 5 fish oil

plus 3 mandarins and a few spoons of almond butter (yummy)

did 14 rounds of tabata sprints with the sandbaggers  - hardcore 

supper : 

turkey burger and a half a pineapple with 2 mandarins and two mancakes with blueberries ,strawberries and  a dollop of homemade almond butter (recipe coming up soon) 

amazingness .

guess who bought a food dehydrator??

just ordered a food dehydrator , these babies are amazing , you can preserve meat, frut, and all types of wonderfull stuff in them,

and if you vacuum pack it or seal it in airtight jars , it will keep for up to two years!! 

im gonna make some jerky baby yeah!!

we planted a load of fruit trees and bushes last year , so we're expecting a big harvest this year, apples ,pears, plums,cherries, raspberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, yellow raspberries, 

hopefully there'll be enough that we'll need to dehydrate a shit load :)

check this baby out

ill keep you guys updated on how it goes.

guess what , fat doesn't make you fat !!

its been over 3 weeks now and i can already come to a few conclusions about the paleolithic diet ,

for years we've been told a whole host of lies, the worst of which are

• eating fat will make you fat , 
• cholesterol is bad ,
• eating starchy foods like grains ,beans and potatoes is necessary for energy, 

even after just 3 weeks of this it is plain to me that fat in your diet is not what makes you fat because my fat intake has gone through the roof yet i still continue to lose body fat, 

on the contrary , it seems to be starchy carbohydrate and sugar that piles on the body fat and this is achieved through insulin , the bodies storage hormone ,

every time we eat something starchy (think grains ,beans potatoes and sugar), our blood glucose spikes , the pancreas releases insulin to bring the blood glucose levels back down , 

but in order to bring the actual glucose levels down , it must do something with it , and what it does is basically put it into storage as fat! this would be great if you were a caveman that only got his hands on the odd bit of starch every now and again but not if you are a couch potato (no pun intended) that slugs a litre of coke every day and lives on chocolate and take aways. ye dig?

cholesterol - the problem with cholesterol is that when they test your levels , they dont distinguish between HDL(good) cholesterol, and LDL(bad) cholesterol , 

so if your levels are "HIGH" they just tell you have high cholesterol and you need to lower it , but here's the messed up thing - HDL actually reduces your LDL and effectively cancels it out , it also "hoovers" up triglyceride in your arteries and guards AGAINST heart disease!

so one type of cholesterol is bad but the other is really good.

and these starchy foods that are supposed to be absolutely necessary for energy production?
yeah, i haven't touched any of them for over 3 weeks and my energy levels are through the roof ! 

surely i should be dead by now or at least very weak and sick,

as a good friend of mine always says :

THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING IS IN THE EATING

and this paleo pudding tastes good so far :)

stay savoury ,

do as yuk yuk would

paleo joe

day 23- lazy day

im still pretty broken up from the workout in waterford on sunday!!
legs are actually a good bit sorer today than yesterday:)
thats the way it goes , back on the wagon tomorrow for some hardcore training , pain or no pain.
but today i decided to have a "deloading day" which involved staying in bed till 1100 ,and basically doing nothing but watching the chicago code , watering the garden, reading , walking the wolf and of course , eating:

for brunch i had a 3 egg omelette with peppers ,tomatos ,mushrooms ,olives , and smoked salmon,

i put half the smoked salmon on the omelette and ate the other half while it was cooking :)

at 1500 i put a chicken in the oven , cooked nice and simple- just shove a lemon up its arse and roast it for an hour and a half, took the dog for a walk while it was cooking and then put on some steamed brocolli and carrots , and fried some asparagus which i ate along with the chicken( two wings, 1 leg and a breast).
for desert i had a hunters cup with raspberries and milled flaxseed and goji berries

later on i finished off the chicken and had two mancakes with raspberries and apple slices
bellisimo!!

so i pretty much did nothing all day but sleep , eat and sit around , best deloading day ever.

21 and 22

haven't posted in two days , sorry :)
went down to crossfit waterford on sunday for a day of fun , and what a day it was ! the guys down there really put on a super welcome for us , with a great workout and a super bbq after wards, it was emotional , and i think we've formed a great little community with those lads and lassies,
we left here on sunday morning at 0900- breakfast was a few slices of ham that i cooked the day before, and a load of fruit and some almonds,

we arrived in waerford at about 1130 , and didn't bother eating as we knew the workout was at 1230,
after the workout (check it out here ), the lads put on a super bbq , i gorged myself on meat and salad ,made a proper little caveman out of myself :)

drove home at 1900 and just had a few slices of that cooked ham again and a bit of fruit .


monday -
had a light breakfast of eggs and bacon - then went to my brothers for a family gathering and was once again treated to a veritable feast - there was fish and vegetables and olives and all types of paleo friendly lovely stuff, grazed away on that all day and had a massive bowl of fruits to finish it all off,
amazing!