By Mir Zacharias

You’re facing another demanding day of work, training, and a bit of family fun time, too.  And you wonder, “Will I have enough energy to take it all on or am I going to find myself dragging through the day again?”

Most people don’t connect the dots between fatigue and gluten sensitivity.  This is largely because your symptoms may not show up for 2 hours to a couple of days after consuming it!  This is different from celiac disease which is a genetic condition that immediately triggers a nasty physical reaction if you eat even a smidgen of gluten.

While only one in 133 people have celiac disease, some estimate that 30 – 40% of the population has some form of gluten sensitivity that creates many of the same symptoms:  fatigue, headaches, and joint pain topping the list.

Gluten is a protein found in wheat (including kamut and spelt), barley, rye, malts and triticale. Oats, by the way, do not contain gluten on their own; the issue with oats involves potential cross-contamination with other grains in the milling process.  In addition to the obvious foods (bread, pizza, pastry and pasta), gluten is also widely used as a flavoring, stabilizing or thickening agent in almost all processed foods and commonly shows up as “dextrin” on food labels.

ITU gold-medalist Timothy O’Donnell is the poster child for undiagnosed gluten sensitivity.  With his performance faltering, he learned that his inability to digest gluten was shutting down his digestive tract, resulting in low energy and sabotaging his races.  Since going gluten-free, O’Donnell finished 1st place in two 70.3 races, San Juan and Galveston, so far this year.

Here’s how gluten can wreak havoc on your body and in your performance:

1. It causes leakage. When the stomach can’t handle gluten, it becomes inflamed; an inflamed gut lining becomes more permeable or “leaky.” A leaky gut allows energy-producing nutrients to pass out of the stomach and into the bloodstream in a form that cannot be absorbed by the body (vs. proceeding through the intestines and broken down into a usable form).  When minerals and vitamins are not taken up, energy drops.   Additionally, these unrecognized food proteins in the blood stream can make you feel lousy:  think gas, bloating, and brain fog.

2.  It adds insult to injuries. Foods that contain gluten also have high levels of the compound arachidonic acid which in large amounts has the ability to increase inflammation of the joints and aggravate pain. Even the Arthritis Foundation recommends a gluten-free diet to support people who suffer from ongoing pain due to inflammation.  If chronic joint or tendon pain is impacting your ability to train, gluten may be the culprit.

3.  It makes you fat. Many think that our obesity epidemic is a result of a slovenly, TV-addicted lifestyle and while some of that may be true there are many people who follow the USDA’s “healthy” dietary guidelines, exercise an hour a day and STILL gain weight.  What’s up with that?  It all comes down to our love affair with foods that cause our insulin levels to stay stuck on high.  High insulin levels make us STORE fat, especially around the belly, and one big enemy behind chronically high insulin levels is wheat.  Want proof?  The glycemic index, which measures blood sugar level increases, of whole wheat bread is 72, while plain table sugar is 59.  Kidney beans come in at 51, grapefruit is 25, and salmon and walnuts have zero effect on blood sugar.  In fact, few foods have as high a GI as foods made from wheat!  And you already know how excess weight can slow performance.

So here’s what you should do:

1.    If you suspect that you have gluten issues talk to your healthcare practitioner and ask to be tested.  You may encounter resistance, so stand your ground if this is something you want to do.  In addition to blood work, Timothy O’Donnell used a test (one I’ve used as well) to discover his gluten issue called the Metametrix GI Effects Complete Profile.  Ask your doctor about this.

2.    If you don’t want to hassle with tests and doctors, perform an elimination diet on yourself.  Go completely gluten-free for 3 weeks and monitor things like energy, GI distress, headaches, weight shifts, and pain.  If you see no improvement, then return to eating gluten it if you wish.  If you aren’t sure if you feel any better, eat gluten after your 3-week hiatus for several meals in a row and THEN see how you feel.  Sometimes it’s the reintroduction that is an even more powerful indicator.

3.    If you see improvement after 3 weeks clean, then kick the gluten habit.  This doesn’t mean you should switch to eating large volumes of processed foods made from non-gluten grains!  An occasional gluten-free treat is fine, but better carb choices are those that look most like nature herself:  sweet potatoes, legumes, brown rice, fruits, and of course, vegetables.  There are plenty of healthy alternatives out there; it’s just about building new habits.

Once you remove gluten from your diet due to sensitivity issues, eating even a small amount of it will quickly remind you why you stopped eating gluten in the first place.  That alone, over time, will keep you on the straight and narrow.

If you’re like most triathletes then the idea of testing is about as appealing as getting a root canal on your next vacation.  For self-coached triathletes testing is even more of a challenge because you haven’t been shelling out the equivalent of a monthly car payment to a coach who’s badgering you for the results of that swim, bike, or run field test.  Besides if you’re doing this for fun and fitness (vs. sprinting for the win at your next race) do you really care what your Functional Threshold Power (FTP) is on the bike?

Well, what if testing wasn’t about just improving your performance but about cranking up the fun on race day?   You see, by not testing and really getting a good, objective feel for what your race pace should be there’s a high probability you’ll get to experience that all too common ‘death march’ on the run leg because you pushed too hard earlier in the race.  And guess what?  That’s normal and here’s why.

Psychologists use the term “positive illusions” to describe having an optimistic outlook on future outcomes.  We all do this in life and it’s not all bad; actually it’s quite healthy.   Trouble occurs when being overly optimistic about your athletic ability comes up against an objective measure like a triathlon race course.  This is where testing can help.

Testing gives you objective feedback, something self-coached triathletes desperately need.  This feedback helps you adjust your training and, ultimately, makes sure you don’t overplay your hand too early out on the course.  Testing doesn’t have to be overly complicated to be effective.  In fact, the best tests are practice races because there’s no substitute for the real thing… you’re more motivated in a race than at any other time.  If a practice race isn’t an option then all you need are a couple of data points like heart rate and distance and you’re good to go.

Here are a few ways and places to perform some tests.  I don’t really get into the HOW here because this is really specific to an individual, but would be happy to chat about it with you if you’d like my help:

1. Local Races:  Build some short local races into your training plan.  5K runs and sprint and international distance triathlons are a great place to test your current fitness and gather real data under race conditions, besides getting you into the all-too-often overlooked racing mindset.
2. Measured Courses:  Timed 600-2000 yard swim tests, bike time trials on a measured course, and track runs all will give you the objective feedback you need to make progress without over-stressing your body and risking injury.
3. Trainers and Treadmills:  Indoor trainers and treadmills are some of the best and safest tools for testing your current fitness.  Whether it’s a Vasa Trainer with an Ergo meter for swimming, a bike trainer (which every triathlete should have), or a treadmill just measure heart rate and distance or time and distance and you can easily do some short field test that will give you the feedback you need to have your best race yet.

So where does the fun come in?  Go to your next race confident that you know how to pace yourself throughout the race all the way from swim start to a strong finish on the run and you’ll know exactly what triathlon racing fun is all about.

That’s it for this week.  Until next time train safe, stay healthy, and hope to see you at the races.

P.S.  Feel free to shoot me an email at Jay@Triathlonexperts.com for some ideas on setting up a test that will work for you.

Anyone who’s spent any time in the business world is familiar with the acronym FUD which stands for “fear, uncertainty, and doubt.”  FUD is a corporate sales tactic used to leverage your company’s product by planting the seeds of uncertainty for your rival’s product in the mind of a prospective customer.  These three little adjectives can effectively paralyze customer buying decisions and bring the sales process to a screeching halt.

For a triathlete, FUD is alive and well and I hate to say this but your own worst enemy in this scenario is YOU.  The self-talk you need to stick to it and work through it is crucial for taking on 3 grueling sports (along with figuring out your nutrition plan, taking time to recover, strength train, work fulltime and have a personal life, among other things).  Is it any wonder you find yourself overwrought with the mere thought of racing?

As the Chief Triathlamate and water bottle washer of the family, during race season I hang the “Shrinks R Us” shingle outside my home office.  My counseling work extends well beyond the walls of my home, too.  I’ve discovered that there are times when I need to prepare myself for some very difficult conversations with all of the athletes in my network.

Some common refrains I often hear include:

• I’m not fit enough.
• I haven’t trained enough.
• I’m too fat and I’ll be too slow to make the cutoff.
• I’ll do lousy and fail my friends and family.
• I may as well have flushed my entry fees down the toilet.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of concerns; I’m sure you have some of your own.

Hopefully you realize that nothing you do would fail your family and the only way for you to fail is to give up after working so hard for so long.  In fact, the ability to train and race at this level at all is an amazing triumph that only a fraction of the population would even consider taking on!

When the fretting continues well beyond its expiration date, you need to get your head on straight.

No one is coming to your pity party because, let’s face it, you’ve CHOSEN to pursue triathlon.  Fortunately, I’ve got some ideas for you to rewire your brain and (here’s my baseball analogy for all you MLB fans) you won’t be swinging at a pitch in the dirt.  You must redirect your thinking by keeping a cheat sheet handy with the following questions.

1. What makes you think you aren’t ready?
2. What do you need to do to be ready?
3. Where are you today vs. where you need to be?  What is the true distance between these two points?
4. What can you do RIGHT NOW to close the gap?
5. What obstacle is standing in the way?  What will it take to remove it, and who can help you?

Spend focused time thinking through your answers, jot them down, and then look at them again later in the day.  Better yet, enlist an accountability partner to ask you these questions.  This should be someone who knows you well, someone you trust – someone who won’t let you make excuses and will bust you if you do.  Build your emergency plan to close the gap between where you are and where you need to be, share it with your accountability partner and get MOVING.  Encouragement from your accountability partner to keep you in forward motion can be HUGE here, too.  Ask for their help.

Training – like most hard efforts in our lives – is about building new habits.  Consistency reinforces the habit-forming effort.

It’s all about momentum.