5: How My Client Achieved a 46 min PR on his 70.3

Hey everyone, something a little bit different for today’s episode. Today I’m sharing an interview that I did with one of my clients named Dave, and he’s talking about his experience working with me as a client, and how I helped him get ready for Ironman 70.3 in Chattanooga this year. Hear about his experience, all that he learned, and what he did to have a PR that day.

Andrea

Tell me your name a little bit about yourself and, maybe what some of your frustrations or struggles you were feeling before we started working together.

Dave

All right. Thanks, Andrea. My name is Dave Gibb. I am  oon to be 52.  I’ve been in and around endurance sports for about 25 years with about a 15 year gap in between. So 2005 to 2010 or 11. I pretty well just marathoned and tried to train for triathlon, but my kids were little, and then I got back into it about five years ago. 2022, I did my first 70.3 and then my first Full Ironman. And just struggled mightily on the run.

They weren’t races per se. I just survived.  I chalked it up to heat, to training. But then a couple weeks later after my full Maryland last year, where I ran a 5h40 in the full marathon, three weeks later I ran the Detroit full in 3hr57 and felt great. So that ruled out fitness as my problem.

And then I just, the only less last thing I don’t know anything about was nutrition. So, I heard your name through a fellow triathlete, and I, I reached out.

Andrea

Okay, great. Yeah. And once we did start working together, what were some of the things that, you started doing that made the biggest difference for you?

Dave

Eating more, because of my, one of my biggest struggles and frustrations had always been that I was training 10 – 15 hours a week and my weight just continuously crept up and I always just chalked it up to I’m training so much, I’m eating, but you know, so many different theories out there as to why I’m holding weight. So I was constantly restricting what I was eating. So I was trying to eat 1500 to 1800 calories a day to have a calorie deficit. So I was trying to cut weight. I would succeed on that for three days. Four days I didn’t, I would eat 5, 000 calories. You got me to start to eat more on a daily basis, which mentally was a challenge.

And it kind of uncovered that I, I really struggled with it. Disordered eating or unhealthy relationship with food, per se. So just starting to track my food and be mindful of what I was eating, but more importantly, that I needed to eat more to fuel what I was trying to do, was the biggest change at first.

Andrea

Yeah, great. And then also when we were working together, you were preparing for half iron man so maybe just tell me a little bit about how that went and how it compared to previous races and some things that you did.

Dave

So I did the same race last year. I did Chattanooga 70. 3 in May, 2022.  I’ve came in at 6hr40, and then this year I did the same exact race, and I came in at, 5hr54, I think, so I knocked 50 or 46 minutes off my, off my time. Last year on the bike, I took in one and a half bottles total of nutrition.  I never believed, unbelievable, it’s unreal when I think about it, I never believed in carb loading.

I kind of, when I was training, I would just grab whatever I had, I would stop at random stores. You got me on a dedicated schedule to be very, you helped me become mindful about what was going in my body. And, and so through training and you had me actually do race simulations, I, you know, I purchased a monitor to monitor my sweat. Not just the amount I sweat, but more how much sodium I was losing.  And discovered that when I added up what I was losing versus what I took in on a regular basis, let alone in a race, I was so far upside down on sodium.  Because I had one of the biggest challenges I had when I raced all the time before working with you was frequent urination.

Like just constantly going to the bathroom. And I’ve come to learn that that was my body’s way of just getting rid of free fluid to keep the sodium level balanced. I was basically dehydrating myself through expending water. And that was the biggest difference is that even on my training rides, I started to notice I wouldn’t have to stop every 30 minutes.

Andrea

 Great. Yeah. That was a huge accomplishment and a great race you had.

Dave

And then, sorry, on that, even like getting out of the swim. So you had me carb load. You, you, you gave me a carb load schedule for about 72 hours out, but down to the grams. I am pretty good at following instructions, though, I followed like to the letter what it was you said, and I’m not going to lie, I had my moments of like, is this a typo?

Cause I’ve never eaten that many carbs, intentionally, eaten that many carbs. I’ve eaten that many carbs and donuts and cookies and garbage, but never mindfully eating like that before.  So last year on the swim, I did 39 minutes and I was so gassed getting out of the water.  My transition time was 14 minutes to go from swim to bike.

This year, my transition time was about four and a half minutes. I ran coming out of the water this year. As I was going into transition, I was putting on sunscreen as I was moving towards the bike. As opposed to looking at it, like just trying to get my, trying to get myself collected last year to even get myself prepared to get on a bike.

I was, I raced this year as opposed to survive last year.

Andrea

It sounds like it felt better overall.  And so now kind of after we’ve gone through working together over the last six months, how would you say things are different for you.

Dave

I’ve started to have a pretty healthy relationship with food that, I’m no longer obsessed so much about the scale. I’m not going to lie,l I still get on scale every day and I am nolonger viewing eating more as the problem. I used to, I used to think that at night or when I couldn’t control myself from snacking, it was because I trained so much that day. I didn’t realize that my carb deficits going into my heavy training day, plus under fueling on the training was actually the problem.

It wasn’t the volume of training. It’s just I didn’t eat enough on the Friday to support a four and a half hour bike ride on a Saturday with an hour run. I just chalked it up to this is just what triathletes do. But triathletes shouldn’t be gaining 15 pounds while training for an Ironman. So that’s the biggest difference is, for me is understanding that food’s not my enemy.

And I think I’ve shared this with you that, you know, now at night, when I know I have a training session in the morning and I’m hungry before going to bed, for me to make a wrap with a little bit of peanut butter and honey, I eat it and I don’t feel guilty about it. I really learned how guilty I felt about food and I didn’t realize it. Like I just didn’t, I wouldn’t, if anybody would have asked me prior to working with you, do you have an eating disorder? I would have said no, clearly because look at me.  I’ve learned now that it wasn’t per se, it was disordered eating or an unhealthy relationship with food. And then I would crash diet, get into a bet with my boss, weight like a maniac to get down to 184. And then within three weeks, I’d be back up to 198. And now I’m slowly like a half pound a week comes off, but I’m not obsessed with it, but I’m aware of it. And that’s the biggest difference is that, I’ve eliminated a lot of the stuff that was problematic, not because of you, but just because I’m like, I don’t, I’d rather have more room to eat more volume of healthy food than eat two doughnuts, right? And I used to think the doughnuts were just part of the game.

Andrea

Was there anything, were you nervous about working with a dietician or making the investment or anything kind of holding you back that restarted?

Dave

Um, no, because I’m, I’m, I’m not afraid to make an investment in myself. In last year, I, you know, I bought a new bike. I paid for a live coach. You know, I invested in master swimming. So, I didn’t have a hesitation on the amount of investment because it, it was a very fair cost for the return. I was nervous on, is there anything I’m going to learn from this? Because I, I always felt I was the type of person, like when I hear people talk about it.They take vitamins and they feel so good or like they you hear all the stuff they take I think I was open about this when we started that I’ve never felt like taking creatine, like this pump in my body or anything. I was not in tune with what went in and how it made me feel. I was just nervous that six months into it, I’ll follow a meal plan and everything else, but I won’t feel the actual benefit.

It’ll just be, I’m doing it. The results are what they are. That has been completely erased now that I now understand and I physically feel when I have under fueled. I know it. I know it right out of the gate. And I know there’s nothing I can do about it, like at the time, like if I’m mid run, if I’m mid run and I’m under fuel, then I’m feeling terrible. I don’t get upset about the run. I don’t think I’ve lost fitness. I don’t make excuses. I just know I didn’t eat right. It’s not hard to, the math is pretty easy now that I understand it. Yeah. And for as far as the investment goes, I mean, it’s, it’s one of the smaller investments in triathlon. Yeah. I just, I just registered for a full ironman because of our work together and the success and how good I felt in the half.

Cause I made a commitment to myself that unless I felt good in a half Ironman, I would not do another full. Right. Because of how good I felt. I’ve now registered for Chattanooga full. Andrea and I are going to start to work together in a couple of months again to get me race ready and to make sure I maintain, but,you know, I, I spent more on that race registration, I believe, then my investment in our time together.

So to waste that money on the race registration without making this investment doesn’t make any sense, right?

Andrea

For sure. That’s great. Yeah, I really appreciate your time and talking about our experience.  Just is there anything else that you wanted to add?

Dave

No, I just think that I wish I would have learned it earlier.

I wish I would have, I wish I would have understood how much I was missing on nutrition because it probably would have saved me a lot of money on upgrading bike parts and all this other stuff that I was looking for gains in, but not paying attention to what I was investing. So that’s the biggest thing is it’s like this, if the machine’s not tuned in, I shouldn’t be buying an arrow helmet.

Ironically, I have an arrow helmet, but it’s yeah. Yeah. So if you have any, if anybody out there listening to this has any doubt, I would not start anything else without starting at this point. If you don’t know enough about nutrition.

Andrea

Great. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Dave

Thanks, Andrea. Okay. Bye.