136: Ironman Arizona Prep Update

In this episode, I share an update on my Ironman Arizona prep as we enter week 7, which is 90 days out from race day. I'll walk through my detailed training schedule, including long runs, bike rides, and swim sessions, and discuss the progressive overload strategy I'm using. I also dive into nutrition, sharing how I fuel my training sessions and manage my weight. Covering active recovery techniques and the challenge of time management while balancing professional and personal commitments. CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction and Ironman Prep Overview 01:52 Week Seven Training Breakdown 06:36 Team Effort and Creative Process 13:26 Balancing Commitments and Time Management 20:17 Challenges of Training in Texas Heat 33:51 Key Workouts and Progress Tracking 35:41 Progressive Overload in Training 37:16 Long Runs and Bike Rides 43:55 The Importance of Recovery 48:11 Nutrition and Fueling Strategies 53:43 Daily Nutrition and Caloric Intake 01:00:46 Concluding Thoughts and Future Plans ORDER MY BOOK HERE: https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210 FOLLOW: Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 20% off FOR LIFE https://bpn.team/member IG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Nick Bare?

  Hello. What is going on everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today, we are doing an Ironman prep update. We are officially into week seven of Ironman prep, about 90 days out from Ironman Arizona, November 16th, 2025. And to be honest, I don't know how we are already on week seven.

• 0:36Nick Bare?

  We're almost, we are actually, a third of the way

• 0:42Nick Bare?

  into this prep, into this series. It has gone so fast. I feel like we literally just started this prep a week ago. These weeks are flying by. And I think a big part of that is because there is so much training involved. Also simultaneously, we're documenting the entire process and I'll get into that, but it's more than just physically preparing for an Ironman triathlon. We are creating an entire series out of it. We are uploading a full 45 minute to one hour

• 1:20Nick Bare?

  YouTube video every Monday at 9:00 AM Central Standard Time. There's a lot of filming going on through the week. The guys are, are working just about seven days a week on filming, editing, producing, publishing. It's a, it's a big endeavor, not just on my behalf, but the entire team's behalf.

• 1:47Nick Bare?

  90 days out. That's crazy. It's flying by. What I want to do before we dive into anything is review, uh, my training program for this week.

• 2:01Nick Bare?

  Because in the beginning of the prep, I went over what my first two weeks of training was gonna look like. And I may not have been clear enough in the way that I described that. The first two weeks of my prep, week one, week two, I considered that and looked at it as a reintroduction into triathlon training. Volume wasn't crazy high. I started training about 16 hours a week. I wasn't doing super long runs, super long bike rides. I wasn't spending a lot of time on the saddle, no brick workouts. It was just reintroduction back to triathlon this first two weeks.

• 2:45Nick Bare?

  And some of the response was this volume is too low, it's not enough. I heard you, we heard you, but there was an intent behind that. So to give you kind of an updated, realistic overview of what my training looks like now into week seven of this prep, might make a little bit more sense. Okay, so week seven, Monday, one hour easy run in the morning, it's about eight miles. And then right after that easy run, I do 20 minutes of core work in the garage at my house.

• 3:25Nick Bare?

  Then the afternoon, I have a 90-minute endurance bike and a one-hour swim. That's a pretty easy day for me. Tuesday, this is a brick workout, so it's a four-hour bike into a one-hour run. So this will be done in the BPN HQ gym. It'll be on the trainer. It'll be a structured workout that I customally build into Zwift, and then it syncs to my smart trainer. And for that four hours, it'll walk me through different percentages of my FTP to stimulate a...

• 4:10Nick Bare?

  A certain threshold and power and overall stimulus on my body. So four hour bike into a one hour run. That run hour, one hour run will be done on the treadmill. Wednesday, I have an easy run in the morning, nine miles. And then 20 minutes of core strength work in the garage after that. One hour swim in the afternoon. This is an easier day coming off of a big day, the prior day, because the prior day is a five hour training day. To put it in context, I'll probably hop on the bike at nine AM on Tuesday.

• 4:51Nick Bare?

  So that is nine, 10, 11, 12.

• 4:59Nick Bare?

  10, 11, 12, 1. So nine to one, I'll be on the bike. One to two, I'll be running, so I'll be training from nine to 2 PM, nine AM to 2 PM. Thursday, this is my speed workout day, so I have one mile repeats, 10 miles of total volume. So I'll be doing this probably on the track. And then in the afternoon, I have 20 minutes of strength and core work and a two hour endurance bike. Friday, nine mile easy run in the morning, one hour endurance recovery bike, one hour swim.

• 5:44Nick Bare?

  Saturday, 18 mile run, this is a structured run, so there are some tempo intervals built into this run. It's not just go run 18 miles, it's a very structured run with paces and rest and recovery built in. And then Sunday, this is my recovery day, it's 20 minutes of strength and core work and a one hour recovery bike.

• 6:11Nick Bare?

  So that is week seven of Ironman Prep Overview. And I wanted to share that to show the contrast between week one and week two and week seven. Like I said, week one and two started around 16 hours of training a week. And now I'm at about 20 to 21 hours of training a week.

• 6:34Nick Bare?

  This prep feels different. I'll be honest, this prep feels very different than any of my previous fitness preps the last couple of years. And honestly, it's because we're having a lot of fun with it. And I say we because I view this, I truly view this as a team effort.

• 7:00Nick Bare?

  You know, it's more than just training for a race, training for an Ironman. We document this entire thing. And we, we share the journey on YouTube, on social. So much of my week, even though I'm the one training solo by myself, I'm with Trevor, I'm with Yoli, and I'm with Landry. The four of us are bouncing around, going to the lake, going to the pool. Uh, they're hanging out in the back of the truck filming a bike or a run in the hill country of central Texas. They're in the gym with me as I'm on the trainer or the treadmill.

• 7:45Nick Bare?

  I spend a lot of time with these guys. We have a lot of deep conversations, a lot of great, like great conversations and

• 7:54Nick Bare?

  you know, I was listening to this podcast months ago. And it was talking about

• 8:02Nick Bare?

  creators, online creators who burn out.

• 8:06Nick Bare?

  Because to be very honest and frank,

• 8:11Nick Bare?

  I've been documenting my life, been sharing the journey. I've been creating content since, at least consistently since 2014.

• 8:23Nick Bare?

  So that is 11 years.

• 8:27Nick Bare?

  11 years of picking up a camera, being on camera, filming, sharing everything. And over those 11 years, there's times and moments where you're really creatively inspired and there's times and moments where you're not creatively inspired at all. And picking up a camera and filming a YouTube video.

• 8:53Nick Bare?

  Is challenging. It's hard. It's just part of the process. It's, you know, when you're doing something that long, it's expected to come with the journey. And I was listening to this podcast a few months ago, and it was talking all about crater burnout. And the host of this podcast was explaining, if you are burning out as a creator, you have two options. You can either change your systems,

• 9:20Nick Bare?

  your operations, your approach to creating that content, or you can change the environment. And that can be where you're creating and who you're creating with. Right now, filming and creating with three other, I would consider good friends, it's a lot of fun. Creatively, I'm so inspired right now. And it should be fun. Going into a prep like this and,

• 9:58Nick Bare?

  and putting in a massive effort and a lot of work and watching fitness build and dedicating 20 plus hours a week to this process and getting to the race day so you can throw down with your best performance possible, should be fun. You know, in the past, I've, I've put a lot of pressure on myself when I go into these fitness preps. And I know people here in the business have felt that pressure before. I know my family, Steph, has felt that pressure before, not directly, but can feel the pressure that I'm giving off, the stress that I'm giving off. I think as a leader,

• 10:37Nick Bare?

  whether you're leading a business, team, organization, your family, one thing that I've learned over time is, as a leader, you have a responsibility to manage your stress. Because if you allow your stress and pressure to bleed out on to your family, or your team, or your organization, that is unhealthy emotional leadership. I've done that before. I've been there before. And I witness daily, frequently,

• 11:17Nick Bare?

  Unhealthy emotional leadership, not necessarily here at VPN, but in different businesses and organizations.

• 11:27Nick Bare?

  I think one of the worst things you can do as a leader is to create an unhealthy emotional environment.

• 11:37Nick Bare?

  And we're having so much fun with this prep right now. There's different mindset going into it. There's less pressure. I went into this prep with the intentions of we are going to enjoy this. It's gonna be fun.

• 11:52Nick Bare?

  And part of that is, you know, VPN is larger now. The team is bigger. I have the ability to delegate more responsibility now than I ever had before. So one of the things that makes this Ironman prep different from the one that I did in 2020, 2021. Back in 2020, 2021, the business was smaller. The team was was smaller. We didn't have as much experienced talent on the team and I could not delegate as much. So I was still very heavily involved in in all of the day to day. From marketing to operations to fulfillment to

• 12:35Nick Bare?

  website, build, design, maintenance, everything. And now that the team is larger, like I said, I can I can delegate more responsibility so that I can focus on the things that, one, I want to focus on, but two, that actually move the needle in the business. This is where I can contribute a lot of value to the business.

• 13:02Nick Bare?

  So it makes sense that I spend my time creating content and working on the series with the team and being heavily involved in the creative direction and and brand process.

• 13:16Nick Bare?

  This prep, it feels different. There's a lot of joy and purpose around this prep. We're busy. We are busy. And I'll get into that. But one thing I've learned is that there's a difference between being busy and being rushed and hurried. My goal in life is to have a busy schedule, a busy calendar full of productive moments in time and experiences and memories. But what I don't want is to be hurried and rushed. I don't want to be playing catch up.

• 14:00Nick Bare?

  I don't want to put half effort into anything. And that is the result of being hurried and rushed. There's a difference. Busy versus hurried and rushed. There's actually a good book by John Mark Comer called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry that I highly recommend. That was a great book that opened my eyes up to the negative environment that comes with being rushed and hurried. Now, on the heels of that,

• 14:41Nick Bare?

  I will say that the hardest part of this Ironman prep, which I expected, but did not anticipate it to be at this level, time management. Time management with everything right now in my life is challenging me the most. I'm getting it done. There's no doubt that I'm making it happen. And I'm going to continue to make it happen until November 16th. Training sessions get completed to standard.

• 15:21Nick Bare?

  I am showing up for my team, the business, my family. One of the things that I said in the beginning of this prep, and this is one of the reasons I wanted to do an Ironman, is to show.

• 15:40Nick Bare?

  And be an example of how you can commit to honoring your commitments.

• 15:46Nick Bare?

  You can still be

• 15:50Nick Bare?

  ruthlessly ambitious to chase down and accomplish whatever goal it is you want to accomplish. And in the process, not sacrifice your personal responsibilities and obligations.

• 16:05Nick Bare?

  So I'm getting it done, but it's much harder than I anticipated.

• 16:09Nick Bare?

  As I previously mentioned, it's not just a training that is that is tough to fit around

• 16:17Nick Bare?

  the daily schedule of life, but it is,

• 16:20Nick Bare?

  you know, filming these sessions and working with Landry, Trevor and Yuli to bring the creative direction to life. And work on these videos with these guys. I mean, they take they take lead on all of that. I don't want to act like I am heavily involved in the creative process. Or anything post-production, editing,

• 16:50Nick Bare?

  publishing, creating all of those things. I'm involved in the creative process with them because we work so closely every single day, but they take lead on it. They own it and they crush it. They're crushing it. I mean, these guys, we knew it going into a series like this. The creatives that work on a project of this size and magnitude, it ends up being a seven day a week job for the 18 week prep. We knew that going into it. And they're showing up and they're getting it done. And in the process, we're having a whole lot of fun.

• 17:30Nick Bare?

  But that is the biggest challenge with this prep for me so far is time management.

• 17:38Nick Bare?

  Like I've mentioned, I was not willing and am not willing to sacrifice time with my family for an Ironman prep.

• 17:47Nick Bare?

  And I'm gonna make sure I honor my commitments to the business and the team throughout. That's why every morning I wake up at 4:15 a.m. to be done with my run, no matter how long the distance, before my kids wake up.

• 18:02Nick Bare?

  And to be with my family, so that after I run in the morning, Steph can train in the garage and our day is started and set on a solid foundation for the remainder of the day. And all my training sessions are done by 4, 4:30 p.m. at the max, so that I can be home for family time at night and help put my kids down to bed.

• 18:25Nick Bare?

  You know, on the weekends, Saturday runs, they are done before the kids wake up.

• 18:32Nick Bare?

  I was not willing to do an Ironman prep. And

• 18:38Nick Bare?

  sacrifice time with my family.

• 18:43Nick Bare?

  I wanted to make sure that I was honoring my commitments to the business and also honoring God. And

• 18:53Nick Bare?

  showing up and

• 18:57Nick Bare?

  committing to spending time in the Word, reading Scripture, studying the Bible,

• 19:06Nick Bare?

  continuing to build my relationship with Jesus Christ.

• 19:12Nick Bare?

  And every night, as I'm laying in bed with the Normatec compression boots, Steph and I lay in bed at night and we, we read, I'm reading my Bible for 45 minutes to an hour as those compression boots just cook on my legs and bring them back to life. And that's also something that I wasn't willing to

• 19:34Nick Bare?

  sacrifice.

• 19:37Nick Bare?

  It's really important to me.

• 19:41Nick Bare?

  And I'm proud of myself so far with how I'm managing all of it.

• 19:47Nick Bare?

  But it's tough. It's hard. No one said it's gonna be easy. It's not supposed to be easy. That's one of the reasons I wanted to do it.

• 19:56Nick Bare?

  I wanted to put myself in a position of discomfort, knowing that I would grow through the process and learn a whole lot about myself. And within these first six weeks now, being in week seven of prep, I can honestly say it's been transformational.

• 20:14Nick Bare?

  This prep has been transformational. So you know what's interesting? Is training for an Ironman during the summer in Texas.

• 20:28Nick Bare?

  It's tough right now. It's, it's,

• 20:31Nick Bare?

  you know, if you ever spent a summer in Texas, we got heat and we have humidity. I think a lot of people who haven't spent significant time in Texas before, think that we have dry heat. It is not dry heat. It is hot and humid and that plays a huge role in training. Now, me personally,

• 20:51Nick Bare?

  I love training in the heat.

• 20:55Nick Bare?

  To a certain extent, when it gets out of control,

• 21:00Nick Bare?

  I mean, it really wears on your body. Energy levels, central nervous system specifically.

• 21:08Nick Bare?

  But it's actually been shown that there are similar effects on the body when it comes to heat as does altitude. Not the exact same mechanisms, but similar in the term, in the, in terms of the way that the body has to spare and utilize oxygen delivery. So there are similar effects on the body when it comes to training in severe heat as it does to training at altitude. And there's a saying,

• 21:42Nick Bare?

  and it couldn't be any more true, that summer miles bring fall smiles.

• 21:50Nick Bare?

  We as Texas athletes.

• 21:55Nick Bare?

  Texas fitness individuals. We know that all the work we put in in the summer is going to have a massive return on investment come October, November, December. I skipped September because September is just as hot as August and even October sometimes. Um, but right now, like middle of August, I'm feeling the heat on these sessions that I'm training outdoors. I mean, this morning is a good example. This morning was 90% humidity.

• 22:34Nick Bare?

  And I believe it was like a, a temperature of felt like 83 degrees Fahrenheit. And that was at 5:00 AM. And that humidity just wraps around you. And I sweat a lot. I'm a heavy sweater. I'm a salty sweater, which I have to consider when it comes to just pounding water throughout the day and sodium consumption. And I can easily lose eight to 10 pounds during some of these runs. A nine, 10 plus mile run. I'll weigh myself before and I'll weigh myself after. And I can be anywhere from eight to 10 plus pounds lighter.

• 23:19Nick Bare?

  Now that is not fat. That is primarily water and glycogen. So your, your body stores carbohydrates in the muscle and in the liver. There's stored carbohydrates in the form of glycogen. And your, your body will tap in and utilize these energy stores during training sessions, especially longer training sessions. And

• 23:47Nick Bare?

  When you go for these, these training sessions, these runs, especially when you're sweating a lot, you're expending a lot of energy, your body is utilizing oxygen to cool itself down.

• 24:00Nick Bare?

  You can easily sweat out and utilize glycogen at a rate where you're losing significant weight. I'm experiencing that. Now, by the end of the day, I end up putting all that weight back on. I rehydrate, I get water, salt, carbs back in me and it comes back, but that is just the effect that some of these, these training sessions have on the body.

• 24:24Nick Bare?

  One of the things that you should look into considering, at least that I look into considering during training seasons where it's hot and humid, is I'll look at the, the temperature. I'll look at the humidity and I'll look at the dew point and I'll consider all three of these things

• 24:45Nick Bare?

  to kind of

• 24:47Nick Bare?

  gauge what the effort level is going to be for that run. I mean, if you go run and it's hot and it's humid and there's a high dew point, that effort is going to feel and be much harder than if it was cooler out. Like a few weeks ago, we were in Northern California for a weekend and I ran with Joe Greer 14 miles.

• 25:12Nick Bare?

  It was probably 55 degrees, maybe 50 degrees when we started.

• 25:18Nick Bare?

  And there was like no humidity. We barely sweat on that entire run. And all 14 miles felt effortless. Then we held like a 7, 11 minute per mile pace. Effortless, like very little impact to the body or central nervous system. I wasn't taxed or fatigued at all after that run.

• 25:43Nick Bare?

  Last week, or I guess two weeks ago, I had a 17 mile run here in Central Texas.

• 25:52Nick Bare?

  And we started around 6:30 a.m. Didn't get done until

• 25:59Nick Bare?

  8:45 a.m. Maybe a little over two hour run, 17 miles.

• 26:09Nick Bare?

  And the first hour of that run felt great. And then that sun started coming up and it was hot, it was humid. I got wrecked on that run.

• 26:21Nick Bare?

  This is the first time this has happened to me in years. The last time something like this actually happened to me was probably last Ironman prep. I remember this one day in our Ironman prep back in 2020 where I was running outside midday.

• 26:40Nick Bare?

  And the heat and humidity kind of just wraps around you. It feels like a hot blanket, hot wet blanket. And you almost feel like you're suffocating. You can't breathe. You can't cool down. And I remember we, we had the truck with us and we had this cooler in the back that was filled with ice. And I just opened this cooler up and put my head in that ice, trying to cool down as fast as possible. Because I was heating up and I could not control my heart rate. I could not control my body temperature. It starts getting dangerous. Well, that's what happened two weeks ago in the 17 mile run. 10, 11, 12 miles in, felt easy breezy.

• 27:19Nick Bare?

  Felt like nothing. And out of nowhere, I started noticing that my heart rate started increasing and I couldn't bring it back down. And my body temperature started increasing. I couldn't bring it back down. I couldn't control the effort. And it went from zero to 100 real quick where I had to actually pull off the side of the road. Sit down. I thought I was gonna throw up. I thought I was gonna pass out. But that heat just overtakes your body. And if you're not heat acclimated.

• 27:48Nick Bare?

  It can be pretty dangerous. So we took about 10 minutes, sat on the side of the road. Trevor put a bag of ice behind my neck and head. And just trying to cool the body down a little bit so I could finish the run. Cause there's no way I wasn't finishing that 17 mile training run. No matter how long I had to rest, I was gonna finish that training run that day. I wasn't, I wasn't pulling out of that one. And that's why I'm, I'm doing a lot of my training indoors right now. The training that I can do. You know, like running, other than these brick workouts, I'm, I'm always running in the morning early. And then I'm doing a lot of my training on the bike, on the trainer, in the gym.

• 28:32Nick Bare?

  I just find that the trainer is safer. You can control a lot of the variables. You can get a really efficient and effective workout. You can hold specific powers. You're not worried about hitting red lights and stop signs and other cars and all of those things. I believe you still have to get out in the road and we are still getting out in the road and riding the bike. But I think the indoor trainer for the bike is one of the greatest inventions ever made when it comes to the sport of triathlon or cycling. I can get such a good workout in a few hours.

• 29:13Nick Bare?

  And really maximize the, the efficiency of the stimulus I'm trying to get out of that workout. So like, that's one of the reasons I'm using the indoor trainer. But also just keeping me out of the sun later than day. Because not just that the sun makes these workouts harder and potentially dangerous, but it affects your recovery. Like I made the mistake last week of, of doing a bike workout in my home garage. And I looked at my calendar for the day, my schedule. And it was a one hour, easy endurance bike.

• 29:53Nick Bare?

  And I did that, that bike workout in our home garage, early in the morning. I decided intentionally not to bring the bike fan from the VPN HQ to my house to ride. Cause I didn't think it was gonna be that hot. It was an easier ride. It was a one hour ride.

• 30:13Nick Bare?

  I haven't sweated that much on the bike this entire prep. I can't tell you the last time I sweated that much in an hour ever. It was like a faucet coming off me. I instantly regretted not having my bike fan.

• 30:29Nick Bare?

  Having a bike fan is like, if you have an indoor trainer, you almost have to have a bike fan, or at least some sort of fan on you while you're riding. I didn't have my bike fan. The garage was probably sitting about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. It was very still, uh, still heat. There wasn't any airflow coming in. And

• 30:56Nick Bare?

  that workout wrecked me. And the reason I share that is because I was mad at myself after that. Because I knew that that workout, which was supposed to be more low stimulus, facilitate some recovery. That workout actually tanked me and had negative effects on my swim later in the day. But also I could feel that for the next couple of days. I dug myself a hole.

• 31:27Nick Bare?

  So a lot of training when it comes to this much volume and varied intensities is that you're trying to build and there are times when you, you dig deep and you burrow yourself and you really push the limits. But if you do that when you didn't want to do that, it will affect your recovery. It'll affect the next workout. It'll affect the next couple of days of workouts. And it's actually pretty difficult to then dig out of that hole that you just dug yourself. So a lot of what this training is here, especially for an Ironman in the middle of Texas

• 32:08Nick Bare?

  in summer.

• 32:10Nick Bare?

  Is that you are trying to control the variables that you can control? To build fitness? And facilitate this? This stimulus to? Build in throughout the prep? Without making dumb decisions like I have done? And burr yourself? To reduce your ability to recover? And hurt your progress?

• 32:36Nick Bare?

  There's a time and place to go hard and to push? But there's many more times and places and circumstances? To facilitate the environment to get better?

• 32:47Nick Bare?

  To get better, to improve? So you know, when you go into? A new prep or a training program? There is a couple of week? Acclimation period? Where your body is trying to adjust to the new stimulus? The new volumes, the intensities? Maybe the style of training? Like I haven't consistently been on a bike for a long time? Up until? You know, seven weeks ago? I haven't swam in a pool, like actually swam? For?

• 33:24Nick Bare?

  Like five years? So the beginning of a prep like this? It is reintroduction and acclimation? And you're not going to expect, or I don't expect to see? Results? Instantaneously? Or even within the first two, three, maybe even four weeks? But now, seven weeks in? I can feel? Fitness building? This past week? I had a staple workout of mine? Which is? 10 mile workout, two and a half mile warm up? 10 800 meter repeats? With 60 seconds of rest in between and then a 2.5 mile cooldown?

• 34:08Nick Bare?

  Now I want to clarify, I get this question a lot? What does that rest look like? It is me just standing there? 60 seconds of standing, waiting for the next rep? It's not a walk, it's not a slight jog? I rest, I stop? In between each one of those 800 meter repeats? That's a staple workout of mine, it's called Yasuo 800s. And I was holding about? Between a 535 and a 545 minute per mile pace on those 800s. That workout is a first workout, track workout where I could feel that everything was coming together.

• 34:47Nick Bare?

  I felt fast, I felt smooth, my gait felt strong, my leg turnover felt efficient. That was a big confidence booster. I was like, oh man, like, yeah, we're seven weeks in and now I'm building that fitness again. It's back, baby. The legs are back, the, the, the speed is back, the efficiency is there. It, it takes time, you know, it takes weeks, sometimes months to, to feel like things are starting to click. But when, when you program appropriately and you control volume and intensity and you build into it and you incorporate progressive overload, things start to come together and just like the snap of your fingers.

• 35:31Nick Bare?

  The way Jeff Cunningham explained it, it's like plate tectonics. It just all comes together and fits in perfectly. So as I mentioned, when I started this prep, 18 weeks out, I was at 16 hours of training per week. Now I'm at about 20 to 21 hours of training per week. That will still increase slightly by a few hours over these next couple of weeks as we get deeper into the prep.

• 36:01Nick Bare?

  I like to incorporate progressive overload. And that can be an increased volume of mileage

• 36:10Nick Bare?

  or time or intensity or time within certain zones. But it needs to be this stair stepper where you're not going from zero to 100 overnight. Over weeks, you're slowly building up to the peak and pinnacle of that build. And then you slowly start to decrease training volume into your taper into race week. Progressive overload, if done the right way, with the right stimulus is and you're training within the right zones. Fitness builds and it all comes together and then it starts to click. There's no better feeling when things just click. Like when I hit that first, second, third 800 meter repeat.

• 36:55Nick Bare?

  In this past workout, I was like, oh yeah. This is what it feels like for, for things to just fall into place as they are supposed to. That's a good feeling. I love that feeling. That's why I love the process of a build. That's why I love the reason it's called a build. You build into it.

• 37:16Nick Bare?

  Something I've been thinking about on these long runs too. For me at least.

• 37:24Nick Bare?

  Now everyone might be different, but for me at least, I have found that these long runs and these long bike rides are critical.

• 37:33Nick Bare?

  For an Ironman prep or even a marathon. And if you look at like, um, a training week right now, I'm running between 60 and 65 miles per week.

• 37:48Nick Bare?

  And what I'm being told by other triathletes is that's too much running, but I'll be honest. I, I like a lot of running. I love running. And I'm programming my Ironman prep. Based off the way that I love and enjoy training. And that's probably why I'm loving this prep so much is because. For one, I'm, I'm creating my own training program based off of what I know I need to work on and what I love doing. So it's like the best of both worlds.

• 38:17Nick Bare?

  So I'm running about 60 to 65 miles a week right now.

• 38:22Nick Bare?

  And my Saturdays are my long runs typically.

• 38:28Nick Bare?

  And I'll kind of, uh, teeter totter. Between every other week being a base week and then a build week. So for example, a base week will be 14 mile long run. And then I might go 14 miles, next week 15 miles, next week 14 miles, next week 16 miles. Next week 14 miles, next week 17 miles, next week 14 miles, next week 18 miles, next week 14 miles, next week 20 miles. That's the approach I like to take for the long run. Uh, and then same thing for long bike rides, slowly increasing the, the duration of these long bike rides.

• 39:11Nick Bare?

  So my first long bike ride a few weeks ago was three hours. Then I went to three and a half hours and now I'm going to be four hours and I'll go four and a half hours and I'll go five hours.

• 39:23Nick Bare?

  So as you can see, there's these trends where I'm slowly increasing all the aspects of training.

• 39:30Nick Bare?

  And that's one to just build fitness, but also mitigate risk of injury.

• 39:35Nick Bare?

  And I shared this in a recent YouTube video. But if you look at a training week of 65 miles.

• 39:43Nick Bare?

  If there were two options, one, option one.

• 39:48Nick Bare?

  You spread those 65 miles out over the course of six days evenly. Off the top of my head.

• 39:58Nick Bare?

  I guess that's like.

• 40:01Nick Bare?

  What 11 miles?

• 40:04Nick Bare?

  Roughly 11 miles a day.

• 40:08Nick Bare?

  That's option one. Option two. Is that you reduce the running mileage to say. Eight or nine, five days a week, then you have a long run on the weekend. For me personally, I have found that option two works better.

• 40:28Nick Bare?

  And that I get better results and I build better fitness and. I have stronger endurance when I have a big training session once a week. I don't think that I can replicate the same conditions. By spreading that volume out over the course of a week. As I can from getting one big run or one big bike ride each week.

• 40:54Nick Bare?

  The, the time on your feet, the volume, the amount of time you're sitting on the bike. Pedaling and spinning and just in the saddle. I don't think can be replicated or replaced by, at least for me. From what I found, spreading that training volume out over the course of six, seven days. So I'm a big believer in the weekly long run and the weekly big bike ride for Ironman prep. Now, one thing I do want to throw in there when it comes to. Running. And running shoes specifically.

• 41:29Nick Bare?

  So I I'm not affiliated with any shoe company. But the running shoes that I personally enjoy. My daily trainers are Saucony Endorphin Speed Fives. I love the threes. I love the twos. I love I love the twos. I love the threes. I really did not like the fours. I skipped out in the fours. I bought the threes as long as I could. And then Saucony released the fives and I like the fives. That's my daily trainer. The Saucony Endorphin Speed Fives now. And what I do is I buy two pairs at a time. And I wear one pair every other day. And they're two different colors, so I know, you know, which pair is which.

• 42:14Nick Bare?

  I have a yellow pair and I have a white pair. So Monday I wear, for example, the yellow pair, Tuesday, the white pair. Wednesday, yellow pair, Thursday, white pair. So on and so forth. I I rotate my shoes. So they they last longer and you give them some time to just like

• 42:34Nick Bare?

  decompress. You know, that foam gets pretty compressed daily, so just allow them to like decompress within forty eight hours. And then for speed workouts, I'm wearing a carbon plated shoe. That is the Saucony Endorphin Elites. That is the shoe that I ran my last marathon in two thousand twenty three, California International Marathon.

• 42:59Nick Bare?

  I love that carbon plated shoe. So that's like my go to speed workout shoe right now that I'll wear for tempo runs and then track workouts. But I wanted to share that little tip of just buying two pairs of shoes at one time in rotating every other day. I have found that to be very helpful. Now I want to talk about nutrition,

• 43:27Nick Bare?

  fueling, all the things because

• 43:32Nick Bare?

  man, when it comes to an Ironman prep, you're training twenty plus hours a week.

• 43:40Nick Bare?

  Training is part of it, obviously. Time management is part of it, obviously. Recovery is part of it. Nutrition and fueling might trump all of that. Side note to talk recovery real quick. I have found in this prep, maybe it's because I'm getting older. I just recently turned 35. I'm having to do a lot of active recovery that I didn't have to do five years ago. Five years ago, maybe being younger, maybe getting more sleep because we didn't have kids yet.

• 44:19Nick Bare?

  I felt like I could get away with not doing a lot of active recovery work. Now, I have to. So every Tuesday, we bring Dr. Jordan Tittle from Helix Sports Performance Medicine into BPN HQ and he works on the entire team. So I grab an hour in that day. He does cupping, dry needling, scraping, chiropractic, soft tissue massage. Game changer. I do that once a week with Dr. Jordan Tittle with Helix. He is the man and he brings me back to life. So that's one of the things that I'm doing for recovery, once a week.

• 45:04Nick Bare?

  I would love to do it twice a week, but just can't find the time and he can't come to BPN twice a week. I'm doing sauna and cold plunge just about every day. So I'll do a 15 minute, 15 to 20 minute sauna session, anywhere from 195 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit. And then I get the cold plunge for three minutes. Now, for the longest time, I mean years, I hated the cold plunge. As much as I wanted to love the cold plunge, I hated the cold plunge. We have three cold tubs here at BPN HQ. I have one in my house.

• 45:46Nick Bare?

  And

• 45:49Nick Bare?

  I started forcing myself to uh to do it. Our cold plunges are from Cold Creek tubs. They make incredible cold plunges. Cold Creek tubs. We have three here at BPN, like I said, one in my house. And when I got in this prep, I was like, I'm gonna use the cold plunge. And those first couple of sessions were painful. I hated every part of it. And everyone always told me, just be consistent with it and it gets easier. And you know what? You guys were right. I now can get in the cold tub with no problem. Three minutes, no problem.

• 46:32Nick Bare?

  Last night, before going to bed, I did a sauna late at night, right into the cold plunge for three minutes. I was kind of afraid that it would wake me up and keep me up. Because when I do it in the middle of the day, it's like a jolt of energy. But no, I didn't do that. I fell asleep so fast, so hard. But the sauna and cold plunge every single day. I use the Hyperice or Theragun massage guns on my calves, hamstrings and quads. And then every night, as I'm laying in bed or reading my Bible, I do the Normatec compression boots.

• 47:14Nick Bare?

  Thirty minutes to an hour session. And that's been like my recovery protocol. And like during the day, I just live in my cane recovery shoes. Just allows my toes to kind of like expand. I found that if I'm just wearing like lifestyle, running, tennis shoes during the day, and my feet are crammed into a shoe and my toes are compacted, my feet can't spread out and it actually limits my recovery. So I'll either just walk around barefoot, or I'll wear my cane recovery shoes, like I'm wearing my cane recovery shoes right now. And just allowing my toes to expand and feet move and grab the ground

• 47:58Nick Bare?

  has actually made a big difference in lower body recovery. So those are just some of the things that I'm doing for recovery right now. That was a side tangent, I want to get back to nutrition. So the first thing I want to address is that as we talk about progressive overload when it comes to training,

• 48:21Nick Bare?

  we have to apply progressive overload in the same way when it comes to fueling.

• 48:27Nick Bare?

  So if you have never fueled during training, in this case, let's talk about the bike. If you've never fueled on the bike during training, going from no fueling to say 85, 100 grams of carbs per hour right away, you may experience some sort of GI gastrointestinal distress or stomach issues. You have to train your gut in the same way you train your body. Just like you wouldn't go from zero miles to 65 miles a week, week one. You want to slowly build into that.

• 49:08Nick Bare?

  So for the first six weeks of prep, while I was on the bike, I was fueling with 65 grams of carbohydrates and 800 milligrams of sodium per hour.

• 49:21Nick Bare?

  Uh, now I've increased that. My body is very efficient at managing 65 grams of carbohydrates, 800 milligrams sodium per hour. No issues at all. Now I've increased that on the bike to 85 grams of carbohydrates and 1,000 milligrams of sodium per hour on the bike.

• 49:44Nick Bare?

  So what does that look like? Uh, when I was doing 65 grams of carbs per hour,

• 49:52Nick Bare?

  I was doing two scoops of G1M Sport and one Go Gel per hour, every hour on the bike. Now, uh, I'll be doing three scoops of G1M Sport and one Go Gel. Or I'll do two scoops of G1M Sport and two Go Gels per hour on the bike. And it gets me roughly to 85 grams of carbohydrates, give or take 1,000 milligrams of sodium, give or take, per hour.

• 50:26Nick Bare?

  I am pretty much living off of G1M Sport, G1M Sport Plus, Go Bars, Electrolytes, Go Gels, and Whey Protein.

• 50:37Nick Bare?

  On top of all the other food that I'm consuming right now. On like big training days, not my big, big training days, but on a big training day, I'm having anywhere from six to eight scoops of G1M Sport. Some of those scoops being G1M Sport Plus. On, on those same days, I'm having

• 50:59Nick Bare?

  four Go Gels, two Go Bars, a few scoops of electrolytes, depending on how much I sweat. And then to get some liquid calories in, weight protein and protein for, for recovery.

• 51:14Nick Bare?

  But I wanted to, to share that

• 51:18Nick Bare?

  in terms of progressive overload for nutrition in the same way that is applied to training. Cause just like your body and your central nervous system, you have to train your gut in the same way and capacity. So that's fueling around training, you know, the, the products that I'm using, the supplements, the BPN supplements that I'm using.

• 51:43Nick Bare?

  I still every morning look forward to my Go Bar. If you guys haven't tried the BPN Go Bar yet, you're missing out. I wake up, my alarm goes off at 4:15 a.m. The first thing I do, I jump out of bed and I go to the pantry and I eat a Go Bar. If, if it's a big training day, I will spread honey on the Go Bar.

• 52:06Nick Bare?

  And that takes it to a whole nother level and not just any honey. I go to the farmer's market in Austin, Texas, and we found this honey spot that makes churned honey. Churned honey, from what I've been told is like fermented honey where it gets thick and like creamy. You can get just regular, but they also have cinnamon. I will buy the churned cinnamon honey at the farmer's market. I spread that on a Go Bar. That at 4:15, maybe 4:17 a.m. Oh my, oh my, I look forward to that every single morning. This morning, for example,

• 52:47Nick Bare?

  Nika woke up at 3 a.m. and he was hungry. So I went out in the kitchen. I made him a bottle. And put him back to bed. As I was making him a bottle, I could feel my stomach rumbling a little bit. So I ate a go bar with churned honey on it at 3am this morning because it sounded so good. That is a product plug, yes, but I'm telling you, once you try the go bar, it's

• 53:18Nick Bare?

  it's life changing. It's so good. I look forward to it before every run, before every run, I do one go bar, sometimes with honey on it. Like I said, one scoop of G1M sport, one scoop of G1M sport plus. That's my pre-run fuel. Now, outside of supplements and fueling, let's talk overall nutrition.

• 53:43Nick Bare?

  Weight is falling off me faster than I'd like it to right now.

• 53:50Nick Bare?

  So I'm actually having to increase my calories. Now, I feel like I'm eating a lot right now. And what's really interesting about prep is because you're training multiple times throughout the day. So you have to get creative, especially when you're eating a lot of these calories from, I say, like whole, clean food sources. You have to get creative in the way that you get calories in, you prepare your foods, because you're, you're, you're planning for fueling upcoming workouts, but also optimizing for digestion. So a meal isn't sitting in your stomach. And then consuming those meals and foods around training and spacing it

• 54:34Nick Bare?

  out. So you're not having to eat, you know, three, 4,000 calories a night before going to bed. So I always have, going into a new day, I know when I'm training. And, and there's room for flexibility, but I typically know when and what I'm training, what I'm eating, when I'm eating it, what I'm fueling with, and how many calories I'm going to roughly consume by the end of the day. You have to have a game plan for that because if you don't and you fall behind, that will significantly impact recovery and performance.

• 55:09Nick Bare?

  Calories are ultimately king. So that's the way I think of it. Calories, number one, we gotta get the calories in to support training.

• 55:17Nick Bare?

  Then it's carbohydrates. Right now, I'm consuming anywhere from 700 to 800 grams of carbohydrates most days. And I'm not complaining about that because I love my carbs. A bowl or two of cereal at night before going to bed.

• 55:35Nick Bare?

  That's my jam right now.

• 55:38Nick Bare?

  But food choices, for me at least, matter. I feel better recovery wise, performance wise, when most of my foods are coming from these whole natural food sources and supplements. Uh, I'd rather foods that digest easily as opposed to just calorically dense foods. Again, I can go get 3,000 easy calories from a burger and fries, but that's gonna sit in my stomach. I'm not gonna feel really good the next morning or the next day. I'd rather consume more volume of food, as inconvenient as that can be sometimes, but

• 56:22Nick Bare?

  from better options, because I know how that makes me feel.

• 56:28Nick Bare?

  So when you're trying to consume most of your foods from these, I quote this, like clean sources, it does become more challenging because typically these sources are less calorically dense, usually. But I feel better when the food choices that I'm making are, in quotes, cleaner. Now technically, there's like clean foods, but you know what I'm saying here, right? More natural, whole ingredients.

• 57:01Nick Bare?

  But I am losing weight faster than I'd like to. So I'm having to increase my calories.

• 57:08Nick Bare?

  To make sure that I'm fueling my workouts. I'm recovering appropriately, but also I don't want to lose weight too fast. I don't really want to lose weight at all. I want to stay at the weight that I'm at. But it becomes challenging to get as many calories as you need. And also train and recover and do all the other things. It became, it becomes a game of Tetris. And a lot of times I'll resort to liquid calories. Orange juice or smoothies. I can get so many calories in with a smoothie. I'll do a smoothie with milk, oats, honey, dates, peanut butter, protein powder.

• 57:49Nick Bare?

  And you can load. Put some, some frozen fruit in there. You can load a smoothie. With a thousand plus calories easily. And it digest very quickly. And you can jump into training an hour after that. So I've been doing a lot of smoothies. At night, like I mentioned, I do my, uh, my bowl or two of cereal. And what's funny is a few months ago, we moved into our new house. We had this crew come out and they helped us to organize our pantry and our fridge and just like all the organizational spaces in our house.

• 58:32Nick Bare?

  And they asked, are we a cereal family? And at the time we said, no, we're not cereal people. We don't, we don't eat cereal. I haven't eaten cereal since I was in high school.

• 58:44Nick Bare?

  And, uh, me and Seth were just joking last week. Because now if you walk in our pantry, we, we have 10 boxes of cereal at any time. I personally like the Cascadian Farms cereal. It's an organic cereal. And they're all pretty good, but the one that I like is the cinnamon oat clusters.

• 59:08Nick Bare?

  It's so crunchy, it's sweet, it's cinnamony. After we put the kids down to sleep at night, I'll make a big bowl of that and I'll go sit on our front porch and I'll eat that bowl and it's just, it's good. We're cereal people now. Being in this prep, trying to get calories in, carbs in, oh yeah, we're cereal people. Steph even joins me. She's on a cereal train too. Not every night with me, but

• 59:39Nick Bare?

  most nights. Like two weeks ago, we went for sushi. One of our favorite sushi spots in Austin is called Neighborhood Sushi. And me and Steph love it. And we took Steph's mom for the first time ever. And we always get a bunch of nigiri. Nigiri and hand rolls. And we eat a lot.

• 1:00:01Nick Bare?

  Like when we order, I go down the list and I just watch the waiter or waitress's reaction as we're just ordering all of it. And we always consume it all. And we went for sushi recently and I ate so much nigiri and hand rolls. But it's so clean, it digests so, so fast. It's, I mean, nigiri is just rice and fish, raw fish. And I dip it in some ponzu and I got home after that meal and I was still starving and I had a massive bowl of cereal. Those carbs, baby. Those carbs will fuel you. Nutrition is the name of the game when it comes to Ironman prep.

• 1:00:46Nick Bare?

  So that's what I wanted to update you guys on. Some training stuff, some nutrition stuff. How this prep's going so far. We're a third of the way through and I'm loving it. I'm enjoying it. It's been fun. So much fun. Hope you guys are enjoying the series on YouTube. Like I said, new episode drops every Monday. 9 a.m. Central Standard Time. Appreciate the love and support and we'll see you guys in the next episode.