"I really try to use the time and an accessibility I have to create food that will bring out the best in me,” Lucy says. Being an athlete is all about discipline and consistency. We usually think of these in terms of training – getting out the door, whether we feel like it or not, day after day, week after week. How we eat is often religated to a secondary factor; nice, but not as valuable as the training part. Napolean Bonaparte's famous statement, "an army marches on its stomach", suggests otherwise – food is what carries us forward. And the more nutritious it is, the better we will perform. In this series of posts we explore how Suunto ambassadors and athletes keep their tanks fuelled. First up, Australian ultra runner Lucy Bartholomew shares her passion for a plant-based diet.   Running on a plant-based diet © Lucy Bartholomew Lucy Bartholomew, 22, recently completed the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run, and she did it on a vegan diet. This means she gets to eat lots of fruit and vege, her favorite thing next to being on the trail. “As an athlete I think that you are what you eat and the fuel you put into your engine is the performance you will receive so I really try to use the time and an accessibility I have to create food that will bring out the best in me,” Bartholomew says. “I love the way that different food and recipes work for different people, how you can share this form of culinary artwork and always give a unique twist with your own personality.”   Go to, easy meals The green smoothie, or “Shrek poo”, is one of Bartholomew's staple meals. Photo by Kimber Pine on Unplash.    “My favorite thing to create for myself and others is a Buddha bowl. You have probably never heard of it and that's the best thing about; it isn't anything specific it's just a bowl filled with goodness and plants. I usually enjoy some baked sweet potato in there, a bean of some sort, a nut-based salad dressing and an abundance of raw and cooked vegetables. “My morning go-to is a smoothie bowl that is a thick smoothie made with frozen bananas and is usually green because I add spinach and other vegetables to keep my body loaded with nutrients. I usually top this with more fruit, nuts and seeds.”   Having the essentials on hand “I have learned about the importance of being organized and making time to prepare food,” Bartholomew says. “I always carry with me my ‘essentials’ that I can easily survive off on the go. These things include rolled oats, greens powder, nut butter and nutritional yeast. Along with these, I pick up and whatever fruit and vegetables I can get my hands on and then I'm a very happy little camper.”   Direct from the earth “I really believe that 'you are what you eat' and the more you can eat directly from the earth, and without the packaging, the better the food will make you thrive.”   Lucy's Buddha bowl One of Bartholomew's Buddha bowls. © Lucy Bartholomew IngredientsSweet potato, chopped in chunksRed cabbage, roughly choppedCarrot, gratedBeetroot gratedChickpeas, drained and rinsedCooked rice/quinoaBroccoli, any veg!TurmericCayenne pepperSalt and pepperHummusTahini, miso, turmeric dressingYou could also add some boiled eggs, meat, tofu, fish Method Bake the sweet potato in the oven at 180° C for 30 minutes. I like to bake my potato without oil, but if you like it a bit moister then add some oil. Place drained chickpeas onto a baking tray and sprinkle with some turmeric, cayenne pepper, salt or any spice you choose. Roll them around to pick up all the spice and flavors and also place in the oven with the sweet potato for 20 minutes or until crispy. Steam any vegetables or prepare other veggies you have decided to use. Place cabbage, beetroot, carrot and cooked grains, additional veg into a serving bowl. Add sweet potato and chickpeas when ready. Top with hummus, tahini dressing or your own versions! And enjoy!     Lead image: Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash.

With the XTERRA World Championships rapidly approaching in just over a month many athletes are hoping to have their best race. They are looking at their training and performances to this point and deciding what it all will mean when they toe the line. Part of what makes XTERRA racing so exciting is that there are so many variables on race day.   This also makes it challenging to set goals and to compare performances from one year to the next.   Josiah Middaugh is a champion and a certified trainer. (Image by XTERRA)   Races are not competed on paper   We often talk about training metrics and how to use them to guide your training. They can help define training targets, gauge progress, and give you confidence heading into races. However, races are not competed on paper. This is especially true in XTERRA where technical skills and grit can play major roles in the outcome. There is no resume submission and it doesn’t matter what your functional threshold power is if you don’t deliver on race day.   Nothing more, nothing less   One thing that separates many top performers from the rest is both the ability to put in the quality work and the discipline to hold back on easier or shorter days. Time and time again the athletes I coach who make the most progress are those that follow the workouts to the “T.”   This doesn’t mean blindly following the workouts, but also logging the training, giving feedback, and being engaged in the process. Key workouts are challenging and one way to tell if someone is overreaching is whether or not the workouts can be completed at the proper intensity. If you are always carrying around a hefty load of cumulative fatigue and the thought of a structured threshold makes you feel ill, then you might be overreaching with too much unnecessary volume or going to hard on your easy days.   The whole is greater than the sum of the parts   XTERRA is about more than simply swimming, biking, and running. It is not made up of stand-alone events, rather a series of consecutive tests of your speed, power, skill and endurance. Fatigue is cumulative and so is the brain strain. Staying in the moment and focused on the task at hand becomes increasingly difficult as the race progresses. It might help to compartmentalize each section of the race, but know that each leg of the race is not entirely independent.   We are what we repeatedly do   Key sessions around race intensity train the body and the mind. Do you consistently finish the hardest workouts on your schedule each week or do you cut them short when they get “hard”? Do you start out too hard in all of your interval sessions and end up cutting power by the end? Despite all of the angst leading up to a race, know that once the gun goes off, the body will respond in the way it has been taught through repetition. Don’t expect a race to feel easy, expect it to be your biggest physical and mental challenge. If you feel like you don’t have legs at the start of the bike, don’t throw in the towel. Dig deeper, narrow your focus, rise to the occasion and stay present. Draw strength from the sessions you have completed in training even when conditions were not ideal.   Racing is about the intangibles   As a coach, I really like using field tests and lab tests for many reasons, but racing ability moves beyond the objective data. The ability to rise to perform on race day is hard to predict. I bet if you took field test data from top 5 performers overall and the same goes for the podium in each age group, you still would have a hard time predicting finish order. Many triathletes find initial success by out-training others.   However, don’t leave your best performances in training, at the local track workout, or on a Strava segment. The goal is not to out-exercise your competition, but to perform when it counts. Be honest with yourself and don’t pad the training log with junk miles that are only serving up fatigue but not contributing to overall fitness, especially as your key competition nears. Out of insecurity, the tendency is to test yourself one final time before race day with what I term a self-sabotage workout. No pre-packaged excuses like “I’m training through this race” or “I put in 20 hours this week.” Fuel off others thrive on competition.   The evolution of a champion goes something like this: ● Train to train● Train to compete● Compete to win   Race to YOUR potential   A race decides who is the best on that one day. I used to think that I needed an extraordinary performance to reach my race goal, or I needed to go beyond my potential. If your expectations reside somewhere in reality, then you are actually just looking for a performance that you are already capable of. You want to get the most out of yourself on this one day. Nothing more, nothing less.     Josiah Middaugh is the reigning and two-time XTERRA Pan America Tour Champion, a 12x XTERRA US National Champ, and the 2015 XTERRA World Champion. He has a masters degree in kinesiology and has been a certified personal trainer for 18 years (NSCA-CSCS).This blog post was originally published on Middaugh Coaching Corner at xterraplanet.com. 

Part of being an explorer is being away from home for long stretches. “Some people say that the two greatest times in the life of an explorer are leaving home and coming home,” Suunto ambassador Jill Heinerth says. “We will each feel loneliness and perhaps regret about moments away from those we love.” “We feel an overwhelming imperative to document and share,” Jill Heinerth says. But there are important reasons, sometimes for the greater good, that compel Heinerth and her peers to explore the ends, and depths of the planet. “We feel an overwhelming imperative to document and share,” she says. “When we have a chance to do really good work, telling important stories for humanity, then we are at the top of our game. Adventure fuels our souls.” Telling an important story for humanity is behind Heinerth recently spending months in Greenland and the Canadian north. She has been on three expeditions to the Arctic to capture footage for an upcoming documentary film about the effects of climate change, called Under Thin Ice. She says the loss of sea ice is changing everything. “The Arctic is warming faster than any other place on earth, so the changes are quite remarkable, even from year to year,” Heinerth says. “We learn from indigenous people that there are many new things they must adapt to. The sea ice disappears earlier each year. The multi-year ice is lessening and the migrations of fish and mammals are changing with the warming temperatures. “Atlantic cod move further north into the territory of Arctic cod, competing for food. Bowhead and humpback whales are now seen in the same place at the same time. They used to arrive at different times, spread out by a couple of weeks. If everyone arrives at the buffet at the same time will they wipe out the food stocks? We know for sure that everything is changing.” The sea ice disappears earlier each year. Human-caused climate change is also impacting dive conditions, making it more challenging for Heinerth to do her job. “The bay in Ilulissat was filled with smaller bergs than normal, but it was choked with rapidly melting ice,” she says. “The freshwater mixes with seawater, creating a halocline that is difficult to focus through.” “The melting ice also fizzes, filling the water with tiny bubbles. At times, we were in magically beautiful ice environments that were difficult to film. Warmer ocean temperatures also spawn more green algae that affects visibility.” "It can take weeks or months of waiting to get the single opportunity for a great shot.” “Any time you film marine mammals, there is a challenge of first finding them and then finding good and safe conditions for filming them. It can take weeks or months of waiting to get the single opportunity for a great shot.” Heinerth, however, encountered more than enough wildlife for the documentary. On one day she got particularly lucky. Here is a passage from her journal on lucky day seven of her expedition to Nunavut, Canada’s northernmost territory: Yesterday’s impossibly dangerous mess of jumbled ice is today’s floe edge, where ice meets the ocean. We are able to walk right to the margin and peer down into the black water. It is alive with narwhals and belugas. I spot a rare bowhead whale and we run for the cameras to try to capture the sight. The sounds are intense. Deep breathing and forced exhalations fill the air with moist spouts from dozens of blowholes. I can see narwhal intermingling with belugas and can hear the canary chirps of the white whales. Groups of seven or eight are huddled together on the surface talking and breathing up to prepare for a dive under the ice which appears to be about four to six feet thick. Follow Jill Heinerth’s adventures on IntoThePlanet.com. And visit the official Facebook page for more information about the documentary Under Thin Ice. GET BEHIND THE SCENES OF FILMING "UNDER THIN ICE"

© Mike Board When an earthquake struck Indonesia in August, Kate Middleton’s home on the island Gili Trawangan (neighbouring Bali) was shaken, but not destroyed. “We were lucky to have very little damage, just a couple of walls in the yoga hall,” she says. The 30-year-old Canadian-New Zealander owns a yoga studio, freediving school and organic cafe on the island. It’s in the clear waters, teeming with exotic marine life, around the island that Middleton trains as a competitive freediver. Click here to donate to the Lombok Earthquake Support effort underway. She wasn’t on Gili when the earthquake struck; she was thousands of kilometers away on a different island: Greece’s rock climbing mecca Kalymnous, in the southeastern Aegean sea. “In 2015, I gifted myself a trip here to learn to rock climb,” the gold medalist says. “I did a beginners and intermediate course back to back, and was totally hooked. The following summer I returned and stayed for two months, climbing almost every day. Now I’m back again.” © Kalyja Rain Beginner’s mind Currently working on climbing a grade 6c route, Middleton is focused on cultivating presence on her climbs, rather than being concerned about numbers and statistics. Competition freediving demands, structured, disciplined training, and what she calls a “monofocus”. “What I love about both trail running and rock climbing is it’s really easy for me to maintain a ‘beginners mind’ with them,” Middleton says. Here are her four reasons rock climbers should learn freediving © Kate Middleton 1. Relaxing into it The biggest challenge for people new to freediving is learning to relax. “Most of us know how to push and force our way into things, instead of knowing how to relax into our power,” Middleton says. In freediving, relaxation is key for being able to dive deeply on a single breath. Relaxation calms the breath and reduces the heart rate, which conserves oxygen. Tension, stress, force increase the heart rate, wasting energy and oxygen. “I see where that crosses over into climbing,” she says. “I’ve seen my friends practically float up 50 m overhangs, and I feel they are relaxing into their ability, rather than forcing it. I also see a lot of climbers who climb in a different way, that is more aggressive, and that doesn’t seem to be as efficient or enjoyable.” Click here to read more about Middelton’s yoga and freediving journey. 2. Breathing well “Freediving gives you a really great awareness of your breathing and breathing patterns,” Middleton says. “Any time the breath is getting out of balance, maybe due to stress, it’s very easy to pick up on that. This has helped me a lot when I’m climbing. I notice when I’m in the crux of a climb, or when fear starts to edge in, and I start to hold my breath. I then take some deeper breaths, with a steadier rhythm, and then I come back to presence and can continue climbing.” 3. Mastering fear “Freediving has given me such a sensitivity to what’s happening with me. Because relaxation is so critical for freediving, especial deep diving, I can see so clearly how fear manifests in the body and how tension escalates. If I can catch it early, then it’s a lot easier to regulate and work with.” 4. Finding your power When most people hear about freediving it seems a little mad, dangerous, even suicidal. But in actual fact, learned properly, it is a safe sport that shows us we can do so much more than we believe. “What I’ve learned from freediving is this body is so capable,” Middleton says. “I know without me having to understand it, that my body knows how to adapt and wants to adapt. I thrive in these environments that aren’t our everyday comfortable spaces. That gives me a lot of trust.” True grit Middleton says it’s not only freediving helping her to climb, but vice versa, too. “I’m getting more grit from the climbing,” she says. “When I fall, it hurts a bit more. I have to want it more to get over the crux of a climb. I fail a lot more. It would be easy for me to give up and say it’s beyond me, and stick to easy climbs. I’m learning to tap into the inner determination and fire that really wants to overcome the hurdle.” Lead image: © Mike Board More stories about freediving: Learning the joy of freediving. Is the ultimate cross-training ... breathing? The one thing every freediver needs. How deep can we go?

At Suunto headquarters in Finland we try to practice what we preach. Which is why we have an in-house personal trainer to motivate us all to stay fit and healthy. Matias Anthoni, 26, roams the offices, dropping by rooms, calling on us to get up and to join him for short exercise breaks on the spot. Resistance is futile! Matias sees stairs as an opportunity to stay active. “My job is to maintain the health and wellbeing of everyone at Suunto,” the former footballer turned trail runner says. “Everyone who works for the company can use me free of charge. I offer group exercise classes, personal sessions, nutritional advice, and random exercise breaks. Everyone understands it’s a great opportunity.” Matias has a Bachelor in Sports and Health Promotion, and believes there are many opportunities throughout the day for office workers to take care of their bodies and minds. Here are his tips: 1. Everything counts Remember this phrase and make it your mantra. It cuts through all the excuses about not having time. Sometimes we get stuck in an “all or nothing” mindset; if we can’t, for example, go for an hour long run or a full gym workout, we don’t do anything at all, failing to see the possibilities that are often right in front of our faces, and don’t take much time. Matias says it’s about thinking laterally, and making everything count. 2. Three x three minutes Take three, three-minute exercise breaks a day. Set a timer on your phone, and do it. Invite your colleagues to join you. To get you started, here’s a short video of Matias demonstrating a few simple movements – try them! “Getting the blood flowing is good for the brain,” Matias says. 3. Go out of your way When you need to go to the bathroom or get water or coffee, rather than going to the closest option, get in some extra movement and take an extra flight of stairs to do what you need on a floor above or below. Go out of your way for the sake of a little extra movement. It all counts. 4. Have walking meetings When you have a simple catch up meeting that doesn’t require technology, why not make it a walk and talk? Aside from the movement, people are generally less distracted and more engaged at a walking meeting. You’ll breathe better, and will feel more energized. 5. Use your lunch breaks wisely Have a 25 or 30-minute workout before you have lunch and you’ll have more energy for the rest of your day. It could even be 15 minutes. Remember, everything counts. Do what you can, rather than getting stuck in what you can’t. “Studies show a small amount of exercise goes a long way,” Matias says. 6. Create team challenges Try to create a culture where you encourage one another to stay active. Create a challenge to see which department or team can do the most pull-ups in a month, or can walk the most steps in a month. 7. Plan your day When you plan your day in advance you will know when you have windows for exercise or movement breaks. Planning means you are more likely to take advantage of these. Lock them in, and make them count.

Melissa Hauschildt started running cross country and track and field when she was 11, earning her a place on the Australian team when she was only 15. At the 2006 Commonwealth games she came second in the 3000 m steeplechase.   Her promising running career took a hit in 2010 when an injury forced her to skip the Commonwealth Games. Denied her sport, she quickly improvised and got herself a bike.   “My original goal was to keep fit because I could not run at that time, but I fell in love with cycling,” Hauschildt says. “I was actually thinking of moving to cycling, but I still liked running as well. In triathlon I could do both!”   Cycling came quite naturally to her.   “I jumped on the bike, joined a cycling club and started riding with all the guys. I was keeping up with them.”   Transitioning to triathlon turned out to be the right decision; that year she came second at the Ironman 70.3 Asia Pacific Championships, in Phuket Thailand, and the following year won every race she entered.   We recently caught up with Hauschildt and asked her a few questions about the transition to triathlon. Mel Hauschildt on her way to winning the Ironman 70.3 European Championship title in Denmark in June 2018.   Is running still your strongest discipline?   “I tend to think I am a stronger cyclist than I am a runner because I base my running on what I did when I was a runner. But in comparison to other triathletes I guess it’s still in running where I make the biggest gains on them.”   Do you have some advice to runners who start cycling?   “It seems that my running transferred across to the bike. I know that is not the case for all people. Some runners can’t ride at all.”   “One thing I did very early in my triathlon career is that I rode a lot and really backed off the running because I had running injuries. Getting all that base on the bike helped my running as well: there’s a lot less injury chance on the bike.”   A big challenge in triathlon is running well off the bike. How have you approached that?   “Practice it in training! The first time I ran after the bike, and only for half an hour, I was like, ‘I cannot do this!’” My legs were heavy and I was fatigued. But the more you do it, you just get used to running with heavy, fatigued legs and it starts to feel normal and you get better at it.   “You don’t need to do a race-like transition. Your legs will still be fatigued for quite a while. I just put my bike away, some running shoes on and go.   “I do three brick sessions a week and run off the bike. That really helps. Sometimes I get out the door and bolt off like it is a race. Other times I’ll just jog out and it’s just time on my legs off the bike.”   Hauschildt’s husband and coach Jared Hauschildt gives his advice: “We practice each different stimulus: a long bike and a short run, but also a long run off a short bike so you get used to running a long time off the bike. The third one is usually a hard bike followed by a hard run.”   Mel says that she has played quite a bit with her position on the bike recently.   Do you have some bike set up tips that makes running easier after the bike?   Jared: “There are so many different schools of thought, but generally if you go too far forward your quads get drilled and if you go too far back your hamstrings cramp on the run,”Jared explains. “Everyone is so different. Some people can adapt to really aerodynamic positions and still be fine, others will feel terrible and even on the bike they can’t push and breathe properly because they are all cramped up.   Melissa: “I think comfort is the most important. Aerodynamics plays a part, but if you are not comfortable you are not gonna ride fast, and if you are too cramped you are not going to run well.”   Do you ride on the road bike too or mostly on your tri bike?   Melissa: “I ride a lot on my road bike, probably four to five times a week. “Only the specific time trial sessions I do on my triathlon bike.   “I did some bike racing before I switched to triathlon. It’s fun, but such a different sport. It’s so tactical. The fastest person doesn’t always win and that’s what turned me away from going to cycling. I want an individual sport where the strongest person wins!”   Comfort is the key in bike set up, says Mel Hauschildt.   Are there some specific workouts you’d suggest for runners?   Jared: “We like to touch all bases with hill reps, fast riding, long riding, tempo riding, and spiking watts during a group ride. None of them are more important than the other because you really need to get endurance and you really need speed and you need the power.   “We do five minute efforts that are way above 70.3 power to get used to going really hard. Then we do 20 or 30 minute efforts at 70.3 pace.”   Melissa: “Then we do long slow rides that are all about getting the miles in the legs.”   What’s the goal with those above race-pace efforts?   Jared: “You can get to exhaustion quicker. If you want to practice the last 30 minutes of a 70.3 bike you can drill the legs with a few five-minute reps and be absolutely spent and think you have nothing left and then do a 20 minute time trial effort at race pace. In Ironman training you can do some big hill reps and destroy your legs and then ride 40 minutes at Ironman pace.”   “The high intensity quickly takes you to the point where you think you can’t ride another 10 minutes, rather having to reach that by riding 180 km every time.”   “The same principle reduces injury risk in running: if you go out and run six 1 km reps really fast and then run at Ironman pace for 20 minutes you will all of a sudden be at that point where you are completely fatigued like at the end of a marathon. But you didn’t have to do 20 km at race pace and risk injury to get there.”     READ ALSO 8 ESSENTIAL RUNNING FORM DRILLS MEET MEL HAUSCHILDT, ONE THE WORLD'S BEST TRIATHLETES