I’ve been plagued by calf strains the last few seasons, almost to the point of binning tri altogether. I’m building volume slowly following BarryP program with daily runs. In order to keep disciplined and not over do things, I’m running mainly on the treadmill at the prescribed speeds and distances.

I’ve aimed to maintain “run” fitness by doing HIIT work on the elliptical cross trainer. I’ve been doing five gym days a week with a 32 minute HIIT elliptical, ~40 minutes of weights and then the treadmill running on the end.

I get a really strong ammonia smell when I’m doing the HIIT workout, but not during normal runs. My longest run is only 50 minutes at the moment, so probably not long enough to force the body to scavenge aminos, but the HIIT workout does.

How much pre-workout feeding will help avoid this? A sandwich an hour before the gym? I don’t really use much in the way of energy drinks when training, but do use amino acid infra-workout drinks. I’m also running a calorie deficit and cleaning up my diet as I start being more focussed on my main race goal. Anyone else had this?