Base Performance and the Institute of New Medicine

Tonight I went to a talk by Chris Lieto. He founded Base Performance Nutrition, which has expanded from an amino supplement and water additive to include salt and a recovery pill. The recovery activator is what I’m most excited about. This was formerly distributed by The Institute of New Medicine, which is where I go for all my “make my body work and recover and feel better” needs. Actually,  really can’t recommend inewmed enough to anyone with the ability to use their services. Chris Lieto has been working with Inewmed for years for his own health needs, but recently Base Performance partnered with Inewmed to help develop products together. The pills, which are the same as they used to be under the Inewmed label, are the single best supliment I’ve ever used. And now that Base Performance is distributing them, they’re much more available. The greatest part, is that the product may be new to Base Performance, but i’ve been using it long enough to say with certainty that it’s worth making it a part of your daily sport nutrition diet.

The talk itself was great. This is the second time I’ve heard Chris Lieto speak to a group. The first time was at Endurance PTC in San Francisco. Both times he told us about his first triathlon: the Vineman 70.3 (though back in the stone ages when he raced it wasn’t called “70.3”). Thing is, he “won” the race, which isn’t the point of the story. The point of his story is to talk about how important mental power can be because he was poorly trained for the race, and it was a result of determination and mental preparation for the race that allowed him to outrace his bodies ability at his first triathlon. Like I said, Chris tells this story without being pretentious, and adds the “win” as an afterthought. The problem is, when I first heard it I thought he really “won” the race. Like the overall title. The everything. And that shocked the hell out of me. Tonight, however, he added two words to his afterthought: “age group”. I’m assuming I just didn’t hear them the first time I heard him speak, but those two words make a HUGE difference.

Now I’m leaving the topic of Lieto for a short rant to all the age group triathletes out there. I love that our sport has a thousand ways that you can “win” – from age group, to masters, to grand masters, to Clydesdale and Athena – but please don’t confuse that with an overall win! The only time we should leave of those modifiers is when nobody else did the same race faster on that day – i.e. overall.

Then again, it would be fun to say I “won” my first (and only) 70.3 back in 2005 (I was 23rd and got chicked by some girl in pink, but was still 1st in my age group!).