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Fuel for Thought Series: Gut Training and Race Day Execution with Nick Kleban
85 Plays4 months ago
You may be asking yourself why this episode is titled “Fuel for Thought”. Any guesses?
I mean if you know me, you know I love a good old play on words, hence the name of this new series that I’ve produced with Xact Nutrition.
Athletes train for hours, work with coaches on technique, join workout groups and sign up for big challenges but one of the things we feel could be overlooked by athletes that is so critical, is education regarding nutrition and how it helps you perform.
So we’ve put together a multi episode series to discuss specific topics pertaining to just that,
in hopes that you come away with more in depth knowledge and a better understanding of nutrition.
On this episode of Just In Stride, Fuel for Thought Edition, we learn how to train our gut and execute our fueling plan on race day with Nick Kleban.
We go in depth on what it actually means to train your gut and how athletes can go about doing that effectively so they’re ready on the day of their event.
Fueling is as important as the physical training itself no matter what endurance sport you choose. You can train as well as you want but if you want to optimize your performance on race day, you have to go with your gut.
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Offer from Xact Nutrition: This episode is presented by our friends at Xact Nutrition and they are offering you 15% OFF your order when you use the code JUSTINSTRIDE. So head to xactnutrition.com and fuel your goals today! Now shipping in Canada and the U.S.
Thanks for tuning in to the Just In Stride Podcast. I truly appreciate you taking the time to listen and I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Please take a minute after this to rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts. With your feedback we’ll be able to make the show even better and it’ll help us reach new listeners too. You can also find us on Instagram @justinstridepod and YouTube @justinstridepod for all the latest episodes and updates. Glad you came along for the ride with Just In Stride!
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Transcript
Introduction to Justin's Drive Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to the Justin's Drive podcast. I'm your host, Justin Puyese. If you love endurance sports, you've definitely come to the right place. On this show, we'll talk to athletes, coaches, and professionals who can help us reach our true potential. Being a student of distance running for over 10 years and interviewing people in the sport for the last five, I've learned a ton, but there's always more to discover. Everyone has a story, and I know you'll resonate with each of our guests as we embark on this new journey together. Join us at home, on the road, or while you run. Together we'll have some fun.
Sponsorship and Listener Engagement
00:00:39
Speaker
So follow along on Instagram at Just In Stride Pod and your favorite podcast platform and prepare to be inspired. Come along for the ride with Just In Stride.
00:00:51
Speaker
This episode is presented by our friends at Exact Nutrition, a tasty and healthy way for you to fuel your body before, during, and after a solid training session. I can't leave the house without a few fruit bars in my pocket and they never make it back home. Exact is offering you 50% off your order when you use the code justinstride. So head to exactnutrition.com and fuel your goals today. You may be asking yourself why this episode is titled Fuel for Thought. Any guesses? I mean, if you know me, you know I love a good old play on words, hence the name of this new series I've produced with Exact Nutrition. Athletes train for hours, work with coaches on technique, join workout groups, and sign up for big challenges, but the one thing we feel could be overlooked by athletes that is so critical is education regarding nutrition and how it helps you perform.
00:01:42
Speaker
So we've put together a multi-episode series to discuss specific topics pertaining to just that, in hopes that you come away with a more in-depth knowledge and a better understanding of nutrition.
Interview: Gut Training for Athletes
00:01:52
Speaker
On this episode of Justin Stride, we learn how to train our gut and execute our fueling plan on race day with Nick Klayman. We go in-depth on what it actually means to train your gut and how athletes can go about doing that effectively, so they're ready on the day of their event. Fueling is as important as the physical training itself, no matter what endurance sport you choose. You can train as well as you want, but if you want to optimize your performance on race day, you have to go with your guy. Nick, welcome back to Justin Stripe Pod for this
00:02:26
Speaker
Special series that we're doing fuel for thought. Uh, we decided to have you back as the first one went so great. So this one will be around pre-race gut training and race day strategies, um, around fueling because I think it's just a super important topic. It's something that becomes ah it's an afterthought. I think when people get into the sport or even years after training, as we were saying before we can start recording. So I'm super pumped to talk to you about it. Yeah, me too. Honestly, the first one was like a super good time. And I just got a like a little bit of a glimpse of what we'll talk about today. And I think it's actually something that is really practical for a lot of people to like go through how to actually go about planning their nutrition around their races. I think there's a lot of abstract going on in this like space, but I think today we're going to try to like nail down a couple of things that you could do at home.
00:03:19
Speaker
And maybe for people who didn't see the first episode that we did ah in this series, um, can you just describe like who you are, what you do, and why you're interested in the subject in the first place? Yeah, for sure. So I'm pretty, I'd say immersed in the world of sport. I race myself for hustle pro cycling, which is one of like Canada's top road teams. I have a bachelor's from McGill and physiology. So it's kind of like a passion of mine. I do some cycling coaching. I work in like the running industry too. So I'm kind of just like all over kind of this area. um So it's it's for me, like I'm not like a nutritionist, but I'm just really like into ah figuring out how that like intersection between what you eat and how you perform kind of like overlap.
00:04:05
Speaker
And in the first ah conversation that we had you talking about how much you, like leading into this conversation, how much fuel you actually take in per hour. And I, since then, attempted at least to to to put in practice what you do per hour, what how much you consume per hour, which is, I think it was 90 grams of carbs per hour, ah which when I look it down at my fuel, i'm I'm looking at the back of the packages, and it's It's a lot. So how do we get there? you know What is gut training when it comes to preparing for an event that we're doing, when we're when we're training for them, and you know what does it actually mean? Yeah, exactly. so like
00:04:48
Speaker
i think like the terms like training your gut, it, it basically means just like gradually getting your digestive system accustomed to like consuming high quantities of what you want in your race. So I think a lot of the time we're talking about carbohydrates, but that could also be fluids. It could be like electrolytes. Um, you know, anything that you think you would maybe want to be taking on in a race scenario, you're trying to just prepare your body to do that in training, just like you would like to train your paces or train your, your power output if you're cycling.
00:05:19
Speaker
You know, it's, it's just something that you have to train. You can't just jump into that 90 grams of carbs an hour. And so like, how do we even begin to start? Like for somebody that didn knows zero about nutrition, I think um obviously when we enter into the sport of running or the, you know, triathlon could be cycling. For myself anyways, i just it's it's like an afterthought nutrition and recovery and all these other topics, but like for today's conversations, it's nutrition. So um you know how where do we begin to even put that into practice?
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
Nutrition's Role in Sports Performance
00:06:01
Speaker
Like what we just said, like before recording, it's like, you're not going to like dial in your nutrition and then start a sport. Like you're likely going to start the sport and then figure out that nutrition is super important to like do it at your best level. So that that's just a logical approach. But like once you hit that point in the sport that you like realize that, okay, like I need to, uh, fuel myself in a way to keep getting better at this. Like I think that's the point that a lot of people hit. You kind of need to first identify, okay, like what is it that is going to make me better at this sport? Like what will I do to change my nutrition? That's going to like help my performance on the bike or running or swimming, you know, whatever you're doing. I think a lot, what we'll talk about today is like the carbohydrate, carbohydrate consumption. Cause that's more what I believe in is like, you know, fueling for the work that you need to do.
00:06:53
Speaker
other people they believe in like you know manipulating carbohydrates the other way maybe like restricting a bit there's some evidence that but for me I'm someone who kind of thinks like okay let's like fuel for what we want to do you can do a little bit more work as you train and then you should see the benefits from that so with that in mind I find that you kind of need to first get a baseline of like okay about how much should I be consuming before my gut is trained because that I think that starting point can be Like almost hard to identify because you're just like, okay, like if you don't have any information on like sports science or nutrition, like you wouldn't know where to start. You may think like, okay, like a Gatorade is good for this ride. Like ru I was just talking about.
00:07:37
Speaker
someone I overheard in like a gravel race. The race was seven hours. This guy's a very good cyclist, but he had like four gels in the whole race and completely exploded. like And like maybe that's logical for someone who's in sport, but for another person that is like, you might not see something wrong with that because you just don't know. um So I think in our last podcast, we talked a little bit about like this idea that you want to manipulate your carbohydrates based on like the duration that you're doing and the intensity. And so as you, you know, maybe do ah your sport for longer, you're probably going to up your carbohydrate. If the activity is a bit more intense, you're probably going to up your carbohydrates. If you're thinking about like a graph with like duration on the X axis, intensity on the Y axis. If you're doing a race really long, really intense, you're going to want to have a lot of carbs per hour. That's how I kind of look at it.
00:08:34
Speaker
Um, I know this is, again, i'm I'm going so abstract, but I'd say like the start point for a lot of people is I like to say, if you've never really been eating in sport, try to go with like 60 grams per hour. If you're going to start to do longer, more intense workouts. Um, I think it's, uh, it's circumstantial, of course. Like that's 60 grams. I think like.
Managing Nutrition for Long Events
00:09:03
Speaker
That like, when I say 60 grams, I think that's like particularly important for activities that's lasting longer than like two hours. Because what we talked about last time, if people didn't listen in is like, you basically have a finite about of glycogen in your muscles and your liver. That's what's your body's going to use first to power your efforts. Like that's what it uses to make energy. So, but you have basically a finite store of that, that can last you one to two hours.
00:09:33
Speaker
So if you're doing like a short one to two hour event, you could probably use a lot of that and be okay. It's just this fueling. We're more talking about beyond that two hours. Once you're at risk of tapping out that glycogen. Um, so that's, you know, to basically say this training the gut, this is really important for those longer efforts.
00:09:56
Speaker
So this means that you shouldn't be training your gut like every single training session that you have. No, not so not necessarily. Like I think it's, it's super important to like incorporate gut training to like mimic your like key sessions, like your longer, more intense session. It's going to mimic that race condition. Cause that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get your body accustomed to what you'll do in the race. So if you, when you eat the food, you can actually take the energy, but like not every section is going to need that because you don't like for one, you just simply don't need it. If you're doing an hour recovery ride, I would never tell someone to have 90 grams of carbs.
00:10:34
Speaker
on a recovery ride, you just, you simply don't need that, that energy consumption. Um, and also you just don't need to overload your gut as well. Cause that's where you get some GI distress and and other things. So I think gut training, the way I think about it is like, if I'm race training, I'm probably gut training too. So if you're trying to like simulate, you know, let's say it's a marathon, you're doing a big, you're long run on the weekend. And you're doing a big training. Well, you also want to be fueling during that long run to get used to burning that fuel at such an intensive that mimics marathon racing. Yeah, exactly. Like you're trying to.
00:11:17
Speaker
like just simulate that scenario where you need to consume food fluids while being at a high intensity level and so that's like one benefit of it is like of course you just want to be really efficient as when you're working hard you can still take the energy but also if you're going to do something that intense the high carbohydrate consumption helps with your recovery as well like even when you're doing the exercise you're just you won't be ending that session like with zero muscle glycogen, liver glycogen because you're not just tapped out. So you're kind of thinking like you're taking care of your body by making sure that that store is you know staying topped up and you're also training your ability to use what you're eating. And how long do you think it takes for the gut to adapt to
00:12:09
Speaker
consuming that, that fuel and, and should it also be in a done in progressive way? Yeah, absolutely. Like also like, is it like on the hour I got to take 60 or should I be taking two by, you know, fifty let's say 50, 60. Cause like, you know, any kind of gel or bar has like between 20, 25 grams. of carbs, so it should be like every 30, 40 minutes I grabbed one or should I just cram it down on the hour? you know Yeah. Yeah. Those are great questions. Like, so I think that for the first thing, it's like, okay, how long does it take to actually train your gut? I used to think like, this was like something that takes a really long time to do just because I felt like, okay, we're doing like, you know, some decent adaptations going on here in your intestines to actually absorb all this sugar.
00:12:59
Speaker
But it's actually something that kind of adapts over the course of like days and weeks rather than like months and years. So your your body is actually very good at flipping the switch and realizing, OK, I need this energy. It's going to like preserve itself. So the adaptations are relatively quick, which is good for athletes. um Secondly, I'd say the like in the manner of taking carbs, Like I, like most, I'd say like research, if you like look into it is going to say, you probably want to space out your carbohydrate consumption on that ride. You don't want to like overload too much at once. A lot of people will like adhere to like, okay, every 20 minutes, let's say I'm doing 90 grams an hour. So I'll say like every 20 minutes I'm doing 30 grams so and then you're going to get your 90. Um,
00:13:44
Speaker
I find that works great in training. Like you're spacing out your carbs. You have a continuous source of energy. My practical advice is like in a race, you may not be able to like, just basically like if you're doing like a mountain bike race, let's say, I like this example because like if the terrain is like so technical that you have your hands on the handlebars and you're riding the course, you can't really like take your hand off and smack a gel because it's been 20 minutes. So I believe in racing, you know, you, you kind of eat when the course or your competition allows you to. So practically what that means is like, maybe you're only going to get that 90 grams every hour. If you're doing it by food, maybe you're only getting it twice an hour. If that's the only time you can take a sip from your bottle. So what I kind of believe in is like.
00:14:31
Speaker
The ideal world is like, yeah, you do it every 20 minutes, but in training, you may want to practice as well, taking it once an hour as well, because that's what you'll do in your race. And you like the, the key theme here is like, you're just training yourself for that race scenario. So um I think doing both is great. You just want to be prepared to know that a race situation isn't going to allow you to have that ideal fueling strategy. I think in other sports like running, you could probably do more of that because I think you don't necessarily have the same, you know, you're not as tied to your handlebars as you're, as you're running along. You could probably go 20 minutes, look at your watch and do it. It's just, I'm, I come from a cycling background and that's something that is like a real consideration.
00:15:17
Speaker
Yeah. And also because I went out, I was on a ride this weekend trying to, trying to fuel and choosing your spots also to be able to consume is also important. What I mean by that is if I'm going to enter an uphill and I know I'm going to be going slower and I don't need to pay as much attention, let's say, because, you know, on a downhill, I'm going much faster. I gotta have both hands on the wheel. then that's a good time to fuel. you know there's There's also this stuff that we can practice in training also, you know yeah um which I thought was like, it's not something you necessarily think about, but okay, well, I'm going uphill here. I'm moving a bit slower. the The intensity could be still quite high because
00:16:08
Speaker
you know, you need a lot of energy to to do the climbs and stuff, but it's a bit more, it's a bit easier than when you're like flying down a, screaming down a hill. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then I think as well, like it's one of these things that's not really a problem until you realize it is, you know, like you, you just would never think like, okay, like I can't eat on this trail because it's technical until you're really hungry and need to do that. Um, I'd say like my, Other advice, like if we're just comparing sports, I think like cycling though, it's much easier to have like that solid food, like as your feeling strategy than running. Cause you just have way less jostling going on. Like I know. And when I've done longer runs myself, it's hard to like do that 20 minutes of solid food because it's just like bouncing up and down in your stomach, at least for me. And cause I'm like a very amateur runner, right? Like I'm not trained to do that. Like I'm sure people who are really into that sport are able to do it.
00:17:06
Speaker
But you kind of want to think about what works best for you. So maybe in running, if you know that that jostling is going to be an issue, practically you're going to take your carbohydrate in your water rather than in your food. And there's just little details like that where it's not necessarily like, if you looked at like pure literature, your absorption in water versus solid or like gel form is the same. but in a race or whatever sport you're doing, practically that just may not work for you. You may absorb it the same, but it may just be so uncomfortable that you can't deal with it. So actually a good sport to maybe for us to talk about, uh, and how we practice is maybe triathlon. Cause I, that's what I'm training for, but at least there's bike and running in there and the
Fueling Strategies for Triathlons
00:17:52
Speaker
swim. I mean, you can't really feel in the water. So it's yeah, it's a bit difficult, but like, it brings me to a point like,
00:18:00
Speaker
what you know When you should have what type of fuel, like liquid, solid, gel, for know let's say for a triathlon, when I get out of the water given getting on my bike, is now the time to have the solid? And then I have my, you know, then I have the bottle with some nutrition in there. So that makes sense. Uh, is it bite the solid time and then the run the gel time or like, is it a combination? that like you know um I'm no triathlete myself. I've done one, I had a kickboard to do the swim, but like, um, logically, logically that's what I would do just from like my knowledge of.
00:18:39
Speaker
of of fueling and i think a big part of that too is like when i'm on the bike i'd like the solid food for the variety like knowing that if i'm going to the run and i'm likely taking on like carbohydrate by like water i just want to make sure that while i can eat i'm going to eat and that way even if i like For the variety, yes, but like also when I get to the run and say I'm like so depleted, I'm not really taking on food so well at that point. At least on the bike, I have like had a lot of carbs and I can trust that maybe that's going to take me to the finish line. Yeah. That's and that's like something i've think but I've been thinking about recently. At that point you know in in practice,
00:19:20
Speaker
You know, because a lot of it too is not just in ingesting this, whatever the fuel it is we're we're choosing, but how to choose which fuel and also.
00:19:33
Speaker
I mean, it can be wrong also wait while testing. So like, should you stick with something for a little while to, to get used to it? Or should you just switch until you find something that you, that you really like? i would say Yeah. Like I think like you can't like just because of one training ride. or training run went poorly with that nutrition, you almost want to expect that the first time you use it because your body's not used to taking on that food. So I'd say you want to be a bit patient. Like I would say give this at least two to three training sessions to see if that strategy is working for you. And because those adaptations are really quick, you know, likely in two to three sessions, you're going to be taking it on a bit better. Um,
00:20:18
Speaker
That said, you know figure out I think a big part of this too is figuring out what you like to eat or drink. like The taste is really important because like if you're going to dread whatever nutrition strategy you've like picked or product you picked, you're just not going to you know adhere to that strategy. You'll do it once, hate it, and and not do it. So I think part of this, when you're fueling like really, really um Like a lot, I'd say like 90 grams an hour is a significant amount of carbs. It has to be from stuff that you enjoy to eat. Otherwise you likely won't hit that quota. And what would you say to somebody? Cause I've got this question recently, but someone that doesn't like sweet, that doesn't like process stuff yeah necessarily would show up these jobs, you know, they're manufactured.
00:21:11
Speaker
For sure. I mean, like g a gel at the end of the day is cake frosting. Like they're pretty much the same thing. So is that an option for those people? Absolutely. Like I think you don't have to do sweet to get sugar. Like, so a really popular thing in cycling is making a rice cake and it's not like you're like, you know, like processed like rice cake discs. These are more like, like. made with like sushi rice or risotto rice you put little toppings in them and they're more like rice cubes I would more put them as and you can make these sweet a lot of people will do like with apple and cinnamon which is like something people like but you can do those savory too so you can people like this may sound insane but they do it with like bacon and like cream cheese to like hold it together and it gives you a little bit of fat to kind of like satiate you and but like sushi rice is really high carbohydrate so
00:22:05
Speaker
a lot of the time like a little rice cube like that it's savory but it's like 40 grams of carbs just just there alone and then if you're somebody who doesn't like overly processed foods well that's typically pretty whole foods like you can make that without having to go down that process route so it's like a do-it-yourself option Yeah, for sure. And I know people who do that. I know people who make like their own granola bars, but they make them not so sweet so they can like eat a lot of them. So that's stuff with like oatmeal, that stuff with like cereals and stuff like that. My, so this yeah, I think just the only thing, the consideration with those, those foods is like you, you want to look at how quickly you can get the energy from them. You know, sorry. So you like, think about a piece of bacon.
00:22:53
Speaker
You know, how quickly are you going to kind of get that hit from a piece of bacon versus like a gel? The gel is almost instantaneous. Bacon still has a lot of energy packed in. It's just in fat, you know, so you may not be getting that as quickly. But I think what I would tell someone is like, okay, if you're not going to eat the gels, eat what you actually would eat. You know what I mean? Cause it's better than nothing at all. he And they say that, i especially with hydration, like when you're thirsty, it's too late, like
Avoiding Energy Depletion During Races
00:23:27
Speaker
dehydrating. yeah Can you recover from low fueling too? can you like you know When they say it's too late for dehydration, is there such a thing for the fueling side of things too? Or when you feel like you're bonking, you can take a gel and boom.
00:23:43
Speaker
brings you back to life. Yeah. Like it's circumstantial. like If you feel yourself kind of going, like I call it low glide, like you're getting like a bit low energy, you're starting to feel the bonk. Like you can save it. You have to just ingest a bunch of carbs, hope that it's going to hit relatively quickly and then you can get yourself out of it. So it's not completely over as long as you can still put pressure on the pedals or still run your pace. You just got to hope that that your gut training is paid off and then it's actually going to like absorb and kind of save you in the moment. Um, yeah. you know That's all you can do. right like If you're low energy, you got to put energy in and hope it works. and so Assuming that you've trained your gut accordingly and things have gone well in training with the fueling, how are you setting up you know race day strategy? Is it distance dependent? Is it terrain dependent? like how do you like What's the beginning, the starting point for what that looks like?
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah, the starting point for me is, so I'll go through like a cycling race of mine. I would like, they always give you like a technical guide. They'll say like, okay, the race is 135 K. This is going to, as we estimate, this is going to take you three hours and 10 minutes. So they give you the time that they think that the winners are going to detye the time, the racing. So then I say, okay, three hours and 10 minutes, I'm going to be working. as hard as I can for that long. So I kind of think about that little graph I was talking about. So this is going to be a long effort. This is going to be intense. So for me, and there's like charts like that you can look yourself on for this, but for me in that effort, I'd say, okay, I probably want to have 100 to 120 grams of carbs every hour. I'm going to be in that ballpark. And then from there,
00:25:22
Speaker
I go to like the nutrition that I'm used to in training, look at the package, be like, okay, so this has 30, put that aside. This has 30, just count the carbs. So then I know that like my total that I want, let's say is 360. I just total everything up. I say, okay, this is going to be all the energy that I need for this race. I want to finish the race and make sure that none of it's left in my pockets. Nothing's left in my bottles and. Like, cause for myself, I try not to get too nit picky about like, okay, I want it here. I want it here. I want it here. Cause like I was telling you before in the race, it just probably not going to happen like that. So my mindset is normally like, I'm going to leave with everything I need. If I come back with nothing, then I've fueled, you know, maybe it's not perfect, but it's, it's pretty close to to what I needed.
00:26:10
Speaker
Okay. So yeah, that's no, it's a good starting point for sure. and And having some flexibility is important also. Um, and so like you carry all of this fuel on you, or are you able to, like, should we think about where to pick certain things up? I know yeah I've given, you know, I've given people gels before, and like give this to me at this kilometer or, um, you know, stuff like that. Yeah. And it for me in my, my circle, it's discipline dependent. So when I do a gravel race. Like part of gravel racing is you have to carry everything on yourself. So I'm going to have like a big camelback with like a liter and a half of water, maybe with some drink mix in it. All my food is in that camelback too. And I, you have to carry it all on yourself in a road race. You have like your team car behind you, or if it's, there's no car in the race, you have feeders on the course where you can like pick up like your extra nutrition.
00:27:04
Speaker
because and that's important too because like you have to think about what your competition is doing a little bit like if everybody else is having feeders and going to the car for their food and you're carrying you know 100 grams of carbs per hour in your pockets you know that you're at a bit of a disadvantage there I'd say too so You want to strike a balance. Like some races when I anticipate it's going to be really difficult to like go to the car or it's going to be really tight and I might miss a feed. I'd be more inclined to carry that myself and kind of take that. Like I think it's a bit of a penalty to take it, but um I'm, I'm okay with that because I want to take on the food. If the race I anticipate it's a bit more relaxed and I can go grab a feed, I'm going to not carry as much and kind of rely on the people helping me to like go get that fuel.
00:27:51
Speaker
What would you say it is like the best way to not forget to fuel because I've done this before, especially in longer stuff. You know, it happened to me this weekend. I bought fuel with me. Yeah. I bought some science, I bought some gels, I bought, uh, had water, like something in my water and. I was thinking about something and before I knew it or an hour of writing had gone by and I hadn't taken anything. Right. So it's like, you know, and then it's even worse in a race because you're even more distracted. Well, absolutely. Yeah. So how do you remember? Well, I think like it's, it's repetition. It's from your training too. And so for me, I like to say like, okay, if I'm going to eat every 20 minutes, I'm going to have, I have the timer going on my head unit. So I know, okay, I've raised for 20 minutes.
00:28:38
Speaker
The 20 minutes hits. It's not that I'm necessarily going to eat the food right when it hits 20 minutes, but a little like, you know, things switches in your mind. We're like, okay, next opportune moment. I get to eat. I have to eat. Like I've just seen that thing click. And now it's like, okay, whenever the race is going to allow me to do this, I'm going to eat something and I'm flexible with it too. So like say that 20 minutes hits. It's like the race is full gas. I'm not going to be like rooting around for a gel. We're going to be racing. And if if that means we're racing until 40 minutes and then there's a little bit of a relaxing point, it's, I remember like, okay, I didn't need it 20 minutes. We're going to have those two gels now, or maybe even a third, you know? So it's like you basically like for me, it's like you're going in with that ideal nutrition plan. Like I said, like every 20 minutes or so.
00:29:30
Speaker
If the race doesn't allow you to do that, you just, you're kind of always like having that ticker going that you're like, okay, I missed this one. I got to double up at the next one. I got to like, make sure that this food is gone by the end of the race. Yeah, that's a good point for sure. And I think like we touched on that a little bit, but when you were talking about fueling at the car and stuff, similarly in races, you can usually find out who will be sponsoring that event that you signed up for. So you can almost reverse engineer it too to kind of train with, if you're worried about missing fuel, uh, in, you know, in these types of races, triathlon or in, in marathons, let's say yeah you can, you can save yourself if, if.
00:30:13
Speaker
You agree with whatever they have on course to kind of have a backup plan there too. Absolutely. Like a lot of these like sportifs, like for Chaathlon too, like they have those aid stations. And I think it's silly if you, if you're like just racing it for fun, it's silly, like not to use it. Like, you know, going into the race, there's going to be a spot here, here, here, you can kind of figure out how long it's going to take you to get to those, those aid stations and then. Just like I do with like working back to nutrition, you kind of can get a sense of, okay, when I get to that aid station one, how many bars or gels should I actually take at the station? You know, like, so if it's going to take me one hour to go from station one to station two, I probably want to have like three 30 gram gels. I'll just take it on there or take it to go. But you still need that same understanding of your fueling requirements.
00:31:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's a good point, you know, and, uh, you can, like you said, reverse engineer it. And I mean, I've, I've heard it where, you know, come, come out of the race with more gels than you went in with it into the race with, you know, but you're actually coming home with some, some inventory, which is nice. So when you sound like your friend bounced, you know, on the, on the bike in his race, you know, he took four gels and seven hours or something like that.
00:31:29
Speaker
How much can nutrition have helped that have helped them in in terms of performance? You know, is it a matter of, you know, this guy's, he could have done maybe an hour better or, oh you know what yeah know, what does that look
Impact of Nutrition on Race Performance
00:31:43
Speaker
like? Like if, you know, if your training is going very, very well, how, how much of an impact do you think nutrition can have on one's performance in terms of like end result? It's actually huge. Like, so the one that I. like to, um, talk about is like, I think about like the tour de France. And like, so if you're a little like, and it's about hydration. So if you're a little bit dehydrated, like one, 2% under what you should do, you lose that, you know, one, 2% up to 5% on your performance too. And if you kind of calculate that over the course of 21 stages, you could take the winning rider.
00:32:25
Speaker
And they'd be like last place if they're losing that much every day. you know So like it's it really compounds. So like for him, it's like if you are running on empty, you have no energy. I'm pretty confident this guy could have lost an hour just from not eating. you know that's That's his is an extreme case. It's like you're so under fueled that your body has nothing to go off of. That's like a true bonk. You know, so you're going to be riding, you know, upwards 10, 15%, if not more like lower than what you're capable of. So these are like huge swings. Like if you truly run out of energy, you know, that's all that's what's keeping you going in the first place. Right. And if you, if you choose to, uh, let's say hydrate with water and fuel with bars, gels, et cetera.
00:33:22
Speaker
Hydration comes into play also, so how much hydration should you also be having, let's say, per hour yeah for distances over, you know, like we were talking about? Yeah, like like a longer rate, Mark. I think with the hydration, it just comes down to how much are you gonna sweat in this race like you can think about that that's gonna scale with how hot it is outside so if it's a cold race you know i probably am okay with having five hundred milliliters an hour that's like a bottle but if it's a really hot day anticipate sweating a ton i'm probably having two of those bottles every hour maybe more
00:33:59
Speaker
And I'd be thinking about like, um, having extra feeds in the feed zone just to dump on myself to cool down too. You know, so your requirement for water is going to just scale up with how hot it is, how intense the race is, how long it is, just like your carbohydrate. It's it's, you have to think about them kind of in the same manner. No. Yeah, totally.
Personal Anecdotes and Lessons Learned
00:34:22
Speaker
So if you look at your own experience, what's one of the they know worst things that happened to you when it came to fueling? What did you learn and then what did you change? Yeah. Like I think I told you about. um
00:34:37
Speaker
my honey incident grease. So I won't say that one again. That was like, that was just silly to be honest. But like another one that's more common is like trying something brand new on race day. I think that's something that so many people will fall into the trap of because you get to an event, you're understandably maybe a bit stressed and you're like, Oh, I see like this person who's like super good is doing this. So like maybe I should too. And like, that's what happened to me. So it was like my first, I'd say like, really big race. So it's like, it's the Maryland cycling classic in the US. And this is like, for me, at my level, it's of my one race a year where you get to race against the guys who do the Tour de France, like the top level of the sport. So this is like, you know, for me, it's like my biggest race of the season. And I'm understandably a little bit nervous. And the race in Maryland is going to be it's like 3839 degrees, so it's hot. And I'm like, okay, like, who I need to figure out like how I'm going to feel for this. And
00:35:35
Speaker
there's a certain like drink mix product where you can put a hundred grams of carbs in your water bottle. And I was thinking my thought process was like, Oh, I had never tried it, but I was thinking, okay, this race for me, because the level is a lot higher than what I ride at. Like, even if they're going easy, I'm going to be working extremely hard to be in this race. So I i was like not confident in myself to be like, At any point, like going back to the car or going to the side to get feeds or reaching in my pocket. I was like, just like nervous to be there. So like, I felt like, okay, like I'm going to put all my nutrition in the water bottles. Cause I'm confident that I can just stick this. And like, so I made my mix of a hundred grams in the bottles. And like, I never tried that before in my life. So like, I like.
00:36:26
Speaker
Didn't know what to expect, but I like shook it up. I put it in the fridge. We go to the race start. It's boiling hot. I roll out into the star line. It's already really hard. like I'm like breathing super hard. I'm like, OK, let's get a sip of water. I go for a sip. And it's like drinking syrup. It's like so thick and like not going down at all. So you're not getting any, I felt like I wasn't getting like much hydration out of it. It was more just like this like really, really thick goop that was like going into my mouth. And it's kind of coating everything. So on a hot day like that, I could barely drink it. So it's like, I ended up having a lot of nutrition ready to go, but practically I had never tried it. I couldn't drink it because it was like so uncomfortable in the heat. So then basically I ended up just running out of steam because I wasn't like taking on enough food. And like, you know, in a race like that, I was probably going to get dropped later in the race anyways, because they're really good. But I think I got dropped a bit earlier than I was expecting because I wasn't really eating either because of like that.
00:37:25
Speaker
water model situation. Yeah. Put a bad taste in your mouth. Literally. Yeah. It was yes literally so awful in the moment. Yeah. and And like that happens too. And I think that might be the worst way I fit guy can sympathize with you in that regard. I did it in an Ironman and I just got sick of my My drink, I had mixed it properly, but I was just sick of it. I just got, I just didn't want anymore. And I like, I went to like Gatorade and water, which isn't like, it's not quite horrible. You know, it's still something, but you know, you get away from your plan and then, you know, exactly things can go really wrong, you know? So.
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. And that's just like what we were talking about before. You have to like what you're going to have. Like in that day, like i I couldn't even do it. like it was just so It was honestly disgusting. So like i like yeah I couldn't drink it. um So you need to like what you're going to have. And then you will be so much more likely to actually adhere to that strategy you came in with. What would you say is, like for somebody that's just like getting into it, into the sport, getting into fueling, what would you say is like your best tip for them or best advice you can give?
Advice for Newcomers: Carbohydrates Focus
00:38:36
Speaker
I think like the first thing i like I like to tell people, like when you're looking at food, look at the carbs, not the calories. Like they kind of go hand in hand, but like you want to look at carbs. Cause that's at the end of the day, what you're getting your energy from. And my second advice is usually for most people, the more you can do the better, like for your races, the more you can take in the better your race experience probably is going to go. I think, um,
00:39:02
Speaker
Again, I just like to think like, if I can feel more, I can do more work, uh, whether it's running or biking. So I'd say if you're like between thinking like, Oh, should I do four bars or three bars? Try for four. I think, um, if you can get it down, it's going to, it's going to be better for you in the long run. That's yeah awesome advice. yeah It's fewer for the effort that you're putting in and we want to succeed at the events that we're training at. and you know It's a shame if it doesn't go because you just didn't have enough in your system. Exactly. I think like with like nutrition and like when races go poorly because maybe you weren't feeling enough, it's almost a gut punch because like I guess like that's a bad pun, but like it's actually good.
00:39:48
Speaker
And easily, and for me, it's like, if races go bad, when it's like an easily preventable problem, that's what's like kind of stings sometimes. It's like, if you went out, you did everything perfect. You just had a bad race and you know, it didn't go so well. You know, you can kind of like, you're just like, you're okay with that. You can just say, okay, maybe I wasn't quite at the level today. And that's just that. But if you had little issues with like your nutrition, where you're a hundred percent in control of that, no matter what anyone says, that's a little, that's a tougher pill to swallow for me, at least. Yeah, I find all the excuses come from other things other than.
00:40:22
Speaker
you know, that they didn't have a plan for fueling. Yeah. When I want to think about it, but so yeah that day like, what did you do about it? That's that's what I mean. but So like, whenever there's like a fueling, like excuse coming from someone I, you know, or or like people like coach, it's kind of like, well, you know, like maybe like you and I, we could have planned for this a bit better because it it is preventable. Like we can do this. That's the whole point of this gut training is so when you get to race day and you don't have those issues. They're just kind of eliminated. Exactly. Very good. Well, thanks, Nick, again, for joining me. And you know this is a ah great topic that I'd love to dissect with you a bit more in depth. And you know hopefully, we get some people gut training and and racing on on a lot more fuel than they're used to. Yeah, for sure. Thanks, Justin. Hopefully, there's something in there that someone can take away, and it helps them a little bit. you know Even if it's just one thing, I think it helps. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, some fuel for thought for them. Fuel for thought. Yeah, exactly.
00:41:21
Speaker
Thanks a lot. Yeah. Cheers. Thank you. Cheers. Ciao. Thanks for tuning in to the Justin Stryde podcast. I truly appreciate you taking the time to listen and I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Please take a minute after this to rate and review our show on Apple podcasts. With your feedback, we'll be able to make the show even better and it'll help us reach new listeners too. You can also find us on Instagram at JustinStrydePod for all the latest episodes and updates. Of course, this show wouldn't be possible without a solid team behind me. With logo and design by Vanessa Pugliese, as well as audio, music, and editing by Forest McKay, a huge thank you goes out to both of them. Guest outreach, social media, writing, and advertising are handled by me, your host, Justin Pugliese. Finally, we'd like to thank you, our listeners, for coming along for the ride with Justin Stradd.