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Trail Running Series: Nutrition Advice with RD Rebecca Dent
13.2k Plays1 year ago
On this episode, Alyssa catches up with Registered Dietician, Rebecca Dent, to discuss proper race fueling strategies and how to perform your nutrition best in trail running. The two break down how to set up a race nutrition strategy as well as how to test this strategy in your training. Rebecca emphasizes the importance of proper carbohydrate consumption throughout the race and how it can turn a DNF into a Personal Best. They continue with considerations for multi-day races, gut training and common GI issues runners face. The two wrap with hydration and sodium requirements as well as the top three common mistakes Rebecca sees trail athletes make in nutrition. Rebecca shares a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience in this podcast and it will help you achieve your trail running goals.
Reach us at uphillathlete.com or write to us at [email protected]
Sweat Loss Calculator: https://www.precisionhydration.com/performance-advice/hydration/how-to-measure-your-sweat-rate/
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the uphill athlete podcast. Our mission is to elevate and inspire all mountain athletes through education and celebration. My name is Alyssa Clark and I will be your host today.
00:00:20
Speaker
I am super excited to welcome RD Rebecca Dent to the podcast to discuss our most pressing questions on trail running and nutrition. Thanks for being on.
00:00:32
Speaker
Thanks, Alyssa. I'm equally super excited to be talking to you here at uphill athlete today about one of my favorite topics, trail and ultra running race nutrition strategies.
Importance of Nutrition in Trail Running
00:00:44
Speaker
So hopefully listeners today will get some easy to put into practice take away strategies that they can start using and that will translate into a better race performance, whether that's helping them cross the finish line faster or even just simply enjoying the race more and also just helping
00:01:02
Speaker
people prevent and reduce stomach issues. So yeah, let's help set some PBs today. I love it. And I can already say that when we do training groups and have Q&A sessions that Rebecca is our most sought after guest because I think nutrition really is one of the
00:01:24
Speaker
giant question marks, I think, in so many people's minds with training, and I think often, and I can speak to this, is the low hanging fruit in many ways of people's racing where it's like, if I, I would say like, if I could just figure out my nutrition, I would nail this or I would be so much better. And so it's awesome to have you on to give us that those practical ways that we can
00:01:47
Speaker
achieve that.
Rebecca's Journey into Sports Nutrition
00:01:50
Speaker
But first, before we dive into that, can you tell us about yourself, your background in sports, how you became an RD for endurance athletes? Because you're such a, it's like you're an RD, but you're the most interesting niche, I think, of being an RD. So love to hear your background. Yeah, I mean,
00:02:11
Speaker
Kind of a bit about me, I've been a dietician for just over 20 years, and kind of early in my career I specialised working in weight management and behaviour change in the NHS in the UK. And then I moved on to specialise in sports nutrition. I kind of knew from the age of 15 I always wanted to do sports nutrition, so kind of made a decision quite early on in life.
00:02:33
Speaker
So then my first job working for a sporting institute was with Olympic athletes towards the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010. And then because of my own personal love for the outdoors and mountain sports, after a few years, I left this role and started working for myself with Trell and ultra endurance athletes. And then along with that, I was supporting the GB climbing team, which then led me to working.
00:02:58
Speaker
the G.B. Climbers, Shawna Coxey to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. So then in 2016, kind of a bit before that, we moved to the Chamonix Valley from the UK. My husband's an IFMDA Mountain Guide, so it just made sense that we moved to the mountains. And then this just fueled my passion and desire to specialise in working
00:03:21
Speaker
with ultra endurance and mountain sports athletes. Even more, you're kind of living in the environment as well as then having the opportunity to embrace it and work in that environment. And at that time, that's when I reached out to Steve here at Pelathlete to be part of this awesome team of coaches and it's just progressed from there. That's amazing. Okay.
Customization of Race Nutrition Strategies
00:03:40
Speaker
I mean, holy crap. I didn't know your husband was a pin guide. That's so cool.
00:03:46
Speaker
I mean, wow, power couple. So many other questions about the two of you, but we'll get there. We'll get back there. Wow, that's amazing.
00:04:02
Speaker
Just I thought I knew quite a bit about you and now, wow, every time learning something new. Um, so that's awesome. So how, as you're getting an athlete, you're thinking about a race, how are you coming up with a race nutrition strategy for an athlete? And what are some of these key considerations an athlete should have when they're devising this strategy?
00:04:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this is one of the part of the reasons why I just love working with athletes. I mean, we're all unique in our own individual nutritional needs. And then you take into account the training plan and then the nutritional challenges that that individual might have. And then we're having to then look at the race itself. And each trail and ultra race is different. There's no defined standard of how each
00:04:52
Speaker
of these races would look, they're all completely different. So I really enjoy helping athletes figure out what's right for them, helping to then make sense of nutrition, and just like I said, really problem solving the nutritional challenges so they can really transform their race experience.
00:05:08
Speaker
So I first start by asking a lot of questions. So it's kind of digging a bit deep to determine kind of previous race experience, nutrition foods, fluids or sports products used and tolerated or not tolerated in training and in races, how much the athlete has managed to eat.
00:05:25
Speaker
in previous races or is consuming during training, history of stomach issues in race and also day-to-day stomach issue occurrences can be relevant. And then I zoom in on the specific race so then we start to talk through and look at distance, duration, desired time to complete, location, weather, terrain, ascent, descent, time between aid stations, aid station provision. So there's quite a lot to consider and factor in whilst also kind of looking at the individual but
00:05:55
Speaker
is in front of you in terms of their needs as well. And then I start to lay it all out from there, having gathered all of that information and done a bit of fact finding. I then start to lay it out looking at carbohydrate goal intake per hour, fluid intake goal per hour, and sodium intake goal per hour. And this is all going to change throughout the race, depending on all of the factors that I've mentioned.
00:06:19
Speaker
That's fantastic. Yeah, I think that I mean, that's so similar to how you would go about setting up a training plan. I think that sometimes people think nutrition is throwing darts at a wall and it's not at all that.
00:06:32
Speaker
It's very similar to, okay, we start kind of the general gathering of information, the general plan, and then you go really specific to the event that you're doing and dial it in. So that's awesome to hear kind of that process and just how similar it is to exactly what we do when we're prepping our legs for a race.
00:06:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And it's great because again, people choose to eat different things they choose to have. They have different taste preferences, things that all go down. So it's really quite a fun thing to do. I just love helping people plan for the race because I almost feel like I'm doing it with them when we walk it through, when we chat through
00:07:08
Speaker
and their nutrition needs and I'm always amazed as well actually how many people don't necessarily go through that process. I think with many athletes that I work with or I start to work with who come to me that I'm just like well what do you do and they're like well I just kind of figure it out take what I probably would eat during training and what maybe somebody else has told me to do and what I've seen other people doing
00:07:30
Speaker
and just go for it. And interestingly, you know, some people can get away with that and potentially finish the race, but I would always suggest that if you're planning and practicing your nutrition and hydration strategy and you have it dialed, you can do all of those things, enjoy the race, finish faster, you know, it will really kind of enhance your race performance for sure by really dialing in specifically your needs.
00:07:57
Speaker
Oh, it makes total sense. I mean, you wouldn't, well, we've all done this to a certain extent, but it's like showing up to a restart, like a restart line and going, I don't really know the distance. I don't really know what shoes I'm going to wear. You know, I don't know if I've ever practiced these hills. I think it's, it's, you know, it's essentially doing that. And I don't think most people would do that. Sometimes people do, but for the most part, you try not to. Um, so how do you.
00:08:25
Speaker
like develop the strategy in actual training? And how does an athlete test this strategy? Or how do you have your athletes test the strategies in the training process? So before we're getting to the start line. Yeah, so kind of just before that, there's kind of some general kind of starting point is race nutrition strategies for those listening that want to kind of really knuckle down and really make sure they're planning prepared for their next race.
Nutrition for Multi-Day Events
00:08:54
Speaker
So if you're looking at single day events, you really want to rely primarily on carbohydrate as your main fuel source. So when we see if you're elite competitive athlete who really wants to race well and be kind of in the top 10, top 20 or so,
00:09:10
Speaker
then you want to be aiming for around 90 grams of carbohydrate up to 120 grams of carbohydrate per hour so you're looking at 360 to 480 calories per hour and that primarily comes from sports drinks gels and for the athletes that I'm supporting the elite ultra runners you know they're consuming 500 mils of a sports drink along with one or two gels per hour
00:09:34
Speaker
and that's giving them their 90 to 120 grams of carbohydrates. So in these days, I think, Wick, it's quite, it's really good because sports products or sports companies are getting a bit savvier with putting more carbohydrate in smaller volumes, which is then easier to carry, potentially easier to take on board. I know we're coming on to stomach issues, but you can consume these larger amounts in smaller volumes, which then it makes it a bit more practical
00:10:02
Speaker
practical for all these faster runners who want to race well, but also not be loaded up with as many gels that will weigh them down. And then if you're a recreational runner, so the rest of us at the back of the pack, you kind of really want to be looking at around 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour. But if you feel like you really want to race this and you're a good ultra runner, then you're looking between 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour.
00:10:28
Speaker
And that again is a mix of sports drinks, bars, chews, gels, real foods and other fluids. So potentially recreational runners, you know, we're not running as fast and it's going to take us a longer amount of time to finish that race. So we have then the opportunity to use other types of sources.
00:10:46
Speaker
like bars, wheel foods and other fluids and not necessarily just have to rely on those sports drinks. Interestingly, what we're seeing is that faster finishes are consuming more calories. Those that DNF consume less calories per hour compared to those that are finishing. So those that are DNFing
00:11:05
Speaker
if you're looking at their nutrition intake per hour, they tend to be consuming under 200 calories per hour. So it really is about getting on board that energy and fueling well. All of the runners that do finish eat and drink to at least the minimum recommendations of carbohydrate and fluid requirements that we're touching on, and we're gonna go on, I know to talk about fluid. Interestingly, the research suggests for the lead runners that they are consuming
00:11:35
Speaker
People like yourself, Elisa, are consuming around 70 grams of carbohydrate per hour. But what I am seeing in the field and with ultra runners and what we're hearing reportedly, I guess, on Instagram and other social media outlets is that elite runners are consuming around 90 to 95 grams of carbohydrate per hour on average in a, you know, a hundred mile race and then up to 120 and reportedly 130 grams of carbohydrate per hour. I mean, I've had
00:12:03
Speaker
elite ultra runners who potentially haven't practiced their fueling in race and then you start to introduce more carbohydrate and they're reporting they feel like they've got more energy, they feel like they can run faster, they feel like they're performing better and they feel like they're recovering better after races. So it really does pay to kind of get the carbohydrate in but then obviously practicing that and nailing your nutritional strategy before you stand on that start line.
00:12:32
Speaker
No, that's fantastic. And I've also seen that as well. And I'm honestly just genuinely impressed of being able to get that in. It's amazing. Yeah, it really is. I mean, that's a feat in itself. But I actually had two
00:12:48
Speaker
somewhat follow up questions to that. I guess the first and this is selfish because I am headed into a multi day stage race. What does that look like, as you're preparing an athlete, because obviously you're keeping up the carbohydrates, but your needs are a bit different, I think, as you're doing the multi day because there's just this
00:13:14
Speaker
kind of collective demand. So I'd love to hear what that looks like if you are going past the kind of that 24 ish 30 hour range. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's I guess some
00:13:27
Speaker
It's incredible, people that want to do the multi-stage events, and then also it's kind of a nutrition feat in itself, trying to actually plan your nutrition for that, your crew support, everything else. So it's, again, another impressive feat to do these stage races and finish them. So single-stage races, as I said, kind of primarily relying on carbohydrate as a fuel source for sports drinks, gels, foods, fuels, food chews, waffles, some real food options.
00:13:56
Speaker
that I can give examples for, but then the multi-stage day event, you know, you are aiming for around 200 to 400 calories per hour, primarily using carbohydrate, as we've said, as a fuel source, but then you can bring in a mix of fats and proteins for calories, for flavor change, for just something different to eat, more variety and options, and then obviously adding in the protein for that daily recovery, because you're out there doing, you're running, you know, for long hours,
00:14:25
Speaker
days on end, potentially if it's a stage race with sleep or if it's just a continuous race like the Tour de Giont where you just have to sleep where you lie.
00:14:35
Speaker
So, you know, it's just, it then becomes about not only getting the carbohydrate in, but the research shown to be successful or to finish these events. You also then want to focus on making sure you can maximise on the calories at all times. And then if you're moving for four, five, six days, you're going to want to eat a warm meal. You're going to want to eat something solid. You're going to want to have something that's, you know, familiar to you.
Aid Station Foods and their Benefits
00:14:59
Speaker
You're going to be moving it slower.
00:15:00
Speaker
intensities as well. So then you have the opportunity to eat more real food options. And then also you might have, you might plan to spend longer at aid stations or with your crew support to then give you time to eat more food or real food rather than just the sports drinks and bars. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. I am always very impressed like Brian, one of the other coaches, he can eat like a hamburger.
00:15:30
Speaker
at an aid station, which I just absolutely blows my mind. I'm sure it's great to be able to get in, you know, that really big calorie dense meal while you're doing 200s. I have never had that success or ability, but no, that's great. I think, yeah, you really start craving more variety in what you're eating. Savory foods. And yeah, I mean, I've been at aid stations and seen all sorts of sushi, picnics, pizzas,
00:15:59
Speaker
like people cooking noodles, bowls of cereal, like you just see it all, which is amazing. You know, I love to see people eating, so it's fantastic to stand at an aid station to see people tucking into these variety of foods. I feel like it would be so, this is a tiny tangent, hopefully, it would be so cool to do a study or just kind of do a survey of traveling the world, looking at aid stations and seeing
00:16:26
Speaker
like what do people I mean Hawaii is so much different from California so much which is you know still in the United States so much different from Europe to Japan you know that would be that would be really cool yeah do you get fries and hot dogs in the US or do you get cheese and meats and the French Alps you know and it's
00:16:47
Speaker
you know, it's probably not that far off. You know, I've have heard reports of races in the US where you're getting fries and burgers, like you've just said, and, you know, those classic, those classic types of foods, isn't it? And then in the, the Alps, you are getting, you know, beets and cheeses. And there's obviously fruits and dried fruits and nuts and sweets and soups and bouillon and pasta and fries and a royal mixed bag. But yeah, it'd be interesting to go around to different countries and
00:17:12
Speaker
and map them out. Yeah. That sounds like a fun grant of some kind. You can pick your race based on your food preference. Yes. What country you would like to go in and what, you know, what ideal food you'd like to eat during a race. Definitely.
00:17:27
Speaker
which I think leads the point of knowing what aid stations have offered, because I think sometimes people just go in and they're like, Oh, they don't have that or they try, you know, it's the first time traveling and they're like, Oh, in Europe, actually, it is meats and Jesus and they don't have a hamburger. You're like, correct. This is so I think that's just a great tip to people. It's like, look up what aid stations are serving and if it works for you. I mean, I think that's one of the
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah, one of the common mistakes that I've seen is that kind of, if you're looking at elite runners, they tend to have, you know, on course, the sports drinks, the gels, you know, the nutrition strategy dialed, and as they're coming into aid stations, potentially not spending a lot of time in the aid stations and potentially having their own real food options, because, you know, maybe they're hungry, they want to cleanse their palate, they just want a flavour change, or they just want some solid in their food, so would potentially
00:18:25
Speaker
elite athletes would choose their own foods, whether that's a pizza, some pasta, a sandwich, a bread of potatoes, biscuits with soup, whatever variety that is. And I certainly think that recreational runners definitely
00:18:40
Speaker
it would benefit from looking at aid stations and then testing all of that out in training. So just working through the lists that you see on race websites to look at, right, would I eat this? Would I eat this? Would I eat this? Would I eat this? Would I drink any of this? And then
00:18:55
Speaker
cross out all of the ones you think not and then test all out the ones you think you'd be tempted for during your long training sessions when you're training. But yeah, it's one of the things I think we can get distracted by. You feel like you come in and there's this huge, potentially a fantastic array, depending on what race you do, of foods available and you're like, wow. And that's maybe when you can come unstuck and come undone, we get distracted or we choose something we haven't necessarily tried before. And then it has a
00:19:26
Speaker
influence on our stomach or just how we feel. Definitely. And that actually
00:19:31
Speaker
My one last question before we kind of get back to actually vet training is that how do you handle when an athlete says, and this is, I think, a very relevant issue, hey, I can't afford to train with all of the nutrition that I need for a race because sports nutrition can get very expensive.
00:19:59
Speaker
How do you handle like, hey, you do need to practice some, but like, where is that balance that you find working with athletes from an economic standpoint?
Training with Race Nutrition Products
00:20:09
Speaker
It's a good question. And it's a tricky one. My first argument would be you've invested so much time, money and effort in the race, in the kit, traveling to the race, race entry, time in training that actually
00:20:26
Speaker
by investing in the products that you're going to use in the race to practice with during your training is worth every penny. But I also appreciate it can be very costly. So the idea would be then to maybe choose, you know, the three months prior to a race or
00:20:44
Speaker
once a month in one of your long runs you then use the sports products that you're going to use in your base. With kind of gut training and getting used to eating on the go and carbohydrate tolerance you can use other options or you can use cheaper products that potentially do the same thing but so then you can kind of spread out the
00:21:11
Speaker
testing of the actual products that you're going to be using in the race. But yeah, ideally where you can practice as much as you can with what you're going to use. But in training, you can use carbohydrate in different forms that we can talk about that will still encourage gut training and get used to eating carbohydrate on the go.
00:21:30
Speaker
I think that's great. Yeah. I kind of say it's like, look, it's really important. Like you wouldn't buy the cheapest pair of shoes. You buy the shoes that work for you. But I do, I do hear that often of like, Oh, I can't train with that. I save it for the race. And it's like,
00:21:45
Speaker
but then you've never tested it. Yeah, and that's tricky as well. I mean, that's tricky because it's just like, well, how do you know that that's going to go down at that time and day? How do you know when you get this far into the race that you're going to be able to consume this? So it's still really encouraging everyone to practice as often as they can, as practically possible with their race nutrition strategy in training that they're going to use in the race.
00:22:11
Speaker
Definitely. Well, you've already touched on this or brought up the term, but one of the key considerations or I guess key things that we should be training is something called gut training. So can you explain what gut training is? Because I'm not sure everyone probably knows that term. And then how we go about that when we are in our training sessions.
00:22:39
Speaker
So there's kind of two ideas, I think, around gut training. So there are the defined research-based gut training strategies that have been tried and tested within the research to show that they will help improve
00:22:56
Speaker
your tolerance of taking on board greater amounts of both fluid and carbohydrate per hour in your race to then ensure regular fuelling but also preventing and alleviating stomach issues during a race. So you have kind of the research defined gut training strategies but then you also have
00:23:15
Speaker
What I would say are probably the two most important gut training strategies of all of the hundreds of athletes that I've worked with that will probably do the job before you even have to go on to any of those research-based ones is fuel your training sessions with carbohydrate and hydrate, so drink fluids during them, and practice your race, nutrition, foods, fluid, and sodium strategy in your long runs.
00:23:41
Speaker
and do it more than once and do it over and over and over and over again until it's dialled until you are confident that it works. So those are the two key things I think I've seen with whatever level you're at recreational to elite athlete that will will
00:23:57
Speaker
have the biggest influence on your performance and alleviating and reducing gut issues, fueling your training sessions with carbohydrate and hydrating and practicing your race, nutrition, foods, fluids and sodium strategy. So you have it dialed. Once you've done it once, or once you've done it once in the sense you've got it dialed, you then take that on to the next race and the next race and the next race and we can expand the variety. You can
00:24:21
Speaker
choose different flavour options, but you know what works and you know how much you can consume and take on board per hour.
00:24:27
Speaker
And that's the biggest game changer, I think. And then other specific gut training strategies, if you are someone really struggling with stomach issues or really trying to increase your tolerance to be able to take on board more carbohydrate per hour or drink more volume of fluid per hour, there's a specific one to enhance fluid tolerance by practicing drinking during training.
Improving Fluid Tolerance in Hot Conditions
00:24:52
Speaker
So for example, if you are someone that I've been working with an elite runner
00:24:57
Speaker
She found it difficult to consume 750ml of fluid per hour that we were targeting for her in hot environments, but she felt uncomfortable, bloated, just really couldn't manage to get that 750 down, drinking on average 500ml, but to really help with her performance in the heat, we're just trying to increase her fluid intake.
00:25:21
Speaker
So the idea behind practicing drinking during training and increasing fluid tolerance to relieve that discomfort or at least get used to that feeling of discomfort is that whatever volume you're trying to work towards to consuming, whether it's 500, 750 or a litre per hour, you divide that by six. So 750 divided by six is 125 mil. So we got this athlete to drink 125 mil of water every 10 minutes within an hour training session.
00:25:51
Speaker
But the goal was to drink that within a minute. So the first minute of the first 10 minutes, drink 125 ml within a minute and then do that every 10 minutes in an hour. And the research has shown that by doing that and practicing that specific type of strategy within a 60 minute training session, if you do that six times,
00:26:12
Speaker
A minimum of six times, that will help you to increase your tolerance and level of comfort of having that volume of fluid in your stomach. That, and not encouraging hyperhydration or over-drinking of water. Obviously, we supplement that with sodium as required. That can be a volume of a sports drink. But when we have increasing temperatures and or people aren't drinking enough through the race, which causes DNA for
00:26:40
Speaker
slower times or fatigue or poorer performance, then that's an ideal strategy to help you to drink more to your specific needs to offset significant dehydration in the race.
00:26:53
Speaker
That makes, oh, that makes total sense. Sorry. No, no, I was going to go on to the next one. But yeah, that, you know, that's one that does make sense for fluid. And often I think we drop the balls a little bit with fluid and sodium because there's not necessary specific clear information out there for what people
00:27:10
Speaker
could be doing or should be doing or how to determine our own unique fluid loss and sodium requirements that I can happily talk about as well. But yeah, that's one of the gut training strategies that's not linked to carbohydrate, but certainly linked to fluid intake. Yeah, so I think that's, we'll get into that super soon. But what are the most common GI issues that you see in athletes? Because I think
00:27:38
Speaker
Like that's, I would love to know the specific numbers, I'm sure you know them, of how many athletes drop out just from sighted GI issues.
GI Issues in Ultra-Endurance Races
00:27:47
Speaker
Yeah, so with the research we're seeing up to 85% of DNFs in races is due to GI issues. But we're also seeing that, you know, that stomach issues impact runners that don't finish. So even those runners that are finishing are still experiencing stomach issues. So again, the most common issues, GI issues are nausea,
00:28:07
Speaker
nausea and vomiting are the ones that I often spend my time talking people through, trying to problem solve the reason why it's happening. Stomach bloating, pain, cramps, sudden urgency to go to the toilet. Those all tend to be the ones that come up the most. And again, in the research, what it's showing that around 40 to 90% of runners participating in races of like 70 kilometers to 160 kilometers, so with increasing
00:28:36
Speaker
distance we're seeing an increase in participants reporting stomach issues and that's regardless of whether they finish or not so the longer the race the greater occurrence of stomach issues basically so it's a challenge but I still believe that because potentially people aren't necessarily practicing their race nutrition strategy potentially carrying out gut training strategies and I'll talk about the carbohydrate ones as well but
00:29:02
Speaker
that's the biggest issue fuel your training plan and practice your race nutrition strategy and i would dare to say seven eight times out of ten if you don't necessarily have stomach issues related to day to day then you can alleviate or prevent stomach issues during a race i appreciate the physiological response and the impact of the um
00:29:26
Speaker
the running over time will also have a response on the gut that then lends it to kind of the poor absorption, trauma to the gut, all of those things that influence our stomach, that we can get used to consuming carbohydrate and fluid. And we're seeing it with all of these elite runners, they're getting faster, and they're consuming more carbohydrate. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And
00:29:52
Speaker
Actually, I'm super curious. I mean, how do you feel about the fact that like, I think it's almost just accepted like, oh, vomiting in the ultras is just is what it is? Like, how do you feel about that sentiment? Like, again, I've had another runner who's vomited a couple of times. He's like, yeah, no, I'm fine. I just vomit and I can just carry on running. And like, if it's not necessarily
00:30:15
Speaker
It's difficult because there's so many influences on lack of sleep, just how your stomach rolls for that race. It can be quite unpredictable, but you can problem solve and work back and put the pieces together as why that might occurred in that race and then the next time put in strategies to potentially prevent that from happening again. But yeah, you do hear people just going, oh, yeah, that's just what happens to me in a race. And I'd be like, well, it doesn't have to happen.
00:30:44
Speaker
You don't need to suffer through these races to complete them if you can kind of work on the reasons why and potentially try and put in strategies around that, whether it's sleep, whether it's hydration, whether it's nutrition, whether it's pace, all of those things, cooling strategies, all of those things that can help really prevent an occurrence of nausea and vomiting happening, then let's do it. We don't have to suffer through them. You know, they're tough enough as it is.
00:31:13
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think that maybe we should really move away from the fact of like, Oh, it's just an ultra, you just throw up. That's what happens. Because I especially I mean, I started back in 2015. And I feel like it was like, Oh, if you haven't thrown up, you really run an ultra. It's like, we don't need to do that. Yeah. So some of the carbohydrate gut training strategies that can potentially offset that nausea, some of the reasons
00:31:38
Speaker
I've kind of problem solved people's nausea is that potentially, you know, trying to consume more carbohydrate in a race and not having practiced that amount or, you know, a change in pace and then trying to take on board carbohydrate at the same time. So running faster and causing nausea, maybe not hydrating enough or drinking enough fluid along with the carbohydrate per hour. So lots of different reasons as to why the nausea can happen.
00:32:06
Speaker
and obviously you can problem solve around that from non-nutritional factors.
Practicing Nutrition Strategies
00:32:10
Speaker
But some of the carbohydrate gut training strategies are some of the simpler ones or the straightforward ones are just simply adopting a higher carbohydrate diet for the
00:32:21
Speaker
couple of weeks before your race, which is ideal in terms of carb loading, eating carbohydrate, you're going to be fueling your training and recovering well. And they've seen in the research that just by simply adding more carbohydrate into your diet for two weeks can help us really get used to eating and tolerating greater amounts of carbohydrate. You don't necessarily do that for the two weeks before.
00:32:46
Speaker
But we've seen that increasing carbohydrate in the diet increases our tolerance just within two weeks.
00:32:56
Speaker
Yeah, so looking at carbohydrate intakes and maybe slightly increasing them as well. Like I said, fueling training with all training sessions of carbohydrates could be a helpful strategy. And then there are some more aggressive strategies like eating a meal and then going for a run. So having your breakfast and then within five or 10 minutes, you're at the door. Obviously, you might want to control your intensity because you definitely don't want to see your breakfast 10, 15 minutes later.
00:33:23
Speaker
That strategy is about you're actually literally running with food still in your stomach, so your body's getting used to moving while it's still trying to digest.
00:33:31
Speaker
And then another more aggressive strategy is practicing eating carbohydrate regularly within an hour's training session. So in naught minutes before you go out the door, you'd consume 30 grams of carbohydrates, so a gel typically. So at naught, one gel. At 20, another gel. At 40, another gel. Obviously, hydrating around that as required. And that helps aid tolerance of taking on board carbohydrate and helps us to
00:34:02
Speaker
get used to taking on board more carbohydrate per hour. I've used those strategies but not very often and by the time people have fuelled their training appropriately and you've had them practise in their race nutrition strategy, often you don't need to do those strategies but they can be helpful if someone wants to push
00:34:20
Speaker
carbohydrate intake, say from 60 to 90 or wants to practice 90 to 120. So yeah, and then obviously you've got your B races, try and enter some B races, everybody seems to want to run their A race at every race, so try and you know book in some less... just book some races where you are willing to go and test out your nutrition strategy and you're not necessarily tied to your
00:34:46
Speaker
your finished time. So yeah, try to go and do some races and enjoy them as a goal towards your nailing your A race. Totally.
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's so key. I mean, I maybe unintentionally do a lot of just like eating and then going right out the door. I mean, it's funny, I had someone when I first started really getting into ultras being like, wait, don't you need to wait an hour? Like, you're isn't, aren't you gonna feel bad? And I was like, I have eaten pizza, literally, like had a piece of pizza in my hand as I was running out of an aid station. Like, that's what I do.
00:35:25
Speaker
And so, I'm really glad to hear it. It's like, I was really just practicing. Yeah, I'm like, because we have to do it in races. So no, I cannot wait until my stomach is like, oh, I feel fine right now. Thank you for waiting.
00:35:40
Speaker
It's definitely on an individual case-by-case basis. These kind of aren't, you know, one-size-fits-all strategies, you know, if I was working, say, with you and we were problem solving your nutrition or trying to encourage you to feel more, you know, you'd pick the most relevant strategies and then potentially build up to those more aggressive, what I call aggressive gut training strategies so that you're not making someone vomit every time they go out for a run.
00:36:09
Speaker
That's not fun either for training. The other thing that would be good to do is if you're kind of comfortable with practicing your race, nutrition, strategy, and training, don't just pick your long training runs. Choose higher intensity sessions, hill sessions, those kind of things, or sessions where you're running faster. Trying to kind of mimic similar conditions of your race so that you're not
00:36:37
Speaker
you're not just fueling during those lower intensities. You know, if you've got an ascent or a descent, or if there's a rocky technical section you're going to have to fuel with, then, you know, it's trying to replicate that in training. And it could be that that's only a 60 minute session you do that will fuel that training session, whether you feel like you need to or not, if you want to practice your race nutrition strategy and be confident that you can fuel and be okay in those sections, then that's the time to do it as well.
00:37:06
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, I've heard before people say like, Oh, I only feel on the downhill area only feel on the flat.
Logistics of Race Nutrition
00:37:12
Speaker
It's like, well, in the Alps, sometimes you're going up for four to five hours. So really, you have to know how to fuel across the board. And also just the practical logistics of like, Hey, how do you take this out with your poles on? How do you manage yourself? Because I think
00:37:30
Speaker
People, sometimes they'll just be like, oh, I'm going to add in polls on race day. I'm going to eat something every 30 minutes. I'm going to have my pack on. You're like, wait, but you've never practiced all of that. So how do you put your poll away so you can get something out? How do you load your pack so that you have what you need accessible? And that's something like I always write into the notes of my athletes of like, hey, practice gear and nutrition. I start that.
00:37:59
Speaker
really early on, just so it's in their head of like, hey, this isn't something we just do on race day or we do the training run before. And so I just think knowing the mechanics of what you're doing so we can get to race day and you're like, cool, I don't even think about it. Yeah, I love that. And that is so key because it's all it, you know, it is the practical aspect of your race that then you're going to want to turn up.
00:38:25
Speaker
and be sure of both the mechanics, as you say, and also your nutrition strategy and what you're going to eat. And then so part of that, you can walk yourself through the course in terms of just looking at the course topo, or if you have the opportunity, go and do wreckies or at least simulate conditions of that race, set up aid stations, you know, faff around with your kit, get used to trying to take it out from behind you or tucked into pockets so that you can do it or learn to do it efficiently over time, like you say, with poles and how you're going to
00:38:55
Speaker
All of that. And again, if you are well practiced in all of that and well rehearsed, it takes a lot of the decision making away when you do the race and it boosts your confidence in your ability and your performance. You feel ready. You feel like I've done as much as I can. I know what I'm doing. And if you have a plan, it might not all go to plan, but it's going to stand you in much better stead than kind of just turning up and maybe hoping for the best or turning up thinking it will just all fall into place or happen.
00:39:25
Speaker
definitely. Yeah, I like to think of it as like I'm idiot proofing myself because I know that I will later on in the race just you're just not thinking as clearly and so like I set a timer for when I need to eat.
00:39:37
Speaker
And so I watch beeps at me and gives me a little milkshake symbol that's like nutrition alert. Every, for me, I try to eat every 40 minutes, which should probably be increased. Um, but I think just the more that it's like, I think sometimes in this is so interesting.
Emotional Aspects of Race Nutrition
00:39:55
Speaker
Wow. Tangent that we'll get back to this, um, is that there is such an emotional attachment to food in this, this element of enjoying food. And I think in many ways in racing, we have to,
00:40:07
Speaker
move away a little bit from food as an emotional source of energy. It's like, no, I mean, yes, obviously, you don't want to hate what you're eating. But it's also like it is, I had someone say like food is medicine towards the end of a race and you take your medicine and that's what allows you to continue forward. And I also had a pacer once say to me like, this is your job, your job is to eat this and you can have
00:40:34
Speaker
a nice, fun, tasty meal after your race, but this is what you do right now. And I think sometimes we get really emotionally attached to like, it doesn't taste as good or I feel I'm like sad right now or something. And so I think just like it's just taking some of that emotional energy out of food is helpful.
00:40:57
Speaker
I couldn't agree more and one of the messages I do give over is that you need to get used to eating when you don't feel hungry. You need to be robotic about your fuelling strategy during a race.
00:41:08
Speaker
it needs to be something that goes down and not necessarily something that you think oh I really fancy this or I'm gonna wait till I feel hungry till I eat or it has to be something that you know goes down that you can tolerate but not necessarily waiting till you feel hungry. We need to become robotic and like you say most athletes or many athletes I've worked with set a timer on their watch through each hour of their running to remind them to eat and or to take on board gels and sports drink and that's often when
00:41:39
Speaker
Gels and sports drinks can be more easier because they're kind of quicker in a smaller volume to go down. So you can kind of squeeze a gel and it goes down, take a sip of a sports drink.
00:41:49
Speaker
and wash it back and then kind of it comes easier to consume. Whereas if we are choosing real foods, which is absolutely fine, they take a bit more chewing, a bit more effort. So it's thinking about that process and how we feel at different points in the race. If you want to take something that's a mood booster that will give you a lift, absolutely. But not something to try to rely on throughout the whole race. It's eating when you don't feel hungry and becoming robotic about it.
00:42:16
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. And we're often very temperamental in racing where you're packing your bag going, that's going to make me happy. And you go and you're like, I was such an idiot. I hate this. What am I doing? So I've tried that before. I'm like, this will make me happy. Nope. That made me miserable because that was the last thing I wanted to eat at that point. Yeah. And it's often the race experience or learning from our race experiences that can help shape
00:42:39
Speaker
you know, our nutrition and fueling strategy for the next race potentially. But if you can, yeah, walk yourself through the race again with how you feel in terms of, or how your experience of how you feel if you've had previous race history of mood and emotion and fatigue and all of those things. Again, you can be savvy with what you feel with, maybe take a gel or a chew that you really do like the flavor of, or
00:43:04
Speaker
you know mix it up add a bit of variety and particularly also thinking about maybe the final stages of the race when people do start to really struggle to take on board um foods and fuels and it's it is individual so it's just a matter of thinking it through and then testing that out as best as you can in training like
00:43:22
Speaker
I don't feel hungry, what will go down? And whether that's liquid calories, so sports drinks, there's kind of drinks called like Perpetuum by Hammer. Yeah, that kind of thing. So if you can rely on some, or you know, you get into aid stations and there's flat coke or there's soups or soups don't tend to have calories in, but it's then just trying to think your way through the race and kind of planning as best as you can for all eventualities.
00:43:51
Speaker
Absolutely. So that leads us I think to
00:43:56
Speaker
Another really key point and consideration is hydration and sodium requirements.
Calculating Fluid and Sodium Needs
00:44:03
Speaker
And I think that this can be challenging for, like you hear people say, oh, I'm a heavy sweater or, oh, I don't really drink that much. And I think often we say those things without really too much scientific backed data. And so how does an athlete figure out what their hydration and sodium requirements are?
00:44:24
Speaker
Yeah, so the first step, which is relatively easy, is determine how much fluid you lose per hour. So what is your sweat rate per hour? If you think you're a heavy sweater in terms of fluid loss, let's find it out. So what you can do is
00:44:39
Speaker
potentially maybe we can share a link to this resource in the show notes, but also if you Google sweat loss equation, there's a simple to carry out fluid loss equation that you can do to help you determine how much fluid you lose per hour. So what are your sweat rates per hour? And it's a simple process of choosing a one to two hour session and standing on the scales before the training session, after the training session and then taking into account the fluid that you drank and it gives you
00:45:08
Speaker
It's a nice neat little equation that then will give you your approximate fluid loss per hour. And that gives you a guideline as to how much to drink per hour. You don't necessarily or won't necessarily be able to replenish all of that. Some people are losing a liter and a half per hour. The practicalities of doing that in race, especially if aid stations are far apart, is difficult or carrying that amount is difficult.
00:45:33
Speaker
but at least then you have some idea of how much to drink to go towards offsetting significant dehydration. So it gives you an idea of how much fluid you're losing per hour. And then if you're doing it in training, it can help give you an idea of then how much to rehydrate after to restore hydration. So that's great. You can work out how much food you lose per hour, which gives you your sweat rate per hour. You can do it in different temperatures. So you can do it in the cold, you can do it in the heat, you can do it at night.
00:46:02
Speaker
you can do it in an easy session, you can do it in an interval session. So that will also give you guidance as potentially how your sweat rate will change throughout a race. So then you are better equipped with how much you need to be drinking within your race. Like I said, you won't necessarily replace the full amount, but it gives you an idea to go towards some way. Are you meeting that at the moment? Or it can help give you a specific round of, right, I need to drink
00:46:30
Speaker
this amount per hour and then changed this amount if it gets hot or if it's cold and running through the night I need to reduce my intake. As a general rule of thumb as a starting place for people I would suggest 500 ml per hour in temperate conditions and then a thousand ml per hour in hot conditions. That's just a starting place for people. Obviously it'll be less if it's cold in your
00:46:53
Speaker
you know running in a cold environment or you're running overnight potentially it could be the same or it could be less or up to generally most people are elite runners as well and managing a thousand mil on average per hour in hot conditions potentially more and again that's all relevant to if you're running in the desert or if you're running in the snow or what time of year you're running in as well and obviously your own individual sweat rate.
00:47:20
Speaker
Amazing. Yeah, I think that's really helpful for people just to get a sense of what is my baseline and how do I work from there. Yeah, it's really helpful. And that equation, we'll share it, you can do it all the time in your training sessions. Ideally stick to 60 minutes to two hours, because after that, you're probably taking on board food and carbohydrates and other influences that might influence the weight change.
00:47:43
Speaker
So definitely do that. It's great, and it's really easy to do. The only thing I wanted to say is that there is a suggestion in the research to drink to thirst, and I've seen some people make that suggestion. And particularly the suggestions around drinking to thirst would be okay in and around races of six to nine hours. But my only issue with that is that
00:48:10
Speaker
If you drink to thirst, you still need a plan because you need to know where you can access fluid. You need to know how you can top up your flasks. And then if it all of a sudden gets hot and you suddenly feel really thirsty and you drink all of your fluid, where are you going to get the rest from?
00:48:28
Speaker
I'm cautious to say it, but I would certainly be hesitant to recommend to anybody to drink to first. I would still encourage people to get used to their own fluid losses. Obviously, being mindful, we're not encouraging people to over drink and over hydrate, but we're offsetting significant dehydration. And then that brings us on to sodium needs. Yeah, I mean, I think that's another
00:48:54
Speaker
really interesting piece of it. And I'd be curious, A, sodium needs and B,
00:48:59
Speaker
how or what you recommend people take in. I think salt pills are having somewhat of a resurgence. I felt like they were very much a thing when I first started because there was still, I feel like maybe it's like 2018, 19 where ultra running just all of a sudden became not this really obscure weird thing everyone did. I mean, it's so obscure and weird. But I'd be curious of like what
00:49:27
Speaker
your favorite electrolyte replacements are as well? Yeah, so this is another tricky area and not as easy to solve as the fluid loss one. But again, in the research, some of the research is suggesting that we don't need to think about sodium, that there's enough coming from sports products, there's enough sodium that we eat coming from the foods that we consume during a race. That might be
00:49:55
Speaker
pretty accurate and we might well do you know sports products have between 0 to 200 milligrams of sodium you know foods like a packet of crisps is 150 milligrams of sodium a handful of peanuts has around 200 250 milligrams of sodium so we are getting sodium from the foods and the fueling products that we're using during
00:50:17
Speaker
a race, but we still need to be having an idea of how much we're consuming so then we can adjust for the race condition. So we still need a plan. So I would suggest as a baseline, potentially you're looking at 500 milligrams of sodium per hour in temperate conditions in 500 mils of water and up to 1000 milligrams of sodium per hour in hot conditions in a litre in 1000 mils of fluid
00:50:45
Speaker
And that isn't going to be every hour throughout the entire race, temperature changes and everything else. But that's, again, a starting point. People often say that's high amounts, but this is I'm seeing
00:50:59
Speaker
potentially anecdotes and also some people who are having sweat testing done, whether that's single patch testing or whole body sweat testing, that when we have a specific strategic sodium supplementation plan, people are reporting improvement in how they feel, they feel better in running. And adding that sodium then to your water is then going to offset the risk of hyponatremia.
00:51:23
Speaker
So the idea behind that isn't to add loads of sodium, but that's the general guidance in warmer conditions as you're running through the day, 500 milligrams of sodium, in 500 mils of water, or 500 milligrams of sodium per hour, and then 1,000 milligrams of sodium.
00:51:39
Speaker
in a litre of fluids or in combination with foods. Research shows that average sodium loss is in athletes around 200 milligrams to 2000 milligrams. So it's again a broad range for all of us. There isn't a one size fits all approach and I would certainly suggest that people have access to that to have sweat testing done but it's a little bit more difficult to go and have done. It's not as freely accessible. So yeah, so it's still a broad range and they're kind of the
00:52:06
Speaker
the guidelines, but again, I would walk through the race with someone and look at their already existing sodium intake from the products they're already using and add in as desired. So if you're looking at kind of a sodium supplement, you know, your sports products like Tailwind, I think two scoops, has already got 450 milligrams, your chews,
00:52:27
Speaker
like goo or cliff choose have got around 35 milligrams for three. But if you want to kind of target specifically sodium so you can really understand how much you're having per hour and control for that. Things like noon tablets are fine. They've got around 200 to 300 milligrams of sodium. Your salt sticks, they do vary, so to check, but they're generally 50 milligrams of sodium. So they're quite smaller volumes, particularly if you're racing in warmer conditions.
00:52:55
Speaker
And some companies, like Precision Fuel and Hydration, they do 500 and 1,000 milligrams of supplements. But then you've got other companies, like Noon and Salt Sticks, that all do smaller sodium intake. So it's finding out how much you're consuming already and then adding in on top of that what you need.
00:53:21
Speaker
And if you add up what you're doing already, that's when things like salt sticks or noon tablets or precision-fallen hydration tablets can be used in addition, and then you can work out how many do I need per hour. And then it becomes easier for you to then calculate. But the only thing I want to say, don't confuse salt with sodium. Sometimes the sports products label will say salt content. Sometimes they'll say sodium content. You need to be looking at sodium content.
00:53:48
Speaker
So you need to convert salt to sodium. If you Google it, there's some quite good calculators that will do that for you. But for every one gram of salt is 400 milligrams of sodium. So be mindful that salt isn't sodium. And sodium, yeah, salt isn't sodium. You need to convert it.
00:54:04
Speaker
Well, I have learned something new because I, yeah, I don't know why. Yep, that's great. Thanks for that. So like the research shows, you might be getting enough from your foods and sports products already. From, again, all of my experience, I don't feel it is. But that's from my anecdotal experience working with athletes and athletes, anybody, athletes, people that are running ultra runs, trail running races,
00:54:31
Speaker
like to have data specific numbers so that's when the additional electrolyte tablets when you look at those numbers you can go well at this time of day it's going to be hot so I need a thousand milligrams so I'll just drop in this thousand milligram electrolyte it's easy for you to then again it takes another decision-making process away when you've got things that add up nicely and a nice round numbers but
00:54:52
Speaker
Again, everybody's different. Definitely. Do you, I think a little bit of the fear and I think you hear horror stories, which I'm actually curious if it even is, do you worry about athletes over assaulting? Um, cause I think like, I know that that potentially that that no, like in my
00:55:15
Speaker
In my own professional experience, I haven't seen anyone over salt in terms of adding too much sodium in. In my experience, people aren't adding enough. That isn't to say people are adding, aren't over adding, but that's when I'm saying, like, look at what you're already doing.
00:55:37
Speaker
like in terms of how much are you taking on board and
Avoiding Common Nutrition Mistakes
00:55:40
Speaker
look at the range of 250 milligrams, 500 milligrams and 1,000 milligrams in varying temperatures because that's not, you know, it's not 1,000 milligrams every hour for the entire race because it's probably not going to be hot for the entire, that hot for the entire race, it might be, but then it's just getting an idea of your own needs. But I haven't, you know, people might
00:56:03
Speaker
potentially have, but I haven't seen it professionally. I've seen the opposite. And it's just giving people the right guidance and information that we don't necessarily over hydrate or use too much sodium, but also the other way. I'm finding everything's the other way. People don't eat enough carbohydrate, they don't drink enough and they don't add enough sodium.
00:56:22
Speaker
interesting. Yeah, I've just heard it a few times. And now I really wonder if that was what it was, or maybe it was something else. So that's good to hear that it's, it's generally the opposite direction. Yeah, but it could be, you know, that you if you're in races, there's bullion, you know, there's lots of products that are salty. And then, you know, depending on if we
00:56:43
Speaker
If we don't have a race nutrition strategy, there is a greater risk of potentially having too much sodium because we might forget how much we use, we might not know how much is in a salt stick or a noon tablet and just keep adding them. So there is the risk, you know, the potential that people are overusing them, but it's trying to, you know, that for me says people haven't planned and practiced their race nutrition strategy and they don't necessarily know what they need that's right for them.
00:57:10
Speaker
That makes sense. So I think this is always kind of the fun question, but also might be very irritating for a nutritionist. But what are maybe like your two to three most common mistakes? And I feel like I can probably guess. But what are what are some of your most common mistakes that you see and how can we best resolve and hopefully avoid them? I mean, it is a great question. And I think
00:57:42
Speaker
The first one is people don't plan and practice the race nutrition strategy. They don't plan it for one or they don't practice it enough. It's not something that you pretend you just do once or twice and then hope for the best. It's something that you can practice over and over and drill down and nail. So then almost every race you turn up to, you know what you're doing. It might take... It will take a conscious effort the first few times or a
00:58:08
Speaker
huge conscious effort. When I work with athletes, we've got spreadsheets, we're testing all of these types of things. For me, it's good fun. And I think it's a good opportunity to encourage people to fuel training and test out all these different foods. But it's certainly something people aren't doing to start and just aren't doing enough. It needs to be something you're working on all of the time.
00:58:31
Speaker
One of the other ones, so plan and practice. The other one is don't remember to fuel regularly through the race. Like we talked about elite runners kind of only potentially in the research saying 70 grams, but we know that we're seeing 90 to 95. But the other end of that is that recreational athletes are carrying 60 grams of carbohydrate, but only eating 30 grams of carbohydrates. So are you getting to the end of the race with a bag still full of food that you haven't eaten?
00:58:59
Speaker
So really it's it's and then that happens at the other end like we were talking about do you need to set an alarm on your watch to remember to eat every you know take that gel every half an hour every 15 minutes or remember to eat
00:59:12
Speaker
every half an hour or something like that. But for me, if people are forgetting to eat or aren't remembering to fuel throughout a race, that signifies to me that they haven't planned and practiced that nutrition strategy enough. I appreciate we get distracted, we feel overwhelmed within a race and you have the race nerves. But again, if we're well practiced and dialed in, we can potentially kind of
00:59:38
Speaker
help us to remember better. But yeah, if you, if it's trying to, yeah, the other thing is getting distracted at aid stations. So you're standing on a start line and the other common mistake is that we then change our plan at the last minute or we decide we want to, you know, we don't want to take this. I'm going to take that instead. Or, oh, I feel like this today.
00:59:55
Speaker
we get distracted at age stage options or we decide to change our hydration or fueling plan last minute or we use take food from the stations that we haven't tested before or we use the sports products provided by the race event that we haven't tested which then can potentially land us in all sorts of trouble. So again it just goes back to planning and practicing your race nutrition strategy which would probably undo a lot of the common mistakes I see and the stomach issues that happen.
01:00:26
Speaker
I think that's fantastic. Yeah, it's so funny. I think we often when we get in high pressure situations across the board, we forget that we can trust ourselves and can trust what we've practiced. And we just think, oh, well, I'll just try this brand new thing that I've never eaten before. And it's like, wait a second. No, no, you know what you're doing.
01:00:47
Speaker
stick with it and trust that. Yeah. And you see it happen. You're like, Oh my God, they've got that. Or they're reaching for that in the A-stations. Oh, they're doing this and I haven't done it. So you kind of feel like you've not done something right or you don't feel like you're prepared. But yeah, and that comes with just having your race nutritionist actually does. You will stand on that start like confident that you're going to have energy, confident that you're going to be able to fuel properly and confident that it's just going to help
01:01:14
Speaker
well contribute to a better race experience. Absolutely. And sometimes that just takes a little bit of experience. I think it's why we see, yeah, I think it's why we see ultra runners really
01:01:29
Speaker
excelling as they get older in many ways just because they've just like we've all made our fair share of really silly mistakes and you just hopefully become less silly the more races that you do and you're able to put together and also you understand how to build your team how to get your resources because I think
01:01:49
Speaker
reaching out to people like you and saying, hey, can you sit down with me, having a coach, having a team behind you that supports you and helps you. And I think when we start out, we kind of feel like this little island.
Building Confidence in Ultra Running
01:02:04
Speaker
And I think it just the more that you can build your community, the more that you can have people help you and have people on your team, the better that you'll set yourself up for success.
01:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's about talking to people, learning from people, not necessarily copying people, but or having people tell you what to do in the sense without the greater understanding of you as an individual. But yeah, talking to people, learning from people and really just piecing together your own personal nutrition strategy and then testing it, both in training, but then yeah, in the race is probably when you'll learn the most about yourself and your nutrition and hydration strategy.
01:02:43
Speaker
Yeah, always fun and exciting. Well, hopefully not exciting, I should say that. But is there anything else you would like to touch on before we wrap up? Just keep it simple. Like I think we can get lost down rabbit holes of kind of nutrition strategy supplements. Like I said, what other people are doing, what other people are telling us to do or to try, but really keep it simple. The biggest difference
01:03:12
Speaker
runners can make is to have that plan to fuel with carbohydrate per hour what is your liquid and hydration intake per hour and sodium intake per hour and start there and just practice practice practice until it's dialled and even when I work with elite athletes that's where the biggest gains and performance benefits can be made trying not just keep it simple and then when you've done that then you can start to
01:03:39
Speaker
think about other things. Yes, we haven't talked about caffeine strategies and supplements that may be influential for your ultra running race. I'm not ruling those out, but I'm trying to focus on what we were saying is the basics and helping people do this right because this is where the biggest gains will be made.
01:04:03
Speaker
I mean, there's so many interesting points within that because I think so often we jump to like, oh, what's the shiny, fancy thing that can fix all of my other issues and that 0.001% gain? And you're like, no, we still have a whole lot of foundation that we can fix before we add on that shiny, shimmery fun thing.
01:04:27
Speaker
But nutrition doesn't stand on its own, does it? Like nutrition doesn't stand alone. You're looking at training, you're looking at sleep. Like day to day, you're looking at training, you're looking at sleep, you're looking at mindset.
01:04:38
Speaker
along with nutrition. And it's the same with a race. You know, nutrition will contribute to the success of your race, but that's not without effort of training and looking at the performance gains or the strengths that can be made from your training. Or can you get better night's sleep? Or can you manage stress? Can you, you know, how's your mindset influencing all of it? So it's part of
01:05:02
Speaker
a whole picture and rather than just zooming in thinking, oh, this supplement is going to make me do this or this supplement is going to make me do that, I'm like, no, no, let's zoom out, tick all of those boxes and then we can maybe zoom back in and zoom in and use them when we know they're going to have the benefit that they're suggesting that they do.
01:05:21
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, it's um, there's probably not going to be one supplement that will take you from DNFing a race to finishing it. We'll say that. I know it would be amazing if it would, wouldn't it? Yeah, right. That I yeah, no, I wouldn't, wouldn't had any bets on it anyway. Agreed.
01:05:42
Speaker
And I think that that sets it up for hopefully I think we're going to be putting together a longer nutrition series that we can really dive into caffeine into more of the nitty gritty and the specifics for the everyday the race strategy because I think this was really more focused around you know how you prepare that race strategy for trail running so
01:06:03
Speaker
we have a lot to cover in the future. Yeah, loads to chat about, which is exciting. Yeah, loads of really cool tips. I think we make nutrition difficult or there's so much nutrition information out there. You know, people are struggling to understand what's right for them. So it's really helping. I hope with the podcast, we can really help people, give people those easy to put into practice nutrition strategies and really help make sense of nutrition, basically, for whatever your sport or discipline or training session or lifestyle goal.
01:06:34
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Rebecca. This has been amazing. And I think, especially as we're really headed into the the fall racing season, which I every single time I look at the night, I have the next five years of my life planned out because most all of the races I want to do happen exactly the same time in the fall. So I think this will be really helpful for people as they head into a really big
01:07:02
Speaker
race part of the year. Yeah, thanks for having me. Just on that, this race training nutrition strategies is all year round. It's not necessary, I know we're not suggesting that, but this is for, you can use this and I would encourage people to do this all year round, not just in the run-up to race season or during race season, it just happens to be, it's on point to talk about it because everybody's heading into the thick of race season for everybody. So I hope there's still some tips people can
01:07:32
Speaker
can use for their next race? Oh, absolutely. No, I think this will be really relevant. So thank you for listening to the uphill athlete podcast. If you can rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, that's really helpful to us and hopefully gets us helping the people that we can. So it's not just one, but a community. We are uphill athlete.