00:00.00
Alyssa
Welcome to the Uphill Athlete Podcast our mission is to elevate inspire all mountain athletes through education and celebration. My name is Alyssa Clark and I will be your host today. I am super excited to welcome Rebecca Dent to the podcast to discuss our most pressing questions on trail running and nutrition. Thanks for being on.

00:24.17
Rebecca
Thanks Alyssa and I’m equally super excited to be talking to you here. Uphill athlete today about one of my favorite topics trailll and Ultra running race nutrition strategy. So hopefully listeners today will get some easy to put into practice takeaway strategies that they can start using. Um 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 people prevent and reduce stomach issues. So yeah, let’s um, help set some Pbs today.

00:59.85
Alyssa
I love it and I can already say that when we do training groups and have q and a sessions that Rebecca is our most sought-after guest because I think nutrition really is one of the 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 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 those practical ways that we can achieve that. Um, but first before we dive into that can you tell us about yourself, your background in sport. Ah, how you became an RD for endurance athletes because you’re an Rd but you’re the most interesting niche I think of being an RD. So I’d love to hear your background.

02:01.53
Rebecca
Yeah I mean kind of a bit about me I’ve been a dietician for just over 20 years and kind of early in my career I specialized in weight management and behavior change in the nhs in the uk. And then I moved on to specialize 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 and 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 trail and ultra endurance athletes and then along with that. I was supporting the gb climbing team which then led me to working with GB climber Seana Coxy to the Tokyo Olympics 2021. So then in 2016 and kind of a bit before that we moved to the Chamonix Valley from the Uk. My husband’s and ah ifmga mountain guide. So it just made sense that we moved to the mountains and then this just fueled my passion and desire to specialize in working 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 uphill athlete to be part of this awesome team of coaches and it’s just progressed from there.

03:32.77
Alyssa
That’s amazing. Okay I mean holy crap I didn’t know your husband was a pinned guide. That’s so cool. Wow that’s like a whole other I mean wow power couple. Um, so many other questions about the 2 of you. But, we’ll get back there. Wow that’s amazing. So just I thought I knew quite a bit about you and now wow every time I learn something new. Um, so that’s awesome. So as your 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?

04:20.89
Rebecca
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 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 of these races would look. They’re all completely different. So I really enjoy helping athletes figure out what’s right for them and helping to make sense of nutrition. And just like I said really problem solving the nutritional challenges so they can really transform their race experience. So I first start by asking a lot of questions. So it’s kind of digging a bit deep to determine the kind of previous race experience and 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 in previous races or is consuming during training, history of stomach issues in race and also day-to-day and 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 the distance, duration, desired time to complete the location, weather, terrain, ascent, descent, time between aid stations, aid station provisions. So there’s quite a lot to consider and factor in whilst also kind of looking at the individual.

05:50.47
Rebecca
What 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 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.

06:14.74
Alyssa
That’s fantastic. Yeah I think, 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. It’s very similar. 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.

06:44.59
Rebecca
Yeah, yeah, and it’s great because again people choose to eat different things, they choose and to have they have different taste preferences things that will go down and 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.

06:45.20
Alyssa
Like our legs for a race.

07:03.98
Rebecca
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 and just go for it and interestingly you know some people can get away with that and potentially finish the race. 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. Um enjoy the race finish faster you know and it will really kind of enhance your race performance for sure by really dialing in specifically your needs.

07:50.65
Alyssa
Oh it makes total sense. I mean you wouldn’t we’ve all done this to a certain extent but it’s like showing up to a race start 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 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. So how do you like develop the strategy in actual training? Um, and how does an athlete test this strategy or how do you have your athletes test the strategies? Um, in the training process. So before we get to the start line.

08:32.41
Rebecca
Um, yeah, so kind of just and before that there’s kind of some general kind of um, starting point is race nutrition strategies for those listening that want to kind of really knuckle down and and really make sure they’re planning prepared for their next race. 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 and if you’re elite competitive. An athlete who really wants to race well and um and be kind of in the top 10 top 20 or so. Then you want to be aiming for around ninety grams of carbohydrate up to 120 grams of carbohydrate per hour. So you’re looking at three hundred and sixty to four hundred and eighty calories per hour and that primarily comes from sports drinks gels and for the athletes that I’m supporting the elite runners. You know they’re consuming 500 mills of a sports drink along with 1 or 2 gels per hour and that’s giving them their 90 to 120 grams of carbohydrates so these days I think it’s quite um, it’s really good because sports products or sports companies are getting a bit savier 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.

09:58.13
Rebecca
Practical for these faster runners who want to race well but also not be loaded up with as many gels and that will weigh them down and then if you’re a recreational runner. So the the rest of us at the back of the pack you kind of really want to be looking at around sixty 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 ninety grams of carbohydrate per hour 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. Um, 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 like bars, real foods and other fluids and not necessary just have to rely on those sports drinks. Interestingly what we’re seeing is that faster finishes are consuming more calories than those that Dnf consume less calories per hour compared to those that are finishing so those are that are dnfing if you’re looking at their nutrition intake per hour they tend to be um, consuming under two hundred calories per hour so it really is about getting on board that energy and fueling well. And 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 going to go on I know to talk about fluid and interestingly the research suggests for the elite runners that they are consuming, people like yourself Alyssa, are consuming around seventy grams of carbohydrate per hour. But what I am seeing in the field and with ultrarunners and what we’re hearing reportedly I guess on Instagram and other social media outlets is that elite runners are consuming around 90 to ninety five grams of carbohydrate per hour on average in a hundred mile race and then up to 120 and reportedly 130 grams of carbohydrate per I mean I’ve had elite ultra runners who potentially you know haven’t practiced their fueling in race and then you start to introduce more carbohydrate and they’re reporting they feel like they got more energy. They feel like they can run faster. You know they feel like they’re performing better and they feel like they’re recovering and better after races. So it really does pay to kind of get the carbohydrate in but then obviously using that and nailing your nutrition strategy before you stand on that start line.

12:27.10
Alyssa
That’s fantastic and I’ve also seen that as well and am honestly just genuinely impressed of being able to get that in. Um, yeah, it really is I mean that’s a feat in itself. Um, but I actually had 2

12:36.70
Rebecca
Um, it’s amazing.

12:43.92
Alyssa
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 kind of collective demand. So I’d love to hear what that looks like if you are going past the kind of that 24, 30 hour range.

13:18.91
Rebecca
Yeah, um, definitely I mean i it’s incredible people that want to do the multistage and 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. Um that I can give examples for but then the multi-stage day event. You know you are aiming for around two hundred to four hundred 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. Um, 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 and doing and you’re running you know for long hours and days on end. Potentially if it’s a stage race with sleep. Um, or if it’s just a continuous race like the tour de giant where you just have to sleep where you lie 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 maximize the calories at all times and then.

14:44.72
Rebecca
If you’re moving for four or 5 to 6 days. You’re going to want to eat a warm meal or you’re going to want to eat something solid. You’re going to want to have something that’s you know, familiar to you and you’re going to be moving at slower intensities as well. So then you have the opportunity to eat more real food options and then also you might plan to spend longer at aid stations or with your crew support to then give you time to eat more food or more real food rather than just the sports drinks and bars.

15:17.34
Alyssa
That makes a lot of sense I am always very impressed like Brian one of the other coaches he can eat like a hamburger 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 two hundreds. I have never had that ah success or ability. Ah, but no, that’s great I think yeah, you really start craving more variety in what you’re eating.

15:45.82
Rebecca
Yeah, savory foods. And yeah I mean I’ve been at aid stations and seen all thought sushi picnics pizzas like people cooking noodles bowls of cereal like you just see it all and which is amazing. You know I love to see people eating so it’s fantastic and to see people tucking into these variety of foods.

16:10.15
Alyssa
I feel like you would be so this is a tiny tangent hopefully um, 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 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 ah that would be really cool. Project.

16:34.11
Rebecca
Yeah, do you get fries and hot dogs in the US or do you get um cheese and meats in the French Alps you know and 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 was classic types of foods isn’t it and then in the the alps you are getting meats and cheeses and there’s obviously fruits and dried fruits and nuts and sweets and soups and bullion and pasta and fries and a royal mix bag. But yeah, be interesting to go around the different countries and and map them out.

17:07.78
Alyssa
Um, yeah, um, that sounds like a fun grant of some kind. But yes.

17:12.72
Rebecca
You could pick your race based on your food preference couldn’t you what country you would like to go in and what you know what ideal food you’d like to eat during a race.

17:21.38
Alyssa
Definitely which I think leads to 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 cheeses and they don’t have a hamburger and you’re like correct. This is so I think that’s just a great tip to people. to look up what aid stations are serving and if it works for you.

17:48.98
Rebecca
Um, I mean I think that’s 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 station. 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 ifood so would potentially elite athletes would choose their own foods whether that’s pizza, some pasta, sandwich and bread or potatoes. You know biscuits with soup, whatever variety that is and I certainly think that recreational runners definitely 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 or would I drink any of this and then cross all 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 fantastic array depending on what race you do of foods available and you’re like wow.

19:11.69
Rebecca
Um, 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 an influence on our stomach or just how we feel.

19:25.48
Alyssa
Definitely and that actually is my last question before we kind of get back to actually gut training. How do you handle when an athlete says and you know 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. How do you handle like hey you do need to practice some but like where is that balance that you find working with athletes? Um, from an economic standpoint.

20:05.33
Rebecca
Um, it’s a good question and it’s a tricky one. Um, my first argument would be. You’ve invested so much time, money and effort in the race in the kit traveling to the race and race entry.

20:20.80
Rebecca
Time in training that actually 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. It can be very costly. So the idea would be then to maybe choose you know the three months prior to a race or. Once a month. In one of your long runs you then use the sports products that you’re going to use in your base I am 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 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 carbohydrates in different forms that we can talk about that will still encourage gut training and get used to eating carbohydrates on the go.

21:23.86
Alyssa
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. It’s like ah but then you’ve never tested it.

21:41.64
Rebecca
Yeah, yeah, and that’s tricky as well. I mean that’s tricky because it’s just like well. How do you know 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 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.

22:07.17
Alyssa
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 how we go about that when we are in our training sessions?

22:35.23
Rebecca
So there’s kind of 2 ideas I think um 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. Your tolerance of taking on board greater amounts of both fluid and carbohydrate per hour in your race to then ensure um, regular fueling 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.

23:11.73
Rebecca
But I would say are probably the 2 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 um, fuel your training sessions with carbohydrate and hydrate to drink fluid. During them practice your race nutrition foods, fluid and sodium strategy in your long runs and do it more than once and do it over and over and over and over again until it’s dialed until you are confident that it works so those are the 2 key things I think I’ve seen with whatever level you’re at recreational to elite athlete that will have the biggest influence on your performance and alleviate and reduce gut issues by fueling your training sessions with carbohydrate and hydrating and practicing your race nutrition foods fluid and sodium strategy so you have it dial. Once you’ve done it in the sense you’ve got it dialed you then take that onto the next race and the next race and the next race and we can expand the variety you can choose different flavor options. But you know what works and you know how much you can consume and take on board per hour and that’s the 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 carbohydrates per hour or drink more volume of fluid per hour.

24:43.61
Rebecca
There’s a specific one to enhance fluid tolerance by practicing drinking during training. So for example, if you are someone that I’ve been working with an elite runner and she found it difficult to consume seven hundred and fifty mls 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 and that 750 down drinking on average 500 ml but you know to really help with her and performance in the heat. We’re just trying to increase her fluid intake. 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 consuming whether it’s five hundred, seven fifty or a liter a liter per hour you divide that by 6 so Seven fifty divided by 6 is 125 meal so we got this athlete to drink 125 meal of water every 10 minutes within an hour training session. But the goal was to drink that within a minute so the first minute of the first ten minutes drink one hundred and twenty five meals 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 6 times a minimum of 6 times that will help to increase your tolerance and level of comfort of having that volume of fluid in your stomach and not encouraging hyperhydration or over drinking on water. Obviously we supplement that with sodium is required which can be a volume of the sports drink but when we have increasing temperatures and or people aren’t drinking enough. Through the race which causes dnf, 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.

26:47.80
Alyssa
That makes total sense. Sorry do you want to add anything? Okay.

26:50.74
Rebecca
I was going to go on to the next one but yeah you know that’s one and it does make sense for fluid and often I think we drop the balls a little bit with fluid and sodium. Um, because there’s not necessary specific clear information out there for what people could be doing or should be doing or how to determine our own unique fluid loss and sodium requirements that I can you know happily talk about as well. But yeah, that’s one of the one of the gut training strategies. That’s not linked to carbohydrates but certainly linked to fluid intake.

27:23.21
Alyssa
Yeah, so I think that’s well I guess what we’ll get into that super soon? Um, but what are the most common Gi issues that you see in athletes?

27:36.81
Rebecca
This.

27:38.54
Alyssa
Yeah I would love to know the specific numbers I’m sure you know them of how many athletes drop out just from cited GI issues.

27:43.10
Rebecca
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 are GI issues are nausea and vomiting are 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 um, in the research, it’s showing that around 40 to 90% of runners participating in races of like seventy kilometers to one hundred and sixty kilometers so with the increasing distance we’re seeing an increase in participants report stomach issues and that’s regardless of whether they finish or not so the longer the race the greater the 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 that’s the biggest issue fuel your training plan and practice your race nutrition strategy and I would dare to say 7, 8 times out of 10 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. Running over time will also have a response on the gut that then lends it to kind of be poor absorption trauma to the gut. All of those things that influence our stomach but we can get used to consuming carbohydrates and fluid and we’re seeing it with all of these elite runners. They’re getting faster. And they’re consuming more carbohydrates.

29:44.81
Alyssa
Yeah I mean absolutely and actually I’m super curious I mean when I think how do you feel about the fact that like I think it’s almost just accepted like oh vomiting in Ultras is just what it is like how do you feel about that sentiment?

30:05.25
Rebecca
Um, like again I’ve had another runner who’s vomited a couple of times he’s like yeah no I’m fine I just bomb it and I can just carry on running, and like it’s not necessarily.. It’s difficult because you know there’s so many influences on you know, lack of sleep and you know just how your stomach rolls for that Race. You know it can be quite unpredictable but you can problem solve and work back and put the pieces together as to why that might have 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 and 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 and whether it’s pace. All of those things. It’s cooling strategies. All of those things that can help really prevent an occurrence of nausea and vomiting happening then let’s do it and we don’t have to suffer through them. You know they’re tough enough as it is.

31:13.10
Alyssa
Yeah, no I think that 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 it Ultra. It’s like oh if you don’t. And we don’t need to do that.

31:33.84
Rebecca
Yeah, so some of the carbohydrate gut training strategies that can potentially offset that nausea some of the reasons that I’ve kind of problem solved people um’s nausea is that potentially you know, um, trying to consume more carbohydrate in a race and not having practiced that amount. Or you know a change in pace. Um, and then trying to take on board carbohydrates at the same time so running faster and and causing nausea may 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. And nutritionally and obviously you can problem solve around that from non-nutritional factors but some of the carbohydrate gut training strategies are and some of the simpler ones or the straightforward ones are just simply adopting a higher carbohydrate diet for a 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 we’ve seen in the research that just by simply adding more carbohydrates into your diet in the two weeks. Um, for two weeks can help us really get used to, eating and tolerating greater amounts of carbohydrates. You don’t necessarily do that for the 2 weeks before but we’ve seen that eating carbs but increasing carbohydrates in the diet increases our tolerance, just within two weeks.

32:55.59
Alyssa
Nice.

32:58.62
Rebecca
Yeah, so looking at carbohydrate intakes and maybe slightly increasing them as well as like I said fueling training with all training sessions of carbohydrate could be a helpful strategy and then the other more there are some more aggressive strategies like eating a meal then go out for a run so having your breakfast and then within five or ten minutes you’re out the door. Obviously, you might want to control your intensity because you definitely don’t want to see your breakfast ten or fifteen minutes later but that strategy is about you actually literally running with food still in your stomach. So your body’s getting used to moving while it’s still trying to digest and then another more aggressive strategy is practicing eating carbohydrates regularly within an hour’s training session. So in minutes before you go out the door. You’d consume thirty grams of carbohydrates or a gel typically so one gel at 20 another gel at 40 another gel obviously hydrating around that um, as required. And that helps aid tolerance of taking on board carbohydrates helps us to get used to taking on board more carbohydrates per hour I’ve used those strategies but not very often and by the time people have fueled their training appropriately and you’ve had them practice their race nutrition strategy often. You don’t need to do those strategies but they can be helpful if someone wants to push their carbohydrate intakes from 60 to 90 or wants to practice 90 to 120. Um, so yeah.

34:30.70
Rebecca
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 some races where you are willing to go and test out your nutrition strategy and you’re not necessarily, tied to your finish time. So yeah, try to go and do some races and enjoy them as a goal towards your laying your A-ways.

34:55.92
Alyssa
Totally yeah I think that’s so key I mean I maybe unintenionally do a lot of just like eating and then going right out the door. Um, because I’ve always I mean It’s funny I had someone when I first started.

35:04.65
Rebecca
Great.

35:12.82
Alyssa
Really getting into Ultras being like wait. Don’t you need to wait now or like aren’t you going to feel bad and I was like yeah I have eaten pizza, literally like had a pizza in my hand as I was running out of an aid station like that’s what I do and so I’m really glad to hear I was really just practice.

35:32.50
Alyssa
Ah, next time I’m gonna be like yeah I’m like 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.

35:40.67
Rebecca
Yeah, it’s it’s definitely on an individual case by case basis. There isn’t you know one foot or one size fits all strategies. You know if I was working say with you and we were problem solving your nutrition or trying to to encourage you to fuel more. You know you’d pick the most relevant strategies and then potentially build up to those more aggressive and what I call aggressive and gut training strategies so that you’re not making someone vomit every time they go out for a run and it’s not that’s not fun either and for training the other thing. The other thing that would be good to do is if you’re kind of are comfortable with practicing your race nutrition strategy and training don’t just pick your long training runs choose higher intensity sessions and hill sessions. Um, those kinds of things or sessions where you’re running faster you know trying to kind of mimic similar conditions of your race. So that you’re not just fueling during those lower intensities. You know if you’ve got an ascent or a descent. Um 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 and that’s the time to do it as well.

37:06.42
Alyssa
Absolutely yeah I’ve heard before people say like oh I only fuel on the downhill or I only fuel on the flat. It’s like well in the Alps sometimes they’re going up for four to five hours so you really like you have to know how to fuel across the board and also just.

37:17.17
Rebecca
Yeah, yeah.

37:25.15
Alyssa
Ah, the the practical logistics of like hey how do you take this out with your poles on? How do you manage yourself because I think people there sometimes they’ll just be like oh I’m going to add in poles 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 poles 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 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. This is just what I do.

38:15.45
Rebecca
Um, yeah I love that and you that it’s 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 and 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 recces or at least simulate conditions of that race set up aid stations. You know, faff around with your kit and get used to trying to take it out from behind you or tuck it into pockets so that you can do it. Learn to do it efficiently over time like you say with poles and how you going to all of that. Um, 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. Feel like I’ve done as much as I can I know what I’m doing and if you have a plan and 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.

39:27.61
Alyssa
Definitely yeah. I like to think of it as I’m idiot proofing myself because I know that I will later on into race. You’re just not thinking as clearly and so like I set a timer for when I need to eat and so my watch beeps at me and gives me a little milkshake symbol. That’s like a nutrition alert. 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. Wow, tangent that we’ll get back to this 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 move away a little bit from food as an emotional source of energy. Um, 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 food is medicine towards the end of the 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 this is your job, your job is to eat this and you can have 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 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.

40:58.41
Rebecca
Yeah, like I couldn’t agree more, and one of the messages I do give over is that um you need to get used to eating when you don’t feel hungry. You need to be robotic about your fueling strategy during a race. It needs to be something that goes down and not necessarily something that you think oh I really fancy this or I’m going to wait till I feel hungry till I eat or it has to be something that you know goes down um 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 work 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 drinks and that’s often when gels and sports drinks can be 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 wash it back and then kind of becomes 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.

42:17.22
Alyssa
Absolutely yeah and we’re often very temperamental in racing where you’re like you’re packing your bag going oh that’s going to make me happy and you go and you’re like I was such an Idiot I hate this like what do I do. So I’ve tried that before like this will make me happy. Nope that made me miserable because that was the last thing I wanted to eat at that point.

42:35.51
Rebecca
Yeah, and it’s often the race experience or learning from our race experiences that can help shape 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 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 um, maybe take a gel or a chew that you really do like the flavor of or you know mix it up. Add a bit of variety and particularly also think about maybe the final stages of the race when people do start to really struggle to take on board and foods and fuels and 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 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 Perpetum by Hammer Um, 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 are soups and soups don’t tend to have calories in but it’s then just trying to um, think your way through the race and kind of planning as best as you can for all eventualities.

43:54.33
Alyssa
Absolutely so that leads us I think to another really key point. Um, and consideration is hydration and sodium requirements. And I think that this can be challenging for like you hear people say oh I’m a heavy sweater or 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.

44:27.91
Rebecca
Yeah, so the first step which is relatively easy is to determine how much fluid you lose per hour. So what is your sweat rate per hour if you think you’re a heavy sweater and in terms of fluid loss. Let’s find it out. So what you can do is, 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 it’s a simple process of choosing a 1 to 2 hour session. Um, and standing on the skills before the training session after the training session then taking into account the fluid that you drank and it gives you the 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 leaving 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 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 then how much to rehydrate after to restore hydration so that’s great. You can work out how much fluid you lose per hour which gives you your sweat rate per hour. You can do it? um.

46:00.35
Rebecca
In different temperatures you can do it in the cold, you can do it in the heat, you can do it at night. Um, you can do it? Um, 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 have 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 in some way. Are you meeting that at the moment. Or it can help give you a specific form of right I need to drink. Um, this amount per hour and then changed to this amount if it gets hot or if it’s cold or and running through the night I need to reduce my intake is a general rule of thumb as a starting place for people I would suggest five hundred mls per hour in temperate conditions and then a thousand mls per hour in hot conditions. That’s just a starting place for people. Obviously it’ll be less if it’s cold and you’re 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 as managing a thousand mill. Um, on our bridge 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 rates.

47:21.43
Alyssa
Amazing. Yeah I think that’s really hopeful for people just to get a sense of what is my baseline and how do I work from there.

47:28.82
Rebecca
Yeah, yeah, it’s really helpful and that equation but will share it. You can do it all the time in your training sessions ideally stick to 60 minutes to 2 hours because after that you’re probably taking on board food and carbohydrates and other influences that might influence the weight change. Um, so definitely do that. It’s great and it’s really easy to do and 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. Um and particularly the suggestions around drinking to thirst in array and you know, kind of it would be okay in and around races of 6 to 9 hours but my only issue with that is that 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. You drink all of your fluid where you’re going to get the rest from so I’m cautious to say it but I would certainly be hesitant to recommend to anybody to drink to thirst I would still encourage people to get used to their own fluid losses. Obviously being mindful. We’re not encouraging people to overdrink and overhydrate. But we’re offsetting significant dehydration and then that brings us on to sodium needs.

48:52.25
Alyssa
Yeah I mean I think that’s another really interesting piece of it and I’d be curious a sodium needs and how or what you recommend people take in. I think Salt pills are having somewhat of a resurgence. Um, they were done I felt like they were very much a thing when I first started because there was still I feel like maybe it was like 2018-19 where ultra running just all of a sudden became not this really obscure weird thing. Everyone did I mean it’s still obscure and weird. But I’d I’d be curious of like what your favorite electrolyte ah replacements are as well.

49:32.90
Rebecca
Yeah, so this is another tricky area and not as easy to solve as the fluid-loss one. But um, 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 pretty accurate and we might well do you know sports products have between naught to two hundred Milligrams of sodium you know foods like a packet of crisps. There are one hundred and fifty Milligrams of sodium a handful of peanuts has around two hundred to fifty milligrams of sodium so we are getting sodium from the foods and the fueling products that we’re using during 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 and potentially you’re looking at five hundred Milligrams of sodium per hour in temperate conditions in five hundred mls of water and up to a thousand Milligrams of sodium per hour in hot conditions in a litre in a thousand mls of fluid and that isn’t going to be every hour throughout the entire race temperature changes. Um and everything else, but that’s again, a starting point people often say that’s high amounts but this is I am seeing um potentially anecdotally, 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 this specific strategic sodium supplementation plan people are reporting improvement in how they feel better in running um and that. Adding that sodium than to your water is then going to offset the risk of hyponatremia. So the idea behind that isn’t the lows of sodium but that’s the general guidance in warmer conditions as you’re running through the day five hundred Milligrams of sodium in five hundred mls of water. Five hundred Milligrams of sodium per hour and then a thousand Milligrams of sodium in a lot of fluids or in combination with gu’s and research shows that average sodium losses in athletes around two hundred Milligram to two Thousand 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 if 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 and so yeah, so it’s ah it’s still a broad range and they’re kind of 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 an add-in as desired. So if you’re looking at kind of a sodium supplement. You know your sports products like Tailwind I think 2 scoops have already got four hundred and fifty milligrams you choose.

52:30.78
Rebecca
Like gu or cliff chews have got around thirty-five Milligrams per 3 and but if you want to kind of target specifically um sodium so you can really understand how much you’re having per hour in control for that things like nuun tablets are fine. They’ve got around 200 to three hundred Milligrams of sodium your salt sticks they do vary so to check, but they’re generally fifty milligrams of sodium so they’re quite smaller volumes particularly if you’re racing in warmer conditions and some companies like precision fuel and hydration. They do five hundred and a thousand Milligrams of supplements. But then you’ve got other companies like nuun and salt sticks that all do smaller and sodium intake. So it’s kind of finding out how much you’re consuming already and then adding in on top of that what you need and if you add up what you’re doing already. That’s when things like salt sticks or nuun 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 are there anything I want to say don’t confuse salt with sodium. Um, sometimes the sports products label will say salt content sometimes they’ll say sodium content. You need to be looking at sodium content so you need to convert salt to sodium if you Google it. There are some quite good conversions like calculators that will do that for you. But for every 1 Gram of salt is four hundred Milligrams of sodium so be mindful that so isn’t sodium and sodium yes, salt isn’t sodium. You need to convert it.

54:05.17
Alyssa
Well I have learned something new because I yeah I don’t know why. Yep, that’s great. So thanks for that.

54:13.90
Rebecca
Ah, 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. People that are running ultra runs trail run races 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 of 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 are nice round numbers. But again, everybody’s different.

54:57.51
Alyssa
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 salting? Um because I think god.

55:10.73
Rebecca
Like I know that potentially that no like in my own professional experience I haven’t seen anyone over salt and in terms of adding too much.

55:15.62
Alyssa
Yeah, okay.

55:28.29
Rebecca
Sodium in in my experience people aren’t adding enough that isn’t to say people are adding and are over adding but that’s when I’m saying like look at what you’re already doing. Like in terms of how much are you taking on board and look at the range of two hundred and fifty Milligrams, five hundred Milligrams and thousand milligrams in varying temperatures and because that’s not you know it’s not a thousand Milligrams every hour for the entire race because it’s probably not going to be hot f 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 and 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 overhydrate or um to use too much sodium but also the other way. Um, I’m finding. Everything’s the other way people don’t eat enough carbohydrates. They don’t drink enough and they don’t add enough sodium.

56:23.59
Alyssa
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 generally the opposite direction.

56:37.90
Rebecca
Yeah, but it could be and that you if you’re in races. There’s Bullillon. You know there are lots of products that are salty and then you know depending on 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 nuun tablet and just keep adding them and so there is the risk you know the potential that people are overusing them. But it’s trying to you know that for me people haven’t planned and practiced their race nutrition strategy and they don’t necessarily know what they need. That’s right for them.

57:13.40
Alyssa
That makes sense. So I think this is always kind of the fun question but also might be very irritating for a nutritionist. Um, but what are maybe your 2 to 3 most common mistakes and I feel like I can probably guess a few of them. Um, but what are what are some of your most common mistakes that you see and how can we best ah resolve and hopefully avoid them?

57:39.58
Rebecca
I mean it is a great question and I think the first one is people don’t plan and practice the race nutrition strategy. They don’t plan it for 1 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 huge conscious effort when I work with athletes. We’ve got spreadsheets. We’re testing all of these types of things. Me. It’s good, fun and I think it’s 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 and one of the other ones so plan and practice. The other one is don’t remember to fuel regularly through the race and like we talked about elite runners kind of only potentially in the research saying seventy grams that we know we’re seeing that we’re seeing 90 to 95 but the other end of that is that recreational athletes are carrying sixty grams of carbohydrate but only eating thirty 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 and so really 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.

59:15.57
Rebecca
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 um within a race and you have the race nerves. But again if we’re well and dialed in we can and potentially kind of help us to remember better. But yeah, if you if it’s trying the other thing is getting distracted to 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. We get distracted at age, dates, and options or we decide to change our hydration or fueling plan last minute. Or we use take food from these stations that we haven’t tested before or we use the sports products provided by the race event that we haven’t tested. And 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.

01:00:27.40
Alyssa
I think that’s fantastic. Yeah, it’s so funny I think we often 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.

01:00:43.74
Alyssa
I’ll just try this brand new thing that I’ve never eaten before it like wait a second. Nope, you know what you’re doing stick with it and trust that yeah.

01:00:49.52
Rebecca
Yeah, and you see it happen. You’re like oh my God they’ve got that or they’re reaching for that in the aid stations. Oh real they’re doing this and I haven’t done it so you kind of feel like you’ve not done it right? Or you don’t feel like you’re prepared. But yeah and that comes with just having your race nutrition is actually done. You will stand on that start like confident that you’re going to have energy confident that you’re going to be able to feel properly and confident that it’s just going to help contribute to a better race experience.

01:01:19.86
Alyssa
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 excelling as they get older in many ways just because they’ve just like we’ve all made.

01:01:24.89
Rebecca
Absolutely.

01:01:38.87
Alyssa
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 and how to get your resources because I think you know 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 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. Um, the better that.

01:02:15.55
Rebecca
Yeah, and yeah, absolutely and it’s about talking to people learning from people not necessarily copying people but having people tell you what to do in the sense without the greater understanding of you as an individual.

01:02:15.58
Alyssa
You’ll set yourself up for success.

01:02:31.71
Rebecca
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.

01:02:46.68
Alyssa
Its 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.

01:02:56.88
Rebecca
Just keep it simple like I think we can get lost down rabbit holes of kind of nutrition strategy supplements and like I said what other people are doing what other people are telling us to do or to try and but really keep it simple and the biggest difference and. 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 dialed. Um, 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 got you’ve done that then you can start to think about other things and yes we haven’t talked about caffeine strategies and supplements that may be influential for your ultra-running um 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 games will be made.

01:04:04.96
Alyssa
I mean there are 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 point zero one percent gain 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. Um, but I think.

01:04:26.87
Rebecca
Um, yeah, yeah, and 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 mindset 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 the effort of training and looking at the performance gains or the strengths that can be made from your training or can you get a better night’s sleep or can you manage stress. You know how’s your mindset influencing you. All of it. So it’s part of a whole picture and rather than just zooming in thinking. Oh this supplement’s going to make me do this or this supplement’s going to make me do that I’m like 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. Um, the benefit that they’re suggesting that they do.

01:05:24.92
Alyssa
Absolutely yeah, it’s um, there’s probably not going to be 1 supplement that will take you from dnfing a race to finishing it. We’ll say that. Yeah, right.

01:05:35.60
Rebecca
I know it’d be amazing if it would, wouldn’t it? But unfortunately um that I yeah know I wouldn’t hedge any bets on it anyway.

01:05:42.58
Alyssa
Agreed and I think 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 race strategy because I think this was really. More focused around you know how you prepare that fueling for trail running. So we have a lot to cover in the future.

01:06:06.60
Rebecca
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. Um, 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 and make sense of nutrition basically for whatever your sport or discipline or training session or lifestyle goal.

01:06:35.14
Alyssa
Absolutely well. Thank you so much Rebecca this has been amazing and I think especially as we’re really headed into the fall racing season which I do every single time I look at. 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. Um, so I think this will be really helpful for people as they head into a really big race part of the year.

01:07:06.34
Rebecca
Yeah, no thanks for having me like but just as just on that like and this race training nutrition strategies is all year round like you know it’s not necessary and no we’re not suggesting that but this is for you know 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 are still some tips people can use for their next race.

01:07:35.10
Alyssa
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.