Fueling Endurance (formerly The Long Munch) - Nutrition for Runners, Cyclists & Triathletes Stephanie Gaskell and Alan McCubbin

From preventing food poisoning to optimising performance. From doctors demanding supplements be added to food, to food being the performance enhancer. In this special 3rd birthday episode, you’ll learn how nutrition has evolved in pro cycling in the past decade, and what it takes to feed a team of riders at the Tour de France. Our guest is Nicki Strobel, a performance chef (and now dietitian) who’s worked in pro cycling since 2010 (first with GreeEdge and then Uno-X) and seen the transformation in how nutrition is managed within the sport. Find out what the riders are eating, the strangest requests he’s ever got, and most importantly, where he was when the GreenEdge bus got stuck under the finish line at the 2013 Tour de France.

Triathlete Jenny Zenker joins us to describe how she manages double sessions alongside managing a major scientific research group at Monash University. From (very) early morning starts, commuting to and from work by bike, and managing the risk of gut issues in the evening session, Jenny tells the story of her journey to optimising her nutrition for these complex training days. Also listen out for a huge announcement about the future of the podcast.

The double-session day. It's common amongst triathletes, but increasingly popular amongst runners and cyclists too. But are you running out of gas in the second session, or even in the afternoon at work? In this episode, Alan & Steph explain the nutrition priorities for double-session days, as well as some practical tips on how to make it happen when you're flat out at work between sessions.

With a single genetic variation, some of us are fast, moderate or slow caffeine metabolisers. So should competitive athletes be doing genetic testing to inform their race day caffeine strategy? Just last week, a new meta-analysis was published that tries to answer this question by bringing together all the studies published to date. Two of the authors, Gabriel Barreto and Dr Bryan Saunders from the University of São Paulo are here to explain their research and the implications for runners, cyclists and triathletes.
 
Read the research paper:
Barreto G, Esteves GP, Marticorena F, Oliveira TN, Grgic J, Saunders B. (2023). Caffeine, CYP1A2 Genotype and Exercise Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Med Sci Sports Exerc. In Press: https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000003313
 
Read the summary Twittter/X thread: https://twitter.com/Bicycle_Bryan/status/1714311368709460319
 
Follow Bryan on Twitter/X: @Bicycle_Bryan
 
Follow Gabriel on Twitter/X: @nutrigabarreto
 
 

Metabolic adaptation, adaptive thermogenesis, metabolic compensation or even metabolic damage. These terms are thrown around a lot online, but what exactly do they mean, how much is science vs hype, and what's the relevance to runners, cyclists and triathletes?
Dr José Areta (Liverpool John Moores University, UK) is a researcher and co-author of a recent paper looking at whether the metabolic adaptations to an energy deficit in athletes is different if the energy deficit is induced by increased training load, or reduced calorie intake.
 
Follow José on Twitter/X: @jlAreta
 
Watch the talk mentioned from the The Royal Society Meeting in October 2022:
https://www.youtube.com/live/hkuktx5FUto?feature=shared&t=17901
 
Read the accompanying paper:
Halsey LG, Areta JL, Koehler K (2023). Does eating less or exercising more to reduce energy availability produce distinct metabolic responses? Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 378(1885):20220217.  https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0217
 
The Energy Stress Meeting at Liverpool John Moores University in September 2022 (José was an organiser and presenter):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyoTPwnnO4j3vpPsjU8AqWmdpYYekfiPw
 
 

In the last episode, Steph and Alan discussed how general nutrition advice may not always be suitable for runners, cyclists and triathletes. In this episode, we chat to distance runner Elise Beacom about her experience coming into the sport, trying to figure out sports nutrition vs general nutrition advice, and what she had to learn the hard way. And what it's like to run a half marathon in North Korea.