Why Your Race Fueling Fails: How to Train Your Gut

For Episode 100, Coach Justin and Coach Katie are tackling one of the biggest reasons endurance athletes fall apart on race day: fueling that was never practiced like training.

You may think your stomach is the reason your fueling fails. But for many endurance athletes, the real issue is simpler: the gut was never trained to handle the fuel being asked of it on race day.

In this episode, Coach Justin and Coach Katie break down why fueling falls apart during long workouts and races, how gut training actually works, and why your race-day plan is only as strong as what your body has practiced in training.

What You’ll Learn

• Why GI issues do not always mean you need less fuel
• How to progressively train your gut to handle more carbohydrates
• Why copying another athlete’s fueling plan can backfire
• How to practice race-day fueling before it costs you performance

Timestamps:

00:00 Episode 100 and the importance of gut training
05:24 Why higher-carb fueling can improve training and recovery
07:16 The fear of eating before workouts
11:19 Fasted training, weight loss, and performance goals
18:57 What gut training actually means
20:02 Justin’s experience building up to 60 grams of carbs per hour
23:38 Carb targets, elite examples, and realistic expectations
32:24 Why underfueling leads to bonking and late-race fading
39:36 Common fueling mistakes athletes make before race day
42:18 Real food, gels, and why race-day products must be practiced
51:00 What changes inside the gut when you train it
55:56 How to build a progressive gut training protocol

For coaching inquiries:

Coach Katie → https://fuel2run.com

Coach Justin → https://tabularasaracing.com

Podcast Email → theenduranceathletejourney@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome everyone to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. I'm your host, Coach Justin. I'm here with Coach Katie. And this is a milestone of an episode. So this is our 100th episode of the podcast. I had questions on whether I would be able to make it this far in a podcast, but uh on a consistent basis. But we have grown this thing and we've been consistent and has have have shown up every single week, grew it from one episode a week to two episodes. So I can I just want to start by saying this is humbling. So I want to thank everyone who has continued to listen and show support for the podcast. I want to thank my co-host KD for putting up with my shenanigans and for you know us just coming together and coming up with topics and ideas and vulnerabilities and everything else. So this has been a labor of love and I have enjoyed it. And so I just want to thank everybody for their continued support of the podcast. So without further ado, we're going to start our 100th episode of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast with a topic called the training of the gut protocol. So we've we've talked about the idea of fueling over a number of episodes. I mean, this is this is Katie's wheelhouse as a board-certified sports dietitian. And she actually came out with a deep dive not too many episodes ago where we've talked about the evolution of high carb, high carb consumption during during training. If you have not listened to that, please go back and check out that episode. It's really fascinating to hear how the the sports industry and how this community has evolved over time and how the realization of on-demand energy has been forefront of everything. And it's even it's taken even more of a front seat, I would say, like over the just the past few years. And now we're starting to see some some more research coming out, higher performance numbers, just mind-bending consumption, to be honest, on how people are able to actually consume, absorb, and utilize this level of carbohydrates during high intensity uh performance. This is something that that I've experimented with in my training where I've not been able to consume very large amounts of carbohydrates. In fact, I've been under consuming for a number of years. I know my digestive system is a little bit unique, and it's not been until like the past few years since working with Coach Katie that I've actually started to increase my carb intake during during training sessions and during racing. And I've seen a significant improvement, significant uh advances in my abilities to recover post-workout. Uh also, you know, without completely draining glycogen stores and the ease in which I'm able to recover from sessions by not digging so deep of a hole. But the question remains how do we train our gut in order to handle, not just not just take it in and not make us sick to our stomach, but how do we take it in? How do we absorb it? How do we utilize it and tap into what it is that we're consuming during these sessions and races? So I like we like to think of this as training the gut is just another muscle that we have to develop, just like we train our muscles for running, for cycling, for swimming, for hiking, whatever your endurance uh sport is, your training, the purpose behind your training is to build adaptation, to build stronger and more durable muscles. So if you think of your gut as just another muscle that you have to train, I think it's a little bit easier to wrap your head around the importance of trying to build up that tolerance. But for many of us out there, including myself, I've just been blessed to be able to work with Coach Katie over the years on how to approach this because, you know, it it's trial and error sometimes, and it's just, you know, oh, let me try this amount. And then you wind up sick and you're just like, well, that didn't work. So then it, you know, it's kind of like back to the drawing board. But I don't want to say it's back to the drawing board. It's just like, it's just a slow rollback a little bit. It's like, okay, well, I couldn't handle that, but can I roll it back a little bit? And you keep rolling back until you find that level that you can work, and then you start to grow from there. But I want to talk about this and bring Coach Katie into this and really have her share her expertise on how we should approach this protocol, just like we implement training plans. Think of training your gut as another thing that has to be incorporated into your weekly training schedules in order for to be prepared for race day and optimize your performance potential. It's not going to be guaranteed, but it's the potential for performance. So without further ado, I'm going to turn this thing over to Coach Katie and let's dive into this topic because I'm super excited to talk about this. So, Katie, go ahead and take it away.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Yeah, well, I kind of want to start, I think, kind of emphasizing some of the things that you mentioned, like in your own experience, just how you've tried implementing more carbs and how that has helped you maybe not dig such a deep hole in training, recover, and maybe potentially like even with races, just performing a little bit better. I mean, I know it's it's hard. I think some of the numbers that we're seeing people consume, it's we'll we'll talk about that a little bit as well as like what is maybe most appropriate for you as an individual, it may be a bit different than what we're seeing some of these professionals do. We'll kind of dive into all of that. But that's something I've really noticed. I think I talked about in my deep dive was how as I've implemented more carbs, you know, during my training and not just the longest things I'm doing. I mean, even sometimes 90-minute sessions I'm fueling during. I've just feel like that's a big piece of why, even in now my 40s, I'm able to train somewhat at the level I'm able to train at and recover fairly quickly, considering, you know, it's definitely not as it was when I was 20. I don't know if any amount of fueling will ever get me into that level, but I'm not seeing the level of like um deterioration in my training that I would maybe have suspected I would see. And I think part of that is probably the the fueling and really, really emphasizing the carb piece, especially during, you know, before during is what we're talking about now, and then after. So I just want to kind of put that out there that yes, this is something we're seeing a lot of athletes do, but you know, Coach Justin has seen the benefit, I've seen the benefit, and obviously there are so many other athletes, you know, online and you know, talking about it as well. So there's something to it. But I think a lot of people struggle, and I think and we'll kind of talk about uh that a little bit, like some of the mistakes people make and some of the struggles. In fact, I was just talking to somebody the other day, a a a woman who has been a runner for a long time. She actually ran in college, so we kind of hit it off, and um, she was coming to me for another reason, but we identified maybe this was a an area for her to work on because she was telling me she couldn't eat anything before without having severe GI issues, she could only have an English muffin. It was like some pretty severe, and so I think there's a lot of people out there who are kind of in this boat of um not fueling at all before very little, and then because their gut has had no um no training whatsoever, there's like the it perpetuates this fear of like, oh, if I eat something before, I'm gonna have GI issues during, and then they they kind of perpetuate that by not eating anything before, and then they're they come in and they say, I can't do this because my gut is super sensitive. If I eat anything three hours before I run, I feel like I'm gonna puke. Uh, and I think some of that is like self-perpetuating, and a lot of what I'm going to recommend is or I'm going to encourage people to do is you might have, just like with training, it gets a little bit difficult sometimes, and sometimes unfortunately, you may have to be a little bit uncomfortable uh in this process if you're really starting where you fueling is is a real issue for you. I mean, some people are already doing okay and already fueling, and so they're just taking it to the next level. But there is a substantial amount of people out there, I think, listening or who maybe listening who who experience um some level of fear of eating beforehand or um fear of gut issues, and so they're not consuming enough, and then they're fearful of eating during, and so they're just generally underfueling. And uh unfortunately it's not doing them any good. So my suggestion for people as we talk through this is try to try to realize it's it is like training your muscles. It's going to be some potentially some level of discomfort. You may have to plan some routes that involve having bathrooms available. I mean, those are just things that are are generally part of running. I mean, I deal with this even to this day, like trying to up my carb intake. I'm kind of always thinking about, okay, what do I, you know, have to the toilet paper with me? Do I have the routes? It's it's just part of it, you know, unfortunately. There's sometimes no way to avoid some some level of that when you're trying to train your gut. So I'm gonna put that out there. Unfortunately, like part of, I don't know, being a runner for so long, I've just kind of accepted that even when I try everything to like not have gut issues, every once in a while, especially when I'm trying to add more carbs or experiment with this, it it happens and and that's just part of it. So you kind of have to let go of a little bit of that fear and really try to try to um be a little bit comfortable with some some four maybe even some mild gut discomfort um at first. Like you can have a feel f full feeling or feel a little bloated, and and that's sometimes part of it. So I'm just kind of putting that out there um as we get started, is I I hear people who are saying that, and I think my I want people to kind of take what we're saying today and hopefully try to implement it and realize there may be some level of discomfort that they have. I talked last time or in my um high carb uh evolution episode about a high carb the overview, but let's talk today. We'll we'll kind of start, I think, about like t talking a little bit about what is gut training. Like when I say when I say gut training, like I this is pretty like obvious, right, Justin. I don't know, like is it when I say that, what are your thoughts what do you think? Like when if I were it is to me.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Um but I I understand I understand the principle behind it and the need for it. I think and when you were talking about the fueling beforehand, uh uh there's something that I would like for you to comment on and w what I think I know the answer to, but I'm not I'm not confident in it. But uh let's let's go forward with it. I think that sometimes the reluctance for athletes to fuel prior to a a training session is sometimes they're going into uh their activity because they're interested in maybe like losing weight or not gaining weight. So they believe that if they do these fasted workouts that is going to force their body to become more fat adaptive, or they will burn this quote unquote brown fat, which is you know, so uh what I'm curious about, and what I think is the is the difference is there's a difference between exercising for weight loss and then training for performance. So I think that if you're going to be exercising for weight loss, then maybe it's a viable strategy to not consume carbs and calories prior to a workout because those types of intensities tend to be on the lower end of the intensity spectrum, right? Because if we want to be fat adaptive, then we want to stay to that left-hand side of the crossover where we go from burning fat for fuel versus burning carbs for fuel.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Yeah, there might be there might be like certain instances where we can sort of pull that lever, so to speak, of like doing a really low intensity run um fasted. I generally wouldn't recommend that very often in the training when you're leading up to an uh event because of the risk that's how how it kind of is so depleting, especially if it's like a longer run and you're like, oh, I'm gonna try to do a two-hour run fasted, it's just very depleting and hard to recover from that. Um, and there is maybe certain times you would do that, maybe in the base phase season, in order to kind of pull that, like, yeah, I'm gonna try to be a little more fat adapted, like we've talked about that fat adaptation piece and the metabolic efficiency kind of piece. And it does depend. If somebody is just like maybe not training for a race, obviously, maybe they would be able to do a fasted workout. Although I don't all I think sometimes fasted workouts don't always benefit people like they think they're going to. Um because they might eat more later in the day, and then it's basically you're not doing anything. It's not that little bit of fat you're burning during your workout isn't, you know, is mitigated. You're maybe eating more later in the day. So there's tendencies for people to do that. And we I'm not gonna dive into that rabbit hole too much, but I think when we're talking about fueling, I do think there are a subset of athletes. I know uh I kind of had this mindset at some points during my early training when I was in high school in college, because there was a lot of emphasis at that point on being lean. And because I think we did not have sort of this information like we do now about how important it is to fuel, it was so much pressure to be thin and this this sort of equation of like thin equals performance. And there was no discussion of like, well, actually, you need to fuel your body to perform. So I know that in the past and some of my previous marathons, even I think my thought process was, well, if I eat too much, you know, before enduring, it's like kind of that saving calories thought process of like, oh, well, you know, then I'll have more calories or more to eat later. So if I eat all of this stuff during, then I don't, you know, and unf unfortunately that sort of mentality still persists amongst athletes, I'm sure. Like I know there are probably athletes that have some um eating relationship with food or eating disorder behaviors. And that to me, that sort of mindset of, oh, I'm not going to fuel or I'm going to minimize what I eat during or before so that I can save energy for later is a disorder, disordered eating mindset. So it's if you're thinking that I'm not, I'm not making, I don't want anyone to feel badly about that, but that is not a good relationship with food and probably not a good relate, like a great relationship with exercise. If you're truly wanting performance, you should be focusing on fueling and maybe seeing someone to get you some some help or assistance in in that mindset because this high carb fueling, this gut training, this is really like to optimize performance. So if your goal is performance, this is going to help. And honestly, like when I eat like this, I'm not as hungry maybe later in the day when I'm fueling adequately. And uh that's okay. I've noticed, like, oh, I'm I'm still hungry, I still eat afterwards, but I don't need, I'm not sort of like trying to dig myself out of a hole that I've created of like underfueling. And also I'm way more energetic. Like even my last long run, I again I've been practicing my fueling strategy for the marathon coming up, and I just noticed it was a depleting long run. I did 20 miles of total work with some um marathon paced stuff. It was a hard workout. And I still the rest of the day, I mean I'm tired, but because I was able to fuel during and kind of had a little post workout trying to get the fuel in, had to recover a little bit. But then the rest of the day, like I was much better. I wasn't, I didn't like have struggles sleeping at night. And that's been the biggest thing I've noticed most recently in this marathon build, is because I'm eating so much more and adding fuel during, my sleep has been much, much better this go-round. I struggled quite a bit the last marathon build because I unintentionally sometimes underfueling because of my schedule and not fueling enough around the workouts. And so I would just urge people to, if they're in that mindset of like trying to save energy or like underfuel so they can eat more, that that is a more of a disordered mindset to try to get some help for that, especially if they want to have good performance, because those the that's not gonna help your performance. You really like we're really seeing that this carb, you know, eating carbs is that's the key to performance. And so really working on um and and and experimenting and sort of seeing how this works for for you, because it has been a really big eye-opener. Not and that's funny because I was fueling before. It wasn't like I had I wasn't, but I've been trying to fuel more and add more carbs in more often with more of my training sessions, and it has been a really big help. So I just urge people to give it a try and just see how you feel the rest of the day, because no one wants to be such dug in such a big hole that they just can't. You're like spending the rest of your day just like in bed because you can't function. That's probably a sign something wasn't right during your either you trained too hard or you didn't eat enough during. Um so let's kind of move on. I think with gut training, I mean I think it's the obvious, like it's just the basically the training of your digestive system. It's the process of sort of teaching and training your gut to tolerate more carbs, maybe more fluid, more electrolytes. So not just carbohydrate, but just being able to kind of tolerate more of those things you're putting in so that you can not only stay like have the carbs you need, but also to have the hydration you need and not because that's also sometimes an issue for people, is trying to get the carbs and also trying to get all the hydration, and then it becomes an issue when they're trying to do all of these things during exercise. And so it's just really this concept that the the gut is actually very adaptable and just like muscles, like you were saying, Justin, so we can train it just like we do our our cardiovascular system. And um, that's something we're really discovering more and more. So yeah. I mean, what are you like where like where are you at?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

What how how many carbs are you kind of able to get when you're I'm just curious where you're at with your carb intake during I will say during during my early, my early quote unquote career in in the sport, I just went off as l little, uh as little as I could eat. Uh and definitely my performance suffered. And then as I kind of progressed, I I would say, you know, I never thought of the idea of training the gut. I just thought the gut was what it was, which is why this is such a fascinating thing for me, is because I just thought that I was just always limited. And I never thought about training it as a muscle like I would like any other muscle in my body. So, you know, if if you're out there as an athlete and and you're thinking, you know, oh I just I just can't take it in. I just can't take it in. I I don't want you to feel like that's your limitation, that that's where you are, and you just have to work around it. Uh so right now I've worked my way up uh up to 60 grams of carbs an hour. Uh that's where I'm currently at. But what I have realized is that you have to uh you have to think of it as like as training as well. And the reason that I liked that uh description or the analogy of of training the gut like you were training a muscle is because when you take a break from training, your muscles kind of they they kind of they uh wind down a little bit, they kind of deload and and stress, and you may lose a little bit of fitness. Just like if you were to stop lifting weights for a significant amount of time, you lose strength. So when you stop training the gut and you stop introducing it all these carbs while you're you're training, your gut kind of regresses like like a muscle does, it loses strength, quote unquote strength. So when I took a break after Iron Man Florida 70.3 in dis last December, and I stopped kind of like training the gut, and then I went back to it, I couldn't go back to the 60 gram. Right off the bat. It's kind of like I had to wind it back a little bit and say, okay, now I'm gonna start off at 40 and then work my way back up to 60 because I made that mistake on thinking, well, I've done 60, 60 is where I'm supposed to be. I'm gonna jump right back into 60. And I wound up with just a nauseous stomach. It just it was not pleasant. And so I I like I like this analogy on training it because it's something that it has to be exposed to on a consistent basis. And if you stop training it, it kind of loses that ability to absorb and utilize. So, you know, you you have to you have to treat it that way, and that's why I like that description. So yeah, I mean that's where I'm at.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yeah, that's like, and I'm thinking back to my history, like I would say some of my earlier marathons, like, and this is probably before I was even a dietitian, so I guess I can't say I can't be like, oh, I knew it and didn't do it anyways. It was also before we really had a good idea of even that 60 gram, you know, sort of limitation when you know that was kind of what we were recommending. It was around probably that time or a little before, it was like 30 grams an hour. I mean, I was like, I'm like, man, like like back, and I'm like, if I had only known, and it's hard, you don't want to like go back in time, you can't go back in time, so you can only just say what you've learned. But it does make me wonder if I'd known what I know now and had all of this information, not only with this, but other things of training that I know now. Oh man, in my 20s, I would have been unstoppable. I would have been, yeah, I I would have had a lot more success. And that so, you know, I I hope that individuals who are in their 20s, you know, aren't like are are are taking a notice of some of this and really implementing it because it does help obviously anybody at any age, at any stage, but it doesn't make me think because now I'm I'm pushing like 70 to 80 grams an hour is kind of where I'm at. I, you know, I don't know. I suppose I might at some point try to, if I'm doing another marathon in in the future, like try try to try to get that up a little bit and just see where my limit is, but that's where I'm at. It doesn't, and that's the thing, is it it we'll talk about some of those higher amounts people are getting. Um, but 60 to 90 grams is really the sort of optimal, like what's recommended for most individuals who are training and racing. And so we do see some of these really high high carb amounts of like maybe 120 and 140 for some of our it's been reported in some of our Tour de France um stages with some of the cyclists. Um might arguably be a little bit easier in a cyclist for a cyclist to get a higher amount because uh there is a aspect of it with running where you the mechanical sort of stress or or bouncing around of the stomach can, you know, make it a little harder to get that much. But like I said in my um last episode, uh Sebastian Saue, who was the sub-two hour, the one that won London Marathon, um, who ran sub two hours in the marathon, reportedly was around 120. It might might have been more trying to like source that out, but it was a lot. There's quite a bit of carbs that he was getting. And so I think people see that and they're like, oh, like, and this is common to be like, I have to get that amount. We have to remember though, like these elite athletes are sort of on a league of their own and in training as well. Like I watch YouTube videos. Um, I'm fascinated sometimes with their training, just more out of interest. Do I ever emulate the training that they're doing? Absolutely not. Like, you know, I might take ideas of some of their workouts and maybe like change it up, but I, you know, I absolutely want you to remember that these individuals who are consuming those really high amounts, and even David Roach, um, who's the uh ultra athlete who really pushes this high carb, you know, I've heard him say, like, this is where it kind of irritates me a little bit. Like, oh, I'm the only reason that I'm this good. He won um Leadville 100 a couple times and he's competed in like Cavalina and a few other ultra-distance events, kind of insinuating that the only reason that he's able to do what he's doing and be that good is because of the high carb fueling and getting 120 grams or whatever he's doing an hour. That is not, I mean, there's a yes, it's gonna help you perform better. I don't want you to have an over um, like I don't want your expectation of this to be that, oh, if I'm getting 120 grams an hour, I'm going to then be able to win Leadville 100. That actually does take talent. You know what I mean? Like, you may not admit he has some sort of talent, but to tell people like the only this sort of insinuate that the only reason he's doing that is that that I think sets up a bad expectation. So, yes, like we're saying, it does absolutely help your performance. If I'm if I were to try to do 120 grams an hour during my marathon, no, I don't think I would then be able to be uh able to qualify for the Olympic trials. I know my expectation, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 27:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

That would be great. Like I would love that. Um, no, it's not gonna like level me up five levels to be able to compete at that level. So let's have an expectation here. And to get that amount is a lot. Most people's limit might be closer to, and I don't want to limit people, obviously. Like, if you want to experiment with this and see where you can go with the carbs, like the sky's a limit, you you you do it, but 60 to 90 grams, I think, is practical for most people. So please remember that because if you're trying to get more than that or you're trying to emulate what these elite people are doing, like don't be disappointed when you're really struggling and you're just not able to get there. You might be just fine with 60 to 90 grams. And the the level of work they're doing is very high. Like for someone like David who's running that 100 miles, and I don't know, like the 15 hours, you know, 16 hours. I maybe I don't remember what the but it's it's a crazy fast. It's a crazy fast. It's just sometimes hard to kind of take one example and be like, okay, for our I mean, arguably, maybe for someone out there longer, they would need more, but um, or just, you know, you need uh some amount that's close to that, but the way they fuel may be a little bit different. So we just have to keep I don't want to put that out there because I feel like the expectation for this is is that yes, it'll improve your performance, but I also don't want you to think you're going to go from like somewhat sub-elite or just like a four-hour marathon to like a three-hour marathon just because you're now fueling, you know what I mean? Is that is that something you come across? I don't know if you've I mean I'm just more in tune with it because that's my no no expertise.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

I've never come across any of that. So it's I I can understand the way that I think about it is that the the nutrition supports performance, it doesn't it doesn't catapult it. So I mean that's that's where you know your training comes into play. But um I mean I've I've worked my way up to 60 because I'm I'm kind of you yeah, I'm unique in that you know I'm a gastric bypass patient, so my tolerance for carbs is a little bit different than most people's. And so if if you're a bariatric athlete out there and you're learning how to how to do this and how to fuel your workouts because now you want to become more active because you've got this new lease on life, I do want to encourage you that this is this is part of the game of becoming an endurance athlete. And I know it it contradicts stuff that we're told during the process of getting our surgery and you know how we're supposed to use our new digestive system over time. Yes, your body will be able to use this. If you're newly post op, then yeah, you're a little you're gonna be a little bit limited. So you're really kind of training the gut right at like square zero right now. So you may not be able to tolerate a whole lot, but I do want to encourage you to keep working at it um and and not try and just say, well, I'm just going to to to settle for whatever performance that I have because of my of my new digestive system. No, it it's not necessarily gonna work that way. Carbs aren't gonna be your worst enemy, sugar is not your worst enemy. It's how to use these in order to support your performance, is what's really key. But that's why I'm at where I'm at, because I haven't been able to get higher than that yet. But I'm not saying it's just taking me time.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

With that sort of surgery or any surgery in which the stomach is smaller, it's harder. Not necessarily just the way you fuel uh how often, you know, you might be able to not be able to have a large dose all at once. It may m mean you have to kind of put in more frequent doses of carb to sort of you know, not have that sort of issue of like the the flushing or the um where you know there's that concentrated amount of sugar and you kind of have that um what's it called? Anyway, but you you know, so there's some considerations for anyone who's had like a gastric bypass or like some sort of surgery that involves the the stomach and sm having like a smaller stomach or a pouch. Um that can almost be like a whole discussion, if not like a deep dive all on its own, just because it's uh it's maybe takes a little bit more practice and nuance. But I mean, a lot of people do, you know, without even the surgeries kind of struggle with this. Uh so it's is worth, you know, like it's but I do encourage anyone who's had you know who's going into it, who's had some sort of surgery or gastric bypass that this is this does also this is also something you need to consider, but your way of going about it maybe is more slow and more the pr progress to getting up to a a higher carb goal may be more of um a slow go potentially or just a little bit more of a process, but potentially. So just kind of having that in mind. Um, but I do want to mention like when we're talking about like the benefits, like we talked about like okay, setting expectations for what the carbs will do. We we know it's not gonna catapult you into a new um dimension of performance, but what we what it will do is um basically just kind of going through some of the the why here is we wanna we wanna basically make sure we are not depleting glycogen, like or de decreasing that that rate that glycogen is being depleted, because once we deplete glycogen to a certain level, and it's interesting because in you know, if you guys tune in, I'm gonna be also putting out a a a carb-loading episode where I'm gonna talk a little bit more about glycogen and kind of use some visuals for it. But once we deplete to a certain point, we can't deplete glycogen completely, actually, because our body won't let us. We get to a certain point of depletion and the body says, No, we know we because if our glucose levels go too low, we can die. We need to have our glucose and it needs to be there to fuel our brain and and our heart and some of those very vital organs. It's fuel, like carbs, glucose, it's fuel. Think of it that way. But if you have glycogen and it starts to deplete and the body and you're working out, the body kind of will say, Nope, not happening. We're going to slow you down. So you have no choice in the matter. You can't push yourself through this. This is what bonking is. When you literally your legs start to feel heavy, you've done all the training. It's not the training, it's not the pacing. You literally get to the end and you bonk. That's probably glycogen. That's you haven't fueled enough. So there's a couple of ways, you know, you carb load, maybe to you eat the breakfast the day the the before the race, or the morning before the race, you carb load, and then taking in the carbs during helps reduce that depletion. So the more carbs essentially you can get, the more you can match your energy needs, the less your glycogen will be depleted. So that's kind of the goal of this high carb is like providing that glucose directly to your muscles, really reducing any depletion of glycogen so you don't hit the wall. So just having that energy, more of it available, and that basically helps that late race performance. So when you do, let's say um the marathon is a good example because most people or people who are trying to run it as fast as they can often get to that last six miles and just sort of like hang on for dear life, or their pace substantially slows. And that's it can be performance, obviously, or they're not performance, but it can be lack of maybe training adequately or something in their training wasn't adequate. But it could also very likely just be their glycogen stores starting to go down. So adequately fueling during, having more carbs during can have that better late race performance. So they can make it those last six miles feeling pretty good. And obviously, the more you train your gut, the actually reducing GI symptoms. So them like the more you train, just like you train your body or your uh the your muscles, the less likely you will experience stomach problems. So that's a hard one for people to grasp because if you have like common uh issues with um like diarrhea or side stitches or or um feeling bloated or or nauseous, uh actually training yourself and fueling more consistently during your training and really training the gut reduces those symptoms. And so just remembering you gotta, you know, you gotta practice it.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

So um yeah, it's it's it's counter, it's counterintuitive because I think when most people experience that, they think, oh, well, maybe I shouldn't eat anything so I don't get these. They don't think that, oh, if I eat more, it may actually help get rid of these symptoms. So I think that that's a really important point that if you start to experience these symptoms, it might seem a little abnormal. It's like, oh, well, maybe I need to consume more. So don't cut back, try and consume a little bit more. And if it starts to over the weeks that you that you start to implement this protocol, if it starts to get a little bit better and improve, then you know, oh yeah, okay, so I was under fueling, I was under consuming, and in order to support the intensity that I'm win that I want to to put out, then I need more. But I think that if you start to increase more and you still pers it still persists and or it gets worse, then maybe there's there's something else that that you need to look at. And somebody's gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

If you're doing all of what we're recommending and it's not working for you, I think it is worth maybe consulting like a a sports dietitian to really help you figure it out. Because if it's if you're trying at, you know, the but frequency does help. So you know, even not just saving this, just like training, you know, training, you train several days a week. Um, I've found that, you know, sometimes not even not taking maybe the full 70 and whatever per hour, but I will take things with me on like training runs that are even sometimes intensely an hour long. Like I've now sort of implemented taking things in, um, even in other training runs, even if it's not like a whole load of carbs, just to be able to train my gut consistently taking things in so that I'm always my gut's always kind of there having to work through it. And I'm I'm not like going too, you know, a whole week and then only doing it on Sunday when I have my long runs. So thinking of frequency may also be important. Um, the other thing I want to mention kind of with the benefits isn't just during, but like we've mentioned this already was the recovery piece. So the more you dig into a hole and the more your glycogen levels are depleted, the longer it's gonna take you to recover. So the more you can mitigate that, like really eating glycogen and trying to keep that those glycogen levels as high high as possible, the the better you'll you'll recover. So you'll wanna think of it that way. And um, you may not be having like carbs kind of spare protein breakdown. So the more carbs you get, the less likely you're gonna like break down muscle to to fuel. And um, then you know, you won't maybe have as much of that potential soreness. You know, you you still might because maybe you're you're doing something hard, but you might not have as much soreness uh because your muscles are are not um being broken down as much.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

I I think that's a that's a really important point, especially for for those, for those of you that are triathletes, and we and we normally we can typically have two training sessions a day. So learning how to fuel during your morning session, even if it's like 60 minutes or so, taking in a little bit of carb before the training session and then during it may actually improve the quality of your evening uh training session as well. So please pay attention because that's something that I think triathletes are notorious for because we train multiple times a day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

So yeah, because it this is like almost even more important when you train train multiple times a day. Because, you know, if you do like a run and you have a couple recovery days before the next hard workout, I mean you have almost like a whole day before your next workout. Um, but for triathletes, because there's oftentimes several at least a couple workouts a day, recovering as much as you can from the first workout lets you allow you to be able to perform better and you, you know, so you don't have as much time to replete or or replenish glycogen. So by having the carbs, even if it's an hour, um, that helps you be able to not deplete those glycogen stores. And then you can perform better in the second workout. So absolutely. Um I do want to kind of mention like some common mistakes just really quickly that I do see. I mean, we've talked about some of this already, but you know, don't wait till race day to do this. Yeah. Like we've talked about just now, this is this is a mistake. You will you will pay for it. You will have gut issues for sure. If you're like, all right, I'm not really, I don't really feel like practicing all this, I'm just gonna implement this on race day. That's a big no no. Do not, I promise you, you don't want to do that. Um, fueling only when hungry or like just kind of um like, oh, waiting until you you feel like you need it. By that point, it's too late. If you're on a if you're in a race or on a training run and you're starting to feel like you're bonking, it's too late. No amount of carbs that you stuff in your in your mouth and you know whatever will will save you. You're already done. Do not wait until you're done, you're at that point. This is why it the fueling starts early and it's often 20 minutes in, 15 minutes in, you need to be starting the process. It's not waiting until you're like, oh, I kind of feel like I need it. Yep, by then you're you're done. You're you you didn't do it right, you know? You're gonna you're gonna suffer.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

Yeah, there's something that I want to bring up before before we move on because I think this is important. And mistake in this first mistake that you talked about is like waiting until race day. I actually had a debate on Instagram with with something that pertained just to this. Um there was somebody who was seeking advice, and somebody chimed in with uh uh their response is like, well, train with real food, but then use gels and and on and sports drinks on race day. That's something that I'd like for you to touch on. And then the method of train low, race high. And it's something that we've talked about uh in another episode before, where you go in and you're training on low glycogen store or low fueling, but then overfueling on race day. And I think that that's what generates a lot of this this GI discomfort. But the one thing that I do want to talk about is not all carbs are created equal. And so I really want to touch on if somebody is training with with real food, so let's say that they're using potatoes or sweet potatoes, or they make their own like rice bars and things like that, and they use those in that for training because they feel like maybe it's better than just and it's cheaper than buying all the gels and all that stuff. I I completely understand, I get it. But my problem with it is that when you go to race day and now you want to use gels, I don't am I am I wrong in saying that I don't think that the body will treat the gels the same way that they would have reacted to the real foods? Uh is there a different process that the body would would try to absorb and break that down? Um I can can you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 43:08

There's there's a lot of danger in that because you haven't pr practiced it, like you just don't know how your body's gonna react to the gels, which are a very concentrated amount of sugar. If you're just doing like rice balls or something, there's different kind of starch there. So you're digesting it a little bit differently, so your body may react a little bit differently to the the the gels. I understand there's an expense to it, so but whatever you're and I don't think there's any problem with like I'm actually utilizing um sour patch kids watermelon gummies in my marathon because I don't like the other kinds of gummies very much that are like the sports ones, and those ones taste good to me. Like, so I'm I'm I'm doing gels, but I'm also doing that. It's okay. You don't have to stick with the products, but whatever you're doing, like um in your training, you've got to be using in in race. You can't wait till race day. Like, oh, I'm switching over to gels because what if you don't tolerate something? Like, you need to be practicing that. And there's nothing wrong with doing like if you're if you're sort of doing both, like you're like, well, I really like these rice balls, like I'm you know, that I'm eating, or these these things I'm making homemade for like my low-key rides. But then when I'm like doing a big effort, I'm really gonna practice exactly what I'm doing on race day. So you can still get the fuel without having to pay hundreds of dollars a month to buy shells you know, which it's like it can be expensive. So I think maybe some combination of both, but you have to really practice at some point or at maybe the key workouts like what you're gonna do during the race day. And you can't just like be like, oh, now I'm switching. I think that's a mistake because you won't know if you tolerate like some products, like I I can do 70 grams an hour, but if I do a certain type of gummy that is a sports nutrition product, I get a side stitch no matter what I've tried, it just gives me a little side stitch, and I'm like, well, I don't know. There's something to that, that product that just does it to me every time, no matter what. And so I just don't use that product. And I think knowing that ahead of time is important and kind of practicing what you're gonna do. So I wouldn't do that. And then the second point, I think now we're really starting to move away from this whole like train load strategy, as like, yeah, okay, you do that, you're you're leaving yourself like this whole era of like low carb fueling training depleted. Um, you're just not getting enough out of your training, like your train your daily training runs, aren't you not gonna get enough out of that, you're not gonna recover adequately. So you probably get to race and just be like unable to perform well, you know. So I think we're now seeing like, yes, there may be like a a point in your base phase outside of your training for the race that you might do some sort of like, okay, I really want to work on fat burning metabolic efficiency. Like you do that outside of the training phase where you're really those 12, 16, 20 weeks that you're doing that leading up to race day, like that is not the time for that. So um, that is, I think, really been debunked. I don't know why that's still persisting, but I think for I I feel like for most people, yeah, you can do that. It I think you're leaving performance on the table. Like you're just fine, you know, you might be able to still kind of get by, but I think by doing this whole train low and then train high, like and again, like if you're not practicing it, you're just gonna set yourself up for gut issues. Um, there's just no way to kind of get around that. So yeah, I hope that kind of covers covers that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

Yeah, the fueling the fueling when the fueling when hungry thing I I think is is important because I think I think people have been taught, you know, drink to thirst, eat to hunger during tr uh during racing. And I think that like you said, if you get to that if you get to that you're already you're out you're already behind the eight ball.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

So there's no cutitive for that.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

Yeah. This is not the time. Like I like intuitive eating, you know. I think there's a way there, but performance nutrition and intuitive eating and mindful eating to not jive. It's like optimal health and performance do not jive. This is you know, performance is its own thing. And so you have to remember that when you're trying to perform. So it's not like, oh, I'm intuitive, I'm gonna wait till I'm hungry. You don't do that in performance nutrition. But that I I I appreciate that for someone who's maybe has a problem with overeating and isn't an athlete. I do appreciate intuitive eating. This is not a time to be intuitive. So no, you have a you have I don't ever feel hungry when I'm running. You know what I mean? Like I would never, I would, I would be so depleted by the time I finally took something in. I have a very I'm regimented, there's a schedule, I'm eating. I oftentimes don't feel hungry and I don't feel all always feel like drinking, but I do anyways, because I need to. So this is the time we don't do that, and we don't ignore fluid intake either. We want to make sure we have the fluids because it does help, they work together to for absorption. It's it's hard, you know. Sometimes I'm not always at the fluid table when you're at the aid station when I take in a gel. Um and that can be okay again if you're training that. If you're taking in a gel and you know you can kind of get away with that, certain gels might work better for that reason, you know. But we do want to make sure we're taking fluid and we're taking in electrolytes and we're training all of this. So it's not just the carbs, it's train the guts kind of all of those aspects. I think the other one we probably already hit on with some with the discussion early on was trying to copy someone else's plan. Um that's I mean, if if you kind of want, if you have someone that you're like, oh, this is what I do, and you you you're like, okay, I'm gonna try those products or whatever, and I'm gonna, but don't like to copy someone's uh fueling plan exactly because it may not work for you. I mean, if you do, just make sure you're trying it out before you do race day. But I don't think like everyone's a little different, so don't don't try to copy and paste sort of situation. Um and you know, GI distress is it shouldn't be like a normal thing. I mean, it happens, right? I hate to say like I don't want people to be like, well, have the expectation that you're never gonna have an issue, but it it shouldn't be something like if you're if you're experiencing GI issues every time you go out, it's either that you're not doing a good job training the gut or you're not really implementing some of this, or something else is going on. Um, like I've worked with people, an individual who had like a fructose intolerance. And um, like so it could be something more serious or something else. I also worked with a woman once who had persistent GI problems. And now in retrospect, you know, I this was when I was newer as a dietitian and it helped was a good learning experience to me with some of her symptoms. To have had her go to a gastroenterologist would have been a good idea because she ended up having colon cancer. So sometimes, like if it's persistent and the symptoms are severe, and you know, you're doing all this and it's and something else is happening, you need to, you you need to look into it further because there could be something else going on. And I don't want to scare someone and be like, oh, they're you know, um, especially if there's like any sort of um, I don't know, like blood or something, you know what I mean? Like it that yeah, go get some help. Like if it's something very severe, that might be something more medical. So um I always urge people to don't suffer if it seems like something's off and you're trying to train your gut and you're just suffering and and something's going on with your gut, it could be like something that you're not tolerating, like a carb or s or something more severe. So always get help if you feel like that you're like, I can't do this because every time I do I vomit and or like have something very serious, and I'm can't like something's off. So putting that out there. What's happening in the gut? A little bit of that um background there. So when we are training the gut, essentially there's a few things happening. We're improving the gastric emptying. So this is how quickly the contents move through from our stomach into the small intestine where it's going to be absorbed. So the body will, the gastric empty emptying will be quicker when we train our gut. So it doesn't just sit in the stomach, sloshing around and maybe causing issues as much as as much. It it the body kind of moves the contents through a little quicker so that the body can absorb those nutrients quicker. So it's just a little bit of a quicker gastric emptying. Um, sometimes there are things that do impact this that we want to be aware of, like the higher intensity exercise, dehydration or heat. So um practicing fueling in higher intensity workouts, so you kind of know what that's going to be like, especially workouts that are gonna be similar to your race pace or hard, you know, that sort of intensity. So you because if you're doing all of your training, gut training on easy runs, um, then you might not know what it's gonna be like on a on an intense, like more intense run. So kind of making sure you're practicing, or if it's a hot day, maybe seeing how is this impacting my fueling and my gut, my you know, the gut stuff with those sorts of different um conditions. So you're a little bit more aware. It's just like training, like you kind of train in different intensities and different um environments. And so we also want to kind of try the fueling in different uh types of training sessions and maybe different heat versus cooler days, that kind of thing. Um the other thing that it does is it increases go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

I I just wanted to say, like, especially during the heat training, because uh the way I mean we all need blood within our gut in order to help the digestion and and the gut and the emptying. And when it's hot outside, there's going to be less blood available or less fluid in the in the gut for helping that with digestion because the body's trying to cool itself, so it's gonna draw that fluid to the skin to try and help cool the body. So that's why it might be a little bit challenging to execute your nutrition plan during a hot run or a hot training session or a hot race compared to using the same strategy in cooler weather. So that's something to keep in mind on how the body is reacting, where the fluid is, and you know how how the body digests uh under these different uh situ and different environments. So keep that in mind. I think that's an important distinction.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And then the other thing that's happening is we have um an increase in their carbohydrate transporters. So there's different, like for both fructose and glucose, there's just different transporters that we have. And generally for glucose, it's like one gram um per minute, and then for fructose, it's a little less than that, like 0.8. So it's it's those transporters can be actually improved, or we can have more of them the more like the body's like, oh, we are needing we need more of these. Let's pop have a few more so that we can transport more of those carbs. I don't know the limit, you know. I don't know um right now if we know like, oh, what's the maximum amount we can sort of increase this to? I don't know if we're there yet. Um, we're kind of getting there to learn more about really what's the max, you know. We also have to kind of realize that each individual has like sort of a max amount you can absorb, but like how how much can you actually like oxidize or utilize at once too? Like some, you know, there's there's some limiting factors there. So this is why trying to get like the most you can possibly get, there might be like a limitation, just because even if you can absorb it, are you actually able to like break it down and utilize it, you know, all so there is there is that you know piece as as well. But this is basically what's happening. You have two two things essentially that are improving um to help you absorb better the the carbs.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Um and yeah, the car the carbohydrate transporters is one of it's the perfect illustration on why simply copying and pasting somebody else's nutrition plan doesn't always work. It's because I mean we're we're all set up differently, and I may have fewer of these transporters than what Katie does. So if I were to try and and use her fueling strategy and just plug and play, that's why it probably wouldn't work.

SPEAKER_01 55:25

Yeah, absolutely. I think yeah, I mean we don't know yeah, individual differences too. There's always that and um something to you know consider because it's I don't think that's something that we could even really test very easily. I don't even that's a good question, like in a lab, how do they even know? They must be able to test that somehow. Anyways, I'll I'll have to look that up, but it is an interesting thought, you know, from person to person. I'm sure that's not easy to figure out. Um, but yeah, so let's let's talk about like the how-to in the last little bit we have so people can have like a takeaway, like, okay, you talked about this, the importance and all the all that. Let's talk about how-to. So I think the very first step is kind of figuring out where you are now. If you're kind of at some sort of baseline of like, well, I'm really having a hard time not maybe getting in much, or where it's like you're on the in your off season, ideally you would kind of start with this before the training even begins and really testing out different products. Like I do this even when I'm not, you know, even sometimes outside of my training plan, like over the summer or something. I'm like, oh, you know, I've done that with the Morton Gels, where I I at one point I was like, okay, these are kind of this new technology and fueling. Like, I'm gonna try these. Um, I'll buy some, or you know, and try them out with some of my training runs when I'm not in like a training cycle. Um, or sometimes I do, but I don't do it like during my key workouts. But I'll just like, okay, I'm gonna try this or with the watermelon gummies. I was like, oh, I'm gonna try this like kind of outside of my training, see what happens, you know. So I think it's always kind of experimenting is fine, but to to have some level of like trying things out and figuring out, okay, this this really works well. I had no issues with these this particular gel or these particular gummies. But when I tried this other product, it didn't work well, or I definitely don't like the texture, like the more in ones for me. It was a texture issue. It was like like it kind of made me gaggy, you know. Something about it just was like, I I don't know. And I've tried it a few times, and I'm like, I just I just have a hard time with this. And I I I could try forcing that down, but it's just not gonna be very fun. So I'm like, I'm not saying you shouldn't try those, it's just you know, there's different textures, there's different flavors, there's different sweetnesses, like some of the gels out there for me are so sweet, like birthday cake flavors, and I'm like, I can't do it. That's too much. But I can take in maple syrup, and that's super sweet, you know. So it's like trying different things is all I can say because everybody's different in what they like or what works, and so it's just it's it's kind of fun. I'm not promoting this company by any means, but because I'm not involved with them in any way. So but like that the the feed, you know, they do like the um like you can order gels and things from them, but you can order like individual gel, like it costs more, but you can order like several individual products and have them send it, and then you try the products that way you don't have to buy a whole box of Martin, which is what I did. I think I did. I don't know, maybe I bought individual ones, but it's like, whoa, now I've got this whole box of these like sixty dollar, I don't know how much they were, but they're expensive, and I have to use them because I just spent this much money, you know. So um, and you know, it's okay to try candy or uh drive fruit and things like that. Um, but you just gotta ask yourself if you can have if taking in dates is gonna work for you during the race. I mean, maybe it's an option just to fuel during other training runs, but you always you're always kind of having that in mind of what you're gonna do for your race day strategy too. So thinking of, I love the idea of doing all natural products. I have a lot of people come to me like, I don't want to do the the sports nutrition products, but the thing about it is they've formulated those. Like those, there's like sports scientists there like formulating those high carb, you know, the mortons, the specific gels and gummies and products. They're they're trying to make it so those are they are more tolerable, you know. So you have to keep that in mind. Yes, are they completely natural, like from the earth? Not really, but you're burning through it so quickly and you're trying to perform. So again, maybe during this time frame, you don't worry about it because you're trying to fuel your body and you're burning through it doesn't matter. It's not like your body's like, hey, this is natural or not, you know, it's your carbs a carb a carb and you're burning it so quickly that it doesn't really matter whether it's a natural product or something that has maltodextrin or or glucose or fructose or something in a hydrogel, you know, like none of that's natural, really. I mean, fruct fructose and glucose are, but like some of these things are not natural, but they're burning through it so quickly and they're formulated specifically for this. So don't be afraid of that. Like have those natural healthy products and foods outside of the training to help you refuel and refuge.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

Yeah, but not in training because you don't need to worry about it. Don't don't let that be something you should worry about because again, it's performance. If that's your true goal, then you're doing things that I mean that it it's not like like I said, you're just burning through it so quickly, it's not like it's having an impact on your health in that way. Um, what I would say then step two would be like the progression. So, you know, maybe if you're starting at 30 grams an hour, or again, like Justin said, maybe you're able to get up to 70, but then you take a break and you have to kind of start at square one. So let's do the example of 30 grams of carb per hour. So week one, you know, maybe you starting it, and I would recommend doing this kind of um at the very beginning of your training plan. This is something you're starting also with day one of training plan. So the first two weeks, maybe you're adding in 30 grams of carb an hour. You're doing that, you're adding in those products more often, not just once a week during the long run. Um, and then you kind of gradually go up to week three, four, maybe now 15, you know, slowly 15 grams um fit now at 45 grams an hour. Maybe if you're really sensitive, you have to kind of do it a little bit slower than that. But uh, then maybe by five week five, six, it's up to sixty. And once you kind of hit 60, though, I do say, I would say this is my um recommendation is once you kind of hit that 60, since it starts to get a little more challenging after that, the increments may be a little bit smaller. So it might be like 60 to 70 and 70 to 75. And you know, you might not be able to go up by 15 gram increments once you kind of hit around that 60, because that is technically like kind of where we've sort of recommended people be based off of the science from in the past. It's kind of where a lot of people send to start to have more issues is past 60. So, you know, then it should maybe a slower progression of of increments in carbs per hour past that. Um, but yeah, by maybe six weeks in, you're kind of at that 60 grams an hour or you know, wherever you're at. Maybe you're maybe you're one of those lucky people that you're like, yeah, I I don't have any issues, I can take in more, like great. Like, you know, then experiment with kind of what's the upper limit, you know, for you. And then you sort of are practicing the step three is like then once you sort of have that, now you're sort of practicing the intensity. You're you're doing workouts where you're you're you're also coinciding now with maybe some more intense workouts. So you're then practicing this during higher intensity workouts, during hotter days, you know, just having some of these different scenarios. And then right at the end, you know, not at the end, but like by the time you kind of get to two, three, maybe four weeks out, you should have a pretty good idea of where, well, sorry, what your strategy is gonna be. And you're then practicing that strategy several times that could, you know, during at least a handful of long runs, practicing exactly what you're gonna do or best you can be, you know, for race day. So you have any little issues that come up, you're able to kind of figure it out and get to race day, um, you know, feeling pretty confident in your plan. So you're gonna use the same gels, the same drink mixes, like no switching it up, you know, the weeks before. You really need to have that pretty dialed in and um ready to go by race day. So that's kind of what I would recommend step by step. And I don't know, maybe I have all this kind of written out, so I might do like a blog post too, so you can maybe like with more nuance to it and more um kind of a step-by-step what I would suggest.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:02

But yeah, the the one question, the one question that I have is um we talked about increasing the amount of carbohydrates that we're going to be taking in during these weekly blocks. And kind of once you meet once you meet that area where you're you're comfortable at, you're kind of stopping there or decreasing the the increase, you know, lowering the increase, the marginal increase. So my question to you is should we kind of maintain the carbohydrate intake, then increase intensity so we're not increasing carbs and intensity kind of at the same time like we because the it's the same methodology like we would use for a training plan. You know, we don't increase duration and intensity at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:44

I would increase I would just figure out your carb goal and then do that. I wouldn't like start I would do that and then start like tr practicing that with the intensity, not adding more carbs as you're adding in intensity if you meet if yeah. Like I would kind of get to that point where you're pretty comfortable. And if you're going to try even pushing it further, don't do it on like your most intense days so you don't kind of run into some issues. Um the other thing, like it, you know, part of this too is just kind of how you go about it, like you know, playing around with um, like for instance, just as an example for my marathon, it's gonna be um I'm gonna take a gel in right before. Um, and then I'm gonna take one in at like 20 minutes and 40 minutes kind of that frequency. And then I'm gonna kind of be chewing on the watermelon gummies kind of in between, like taking in a couple every so often, like just as I'm running, like maybe every maybe um like a few between that zero to 20 minute mark, a few, two, three, kind of maybe four, like every five, six minutes, just kind of like taking them in periodically as I'm running and kind of it's not gonna like I should I should probably have like, oh, it's exactly five minutes, but I just kind of have them in there and I'm like every five minutes. Or so, or when my watch goes off, I'm gonna take in a few and then over the course of like the hour, it might be something like eight or nine gummies over that course of the hour every hour. So it's like, but at that same frequency of fueling, but kind of also thinking about like the actual like when and you you want to think about the when and what kind of two, you know, like and different products, you don't have to use the same products. Like I'm doing like the you can super starch and maple syrup and the gummies. So I'm kind of utilizing different system, like so the starch is a more slow digesting carb, and I'm using these like really quick digesting carbs, you know, and then um, so kind of like having the slow digesting carb as well as these other carbs. And I think for me that works really well because then again, I'm not like overloading my system with and and my gut transporters too much, and I'm sort of taking it in as the gummies in more of a trickle, so it's not all going in at once. So kind of thinking of it and how you're gonna do it and try it different ways. Because if you're like, oh, I'm trying to take in 30 grams all at once and it's causing issues, okay. Well, maybe you need to take like a 20 gram gel or or you're taking in like the gel and a bunch of gummies all at once, and it's a lot of carbs in your gut at once, maybe that's too much. So, like, how are you gonna spread it out? And by maybe thinking about that, that might help too. So that's it's kind of part of it. I know I'm like, unfortunately, I only have but I think we got through most, most of the car, like the gut training stuff. I hope that gets people thinking about it and kind of how to go about like planning it and why it's so important and what's happening and some of our own examples and giving people some some good tips and help and thinking about this a little bit more. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:49

Hope it's I mean, obviously, I think I think one important d uh thing to to talk about and that's portability. You know, how how do you carry all this stuff? Because you don't want to feel like you're on the starting line with a buffet in your pocket, and now you have this marathon, and you've got like if you're eating like nine gummies an hour, and you have some people that can actually take you know four to five hours to do a marathon, that's a lot of gummies. So there there is some kind of method to it. It's like, okay, not only does this stuff work for her, but we have to find a way to carry all this stuff. How how are we gonna do that? So you have to develop the strategy that not only works but is is executable at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:35

Right. So yeah, and I think like that's where having you know, the little um portable well the the the shorts that have like the places for all your gels and the you know, you have to get kind of creative with where you stuff those gels and yeah, the gummies idea that is an issue. I think I'll be I'll be looking funny at the beginning because I'm gonna have like one of those little pouches, those um still like a fanny pack, but I don't know what you call it, like a running little fanny pack thing that I belt. Like a runner belt, yeah. And it's gonna be jammed full of all these things, and then I'm gonna have gels in different areas, and it's yeah, it it is hard. I think portability, this is where the the pros have it really nice because they have their little aid stations they can grab their their stuff and they don't have to jam it everywhere. But um it does become an issue, so you have to kind of think about uh if it's more concentrated, maybe that's nice because you don't have such volume.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:29

Um and uh yeah, it's higher higher concentrations, smaller sips, and just spread it out over longer and increase the frequency. So yeah, you can you can go a little bit more concentrated if you can just take smaller sips and just do it more often. You'll eventually amount of intake.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:47

I mean my marathon is hopefully around three hours. So but if you're out there for longer, yeah, you and you're doing you're still fueling the the you know, like if it's still the 70 carbs an hour, like then you have more you have to pack even. So it does be kind of an issue. That's another practicing point, is like figuring out how you're gonna port all the portability of this.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:09

So I I wanna I wanna thank you guys for joining us. So thank you for listening to this episode of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. Uh again, this has been episode 100. So we want to thank each and every one of you for your support of the podcast. If this episode has been helpful to you and but and you also think that maybe somebody else that you know would be benefited from this from this episode and this topic, uh, we hope that you will consider leaving a comment and a review wherever it is that you're you're consuming your content from, whether you're listening to audio only or if you're on YouTube, uh, those are greatly appreciated. We have no ads, no sponsors, so it's not monetized. And uh sharing episodes with people that you think it would be helpful increases the exposure of the podcast, and that's how we grow this. So we want to thank you guys for being willing to share episodes and leave comments and reviews. Uh, those are greatly appreciated. Uh, and it doesn't take very long, so thank you. Uh, we also have the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast Group. It's that private group on Facebook that we started from the first episode. It's a closed group. All you have to do is answer one simple question and agree to the group rules and it lets you write on in. It's a great way for you to interact with other listeners, see some of the additional content that we share, reach out to us directly, QA's, all kinds of great stuff can take place out in that group. So we hope that you will consider joining. We also are active coaches and we are taking athletes onto our rosters. So if you're looking for uh somebody to help you along your journey, you're maybe super busy and you're tired of researching workouts and and or you just have had luck with template training plans, but you want to see what else that you might be able to do, we hope that you will consider one of us as your coaches. You can go to fuel the number two run.com for Coach Katie. She does dietetics along with uh run training plans. You can go to tabula rasseracing.com. Uh that's for Coach Justin. He does uh well, I do. I do multi-sport and single sport uh training plans, uh custom one-on-one coaching as well. So we hope that just reach out. We're happy to talk to you and see how we can uh help you along in your journey, and we look forward to that. Uh until next time, thank you for joining us on the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. I've been your host, Coach Justin, along with Coach Katie, and we look forward to talking to you again next time. Until then, bye-bye, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:34

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:35

All right, we're out. That wraps up today's episode of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. Endurance sports have a way of teaching us patience, humility, and resilience. Lessons that carry far beyond the workout. Progress in endurance sports doesn't come from shortcuts. It comes from consistency, discipline, and doing the work when it's not glamorous. Wherever you are on your endurance journey, keep trusting the process and honoring the work you put in each day. If today's episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone to help on their endurance journey. Don't forget to join the conversation on our social sites to help build and foster a community where we all learn and support one another. We'll be back with more stories and insights from Coach Justin and Katie. Until then, visit the podcast website at the endurance athlete journey.buzzsprout.com for more episodes from the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. Have questions or comments about the podcast? Feel free to send us an email at the endurance athlete journey at gmail.com. For all things coaching, visit Coach Katie at fuel the number two run dot com and Coach Justin at taboularasta racing.com. Again, thank you for listening to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast, and remember to find joy in the journey.