The Endurance Athlete Journey
The Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast helps runners, triathletes, and endurance athletes train smarter, fuel better, and build long-term durability in sport.
Hosted by Coach Justin and sports dietitian Katie, the show explores the training, nutrition, recovery, and mindset challenges endurance athletes actually face—without the confusion and generic internet fitness advice that often leads to burnout, inconsistency, and frustration.
From first triathlons and swim anxiety to fueling mistakes, recovery, race-day expectations, and balancing training with real life, each episode combines practical coaching insight with evidence-based nutrition guidance and honest athlete conversations to help listeners better understand the “why” behind their training and fueling decisions.
Whether you’re preparing for your first race or trying to become a more complete endurance athlete, this podcast gives you clear, experience-driven guidance you can actually apply to your training, recovery, and performance.
The Endurance Athlete Journey
Aging as an Endurance Athlete: Recovery, Injury Risk and Why Your Training Has to Change
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Your body may not recover the way it used to—but the harder part may be accepting what that means for the athlete you still expect yourself to be.
In Part 2 of our series on aging as an endurance athlete, we look at why recovery takes longer, injury risk becomes harder to manage, and sleep, strength, fueling, hydration, and nutrition matter more as you get older. We also get into the mental side of that transition: feeling like changing or missing a workout is failure, comparing yourself to other athletes or your younger self, and carrying fear forward from past injuries.
The goal isn’t to lower your standards. It’s to adapt your training so you can keep pursuing performance without constantly fighting your body—or yourself.
What You’ll Learn
- Why the margin between productive training stress and too much stress gets smaller as you age
- How recovery, sleep, strength, fueling, hydration, and protein become more important for masters athletes
- Why changing your training can feel like failure, even when it is the smarter decision
- How comparison, changing goals, and past injuries can affect the way you train and recover
Timestamps
00:00 – Listener reviews and introducing Part 2
03:31 – Hormone therapy and bone-health clarification from Part 1
07:01 – Are “normal” lab ranges optimal for endurance athletes?
14:13 – Food sensitivities, gut health, and changes that can come with age
34:30 – Why recovery gets harder as you get older
39:21 – Sleep, aging, and the recovery cost you can’t ignore
46:06 – When needing more recovery feels like failure
51:01 – Comparison, changing goals, and accepting where you are
54:13 – How injury risk changes for masters athletes
1:03:11 – Strength training and the shrinking margin for error
1:10:15 – Strength, speed, and changing performance priorities
1:16:51 – Recovery nutrition: protein, hydration, carbs, and fueling
For coaching inquiries:
Coach Katie → https://fuel2run.com
Coach Justin → https://tabularasaracing.com
Podcast Email → theenduranceathletejourney@gmail.com
Welcome everyone to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. I'm your host, Coach Justin. I'm here with Coach Katie. And this is part two of our series on master athletes. And uh before we jump into this episode, I want to give a quick shout out. We have gotten a few reviews. And so I do want to uh pay homage to the people that have that have done this for us. It is greatly appreciated. So there was a review on Apple from Snowman Like Me back in July. Said uh training for my first triathlon, and Katie and Justin are my constant guides. Take them along on every long run and ride and let them train my mind as I condition my body. So thank you, snowman like me, whoever you are. Uh, we also had a comment from Spotify. So if if you're listening on Spotify, I don't know if they have reviews, but you can leave comments, and so those are also greatly appreciated. So we have a comment from Myra Almanza and says, I just found your podcast and YouTube channel. Double exclamation point. I love it, double exclamation point. Thank you. So thank thank you, Myra. I really appreciate thank you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00A lot of exclamation. And I think the episode that she found was why you're not getting faster on the bike. So shout out to those. Thank you so much, guys, for for taking the time to review and comment. We have four ratings from Apple, and but they're all five out of five. So right now we are shooting an A plus on our report card. But we would love to get some more reviews and comments out there from you guys. This really, really helps a podcast way more than you could ever imagine. We don't monetize the podcast, so we don't have sponsors, we don't have ads, we don't have anything that's pushing our name up on the list. So when people go to search for you know endurance sports podcasts and all that kind of stuff, there's tons of other podcasts that all have sponsors and ads, and they get pushed to the top. But the more reviews and comments that we get, the more notice that it gets from the algorithms, and it really helps us get returned in some of these searches that that people are going out there for. So if you've been if you've been listening to the podcast and a couple of our episodes have resonated with you, or if you found any of them helpful, please, please, I hope that you will consider leaving a comment and a review. We we thank you so much for the time that you do that, and we thank you for the support you continue to show the podcast. So thank you guys so much. So let's get started. Let's let's jump on into this. We're gonna bypass our our our catch-up kind of stuff. So I really want to get into this topic. I think this topic has actually spurred more conversations between Katie and I offline. I mean, we just finished talking for close to 40 minutes about about an offshoot from this topic that we think that we're going to incorporate hormone piece.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but we want to do some more research in order to bring in a more well-rounded we're not I think that we're committed to not taking a stance on a particular position, but we are committed to producing content that evaluates both sides of the argument so that way you can make the decision that you need to make for your own self as long as you're so that you are well informed. I'm not willing to step out there and take a stance on yes or no, because I think that there's valid arguments on either side of it, but I I do want us to be able to do some more research first before we we bring that to you. So it is in the queue, so so thank you.
SPEAKER_04So, like a bit a deeper dive into that testosterone therapy hormone. We'll be back with that. So just uh be look on the lookout. I don't know when that will be, probably like September or October at this point, because we have quite a few things kind of on the docket. But so I wanted to revisit just a few things from last time that I mentioned, and I felt like maybe I wasn't as prepared as I could have been with the exact facts. So I wanted to revisit the first one, was the when I was talking about the hormone replacement therapy in that particular study that was kind of controversial. It was actually a study from 2002. It was the Women's Health Initiative, was the name of the study, and that the early findings were that there were some major health risks, um, including the higher chances of breast cancer, blood, and blood clots in older participants. So I want to just take a note on that because I think that was the major issue, part of the major issue with the study. And then some the like the later studies really looked into this and they showed that it was mostly in people ages 65 and above, and not people not in women in early menopause. So what they were kind of showing was that if you start hormone replacement on the earlier side, it's protective. But if you wait until you're maybe over the age of 60 or 65, and then you start the hormone replacement, it may not be protective because you've already made it through menopause and the body's kind of already adjusted potentially to just not having those hormones. So that's kind of where the shift is, is like for younger women, maybe around 45 to 60. Now the evidence is really showing that hormone replacement therapy, so replacement of estrogen and progesterone can be effective for pot flashes and bone health and maybe other um, you know, issues that come along with aging and low estrogen, particularly. After that study came out, like a ton of women stopped using hormone replacement and it kind of got there was like a big scare, and then it was later kind of found. Well, actually, maybe this isn't the most truthful, you know, there there were some things going on. So I wanted to point that out because I think I kind of said that, but I don't know if I mentioned the age thing and I don't I didn't know the name of the study at the time. So that's one that I wanted to just clarify. And then the other, yeah, we'll dive into the testosterone therapy thing. We'll go back into that debate like at another time. But the other one I wanted to mention was I talked about osteoporosis and I mentioned like three nutrients. I mentioned calcium, magnesium, I think vitamin D. But I also just want to point out that there's a lot of nutrients involved with bone health. Maybe we can do, you know, maybe down the road, that's another topic of just like osteoporosis, bone health for endurance athletes. But vitamin K and iron is particularly if you have an iron deficiency anemia or low iron, that can put you at greater risk for osteoporosis. So those were all some of the nutrients that I didn't talk about, but those are all also very important for bone health. So it's not just, you know, the three, there's actually several nutrients that are maybe that maybe there are others I I didn't mention there, but I think that's the big ones that have an impact. So just want to clarify that. And again, maybe we can do a deeper dive on osteoporosis or bone health, where we can dig into that a lot more in detail on a later date. But yeah, that's that's all I wanted to just clarify. I think that was everything.
SPEAKER_00So So yeah, so here's a question that I've got for you. And I I think this ties back to the overall, the overarching question that we're we're trying to address here is let's say that you have an athlete who goes to their family physician and they're like, you know, I I'm thinking about doing a marathon or I'm thinking about doing, you know, an Iron Man or getting into triathlon or any kind of endurance sports, regardless, doesn't really matter. Now they said, I want to make sure that I'm healthy enough to start training. So I want to do a complete panel on, you know, what would be all the important mark markers that I need to look at. So the question becomes when they get the results back and they see the reference ranges that that they're looking to be within. So they look and say, okay, that's my score, this is the reference range. Do you think that some of the reference ranges which would be indicative of a quote unquote normal, normal person would be a relevant reference range for an endurance athlete? Do that should those reference ranges be different? Or is there are there nuances for particular markers that that might that might say, oh, I tested fine. My doctor says I tested fine, but what that doctor may not be taking into consideration is okay, what is this guy's training volume? What's he doing? You know, he's an endurance athlete, so maybe this reference range is okay for a normal person, but it's not relevant for him.
SPEAKER_04So what do you think? Yeah, I do think there are um instances with that. So like I mentioned it with the iron episode that I did, the solo episode, that generally I think I think iron deficiency is the reference range may differ depending on the lab, but it's like less than 15 or something on the ferritin. But if you're, you know, so you could go to your doctor and be like, oh, it's 20. My ferritin is 20, and the doctor may be like, oh, it's nor it's fine, because it's not below that, you know, lowest number. But for an endurance athlete, is is bad, you know, you're gonna have the symptoms. That's most likely gonna manifest in symptoms because that's just your body doesn't have enough. It's like you're depleting your stores, so likely all the other systems that need iron are kind of depleted already. So 50 and above 50 to 150 might be a more optimal reference range. So if your doctor doesn't know that, you could go in and they might be like, oh, I'm not worried about it. It's not below. And that happens with a lot of labs in general. Like optimal is not always what the reference range, like even for non-endurance athletes, like the reference range is sometimes quite wide. And when they put those reference ranges in, you know, when they kind of calculated those, it was it wasn't always taking perfectly healthy people. They were including sometimes maybe not super healthy people into that, like how they were creating those reference ranges. And so sometimes the reference ranges are gonna be like a little tighter. I don't know if it would be specifically for endurance athletes or just in general health for most things. I think the only one I can think of is iron. Maybe vitamin D generally, if I think that one also, if it's below 20 or 25, it's considered efficiency, but most optimal might be 50 to 70, you know, for most people, but especially as an endurance athlete, you probably want to optimize that to have that nutrient be high on the higher end or in the more optimal range. So not every nutrient is like specific to endurance athletes, but just keep that in mind when you're looking at those reference ranges. They're not always like if some of sometimes more optimal is more tight, a little bit more of a tight range. Trying to think of like with hormones, not necessarily, it's not like having more higher levels is better. Like it's probably just gonna be like getting your levels into that normal range. I almost wonder if it would be worth doing like a whole whole topic on like lab work, what labs would be beneficial for athletes, and I mean biomarker, you know, like a biomarker episode, but uh because that's almost its own topic too. I feel like we keep thinking of new topics.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean um my concern was was that for for runners in terms of measuring bone health. I mean bone health. Especially when we're when we're running, we're putting a lot more force on our bones than just the normal person who goes, you know, goes to work and comes home and maybe takes a dog for a walk. Because I'm talking about like bone remodeling. So if somebody has consistent and persistent stress fractures and they've had their blood their blood drawn and and they've had their tests run, and the doctor's telling them that they're fine, but they continue to get injured. So something something is not right. So either there is a genetic component to it, or there's there's something that is nuanced about an endurance athlete compared to a a normal, what I'm calling a normal person, quote unquote normal. So that was that was just something that I'm curious about.
SPEAKER_04If you run a test and you look at calcium, like you can look at vitamin D and make sure your levels are in the optimal range. But something like calcium in the blood is very tightly regulated by the body and you can measure magnesium. If those are off the you know, the reference range, then yes, you probably have some sort of problem going on. And there are other conditions like parathyroid hormone, there's different things that can affect how calcium is absorbed and um how calcium is utilized or how the rate at which calcium is released into the kidneys and let go in your pea, like you know, how it's so there are genetic things and then also other health factors that can influence that that you might be able to find on a test. But in general, it's hard um with those nutrients because unless you do maybe like an intracellular test. So there are some like spec, I think spectra cell, there's a few others that do sort of this more advanced testing of like actually looking at what's happening intracellular, not just in the blood plasma. Like those can sometimes be revealing, maybe. But DEXA scan is going to be your best bet to actually see if there's bone mineral density loss. And if that's the case, then it's probably if someone's really truly having issues with stress fractures and b and bone loss, then you know, I think the bigger one of the bigger factors there is probably underfueling. I think just making sure you're getting enough of those nutrients from food and then making sure you're fueling adequately. And if that's all good and you're all the other things are kind of aligned to recovery, you're not overtraining, you know, you have to look at the training as well. It could be genetic if you're like, hey, I'm doing all of this right and not I can't figure out why I keep getting stress fractures, it could be genetic. So then you would maybe do some more lab work just to kind of look at things like parathyroid hormone and like other factors that influence calcium. But I don't think there's anything different there with athletes other than athletes can sometimes be more susceptible to like underfueling, which is probably one of the bigger factors that could influence that that I can think of. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but I don't know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there's no like specific like, oh, you just if your like calcium is off or something, I mean maybe that would be an indicator of something, but a lot of times that may not be showing until something very severe is happening. And you could already be losing bone. So DEXA is probably the best way to measure bone health, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think the reason that that I think that this is relevant for for older athletes is because as we age, what I'm learning is that we we start to create or I don't know, maybe create is a bad word, but we start to observe uh sensitivities. So, you know, I've I've gone my entire life not being sensitive to gluten. And now, you know, I'm in my mid to late 40s, and now all of a sudden I've got a gluten sensitivity issue. My wife, we're discovering, may have a sensitivity to lactose, but she's drank milk her entire life, and now all of a sudden she's she's starting to get nauseous, and we've kind of dialed it down to like every time she drinks some milk, she gets nauseous. So I I think this is relevant because it may change how we have to fuel our body and supplement our body as we start to develop these sensitivities and intolerances. Yeah. Because it directly correlates to our ability to train and recover from training.
SPEAKER_04Dairy specifically, it's very common as we age to have a decline in um lactase, which is the enzyme that cleaves like that. There's so lactose is two sugar molecules together, like linked, and there's an enzyme that cleaves those to separate them so you can absorb and digest them. As we age, that lactase enzyme declines. And so it's very common for people to develop a lactose intolerance. The one thing uh Stephanie could try, or you're I don't know if it's okay if I say your name. She could try your name, is it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Yeah. Um, is lactate tablets with dairy. Like basically, I mean, it's just basically the lactase enzyme you're adding in, and that can help lactate milk, things like that. There's nothing wrong with doing that. Um, essentially, you're just providing those enzymes that your body's kind of lacking to be able to help digest. But gut issues are very common. It's just common to see that as we get older. Like I have a severe egg intolerance, developed maybe more in my 30s, so it wasn't like, you know, in my old old older age, I guess. I mean I'm only 43, but I didn't have that as a child. It's like, so I think even sometimes we don't even know why. Like, what is it? Was it something that I get sick? And my is it an immune reaction? You know, the gut stuff is just so complicated sometimes and it's frustrating. And there's a lot of tests, so-called testing out there you can do that is somewhat inaccurate, and just, you know, a lot of practitioners are sort of putting out there like a food sensitivity testing, but that's not actually there's a lot of false positives, it's not actually that accurate. And a lot of people are so desperate to figure out what's going on, they're willing to pay lots of money for these testing. And it just happens that as we get older, it gets worse. A lot of gut issues, you know, maybe it's antibiotics we had to take. I mean, there's so many different that's a that's a big issue for many people is having to be on antibiotics and the gut microbiome. So, and it does get worse. I mean, that again, I'm like, I hate to keep saying this, but I was thinking this the other day because we talked about training the gut for endurance, but we haven't talked about like gut like IBS, you know, food intolerances. We haven't like gone down that route road, how's it and how that might affect endurance athletes yet? But that could just overall gut health.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, just overall and and some of those things of like those influencer influencers, not only age, but also like things that we might do. And endurance sports itself is unfortunately because it if you're doing high-intensity activity for a long duration, you're basically you're it takes it like we just said before, all that blood flow from the gut kind of gets taken to the muscle tissue, and that itself can cause a lot of stress for our uh digestive system and can kind of lead to inflammation on its own and just issues. So, you know, unfortunately, but how do you protect against that? How do you make sure that you're you're supplying your gut with what it needs to be able to heal? That's a whole topic too, but it is interesting, isn't it? It's fascinating.
SPEAKER_00I think we can Yeah, I mean, because I I've I spent I've spent what feels like years trying to figure out why I have such an inflammatory response as I've gotten older. And I thought, well, maybe, maybe people are right, and I'm just I'm just training too much. I'm just overtraining. And so I took a look at it and I was like, you know what, I still feel like my training is in reasonable range. I'm I'm pretty conservative with some aspects of my training, and I'm I'm really good at being in tune with what my body is telling me, but I continued to just have this inflammatory response, and the joint pain was was universal. It wasn't like, oh, you know, my knee hurts. No, it was like my knee, my ankle, my hip, my elbow, my shoulder. It was like almost every single joint in my body just hurt. And I was like, this just does not feel like it's it's training related. So, and we've worked for a long time, you know, trying to get control of my weight, and I know that we've we implemented a pretty what should have resulted in some weight loss, but the number just wasn't moving. And so I was like, well, just am I at this age now where I just have to to accept this? And you know, my joints are are are getting worn down. I spent a lot of time in my in my life as morbidly obese. So now am I just am I having to pay the piper now for the damage that I did to my body in my 20s and 30s? So that's a that's a relevant question. And I think that as we get older, maybe some of these seasoned, I'll call them seasoned athletes are starting to experience this. And I don't want you to think that it's just it's it's probably training related or you're just getting older. You know, as we get older, we start to develop some some sensitivities, some intolerances. And so what you may be seeking, you might be going down the wrong road in order to try and determine what is wrong or the source of the issue. And so I I think that this is relevant for this particular conversation, not just because you know, we wanted to talk about that particular topic, but I feel like it ties in.
SPEAKER_04So it does, because I do think it's more prevalent as people age is to have some of these issues because you know, because just the body's not as resilient, or there's certain things that we just develop, you know, that kind of happen because I mean I I don't know, I have like eczema stuff that's kind of started. Um I'm like, what the heck is it? You know what I mean? Like, and I'm like, yeah, and I was worried it was like psoriasis because I have an autoimmune disease, and I'm like, oh my gosh, like am I pushed, I pushed myself so hard with the training that I'm now developing this other autoimmune. But the doctor was kind of like, we don't really know what causes it. And I'm like, well, that's ambiguous, you know. So it's yeah, thanks. I think those things tend to happen, and then it's like you do want to kind of go figure out what's the root cause. Like, is it this is there something I'm eating because we do know there is a connection with our diet and you know, skin issues sometimes. And I think it's hard because there's not the testing to be able to figure that out isn't good. Like gluten, for instance, like celiac disease, which my son unfortunately has, it's an autoimmune disease, and that's very serious. And it's test you can test for it because there's basically antibodies that you can test for to say you have celiac disease. But for like gluten sensitivity, there are some tests out there, but it's hard because Because maybe you test and it still isn't conclusive, but you're like absolutely sure it's causing. I mean, the only way to really figure that out is to do some sort of an elimination diet where you eliminate all the major allergen, you know, so it would be like gluten, dairy, soy, eggs, nuts, shrimp, like some of those fit, you know, so you don't have to do this all and all at the same time. I mean, there's ways you can kind of eliminate. I know you can eliminate maybe one at a time, see if you feel better. I mean, there are like autoimmune paleo protocols that you can do. They're not meant to be forever, though. Um and sometimes it's not even that. It's sometimes it's like um our gut bacteria, and you're eating something that's basically the gut bacteria is like thriving on and causing a lot of bloating, and it's called um FODMA, or the protocol is called low FODMAP. And so depending on the symptoms, sometimes as I'm listening to someone and I'm working with someone, I'll kind of be like, you know what? This seems to me to be more of like um gut bacteria issue, or you're having like a response to some of these high FODMAP foods, or I'll be like the symptoms may be more pointing to an actual intolerance or not even just like an allergy, but for instance, with my egg issue, it's it's like pretty severe. I'll eat the egg and I'll have extreme stomach pain. I'll be in a fetal position, it's not fun. And it's like I have started to the point where I'll actually like if I have it and I get really sick, I'll be nauseated and it'll actually like I'll be throwing it up. It's not good. So it's it's not a gut bacteria thing. I don't have bloating. I it is like my body's like reacting in a severe way. Get it out to that. Yeah, it's like get it out. This is causing a lot of pain. And so I in that instance, I'm like, oh, I really think that's as like more of an intolerance to a protein in the food. So sometimes I'll listen to what someone's saying the symptoms aren't, and then it's kind of an either if someone's willing to do a full-on elimination, but that's so hard to do. And it's not meant to be forever, it's just meant to be like done, and then you kind of add in in each food. But sometimes I just say, okay, maybe you're you're sort of indicating maybe it is dairy or maybe it is gluten. Let's try just going gluten-free or dairy-free and see. The unfortunate thing is, unless it's if it's a lactose intolerance, you can invite you know, add lactase. And there are gluten enzymes you can try sometimes to break down gluten. For celiac, that wouldn't work because it's still causing that inflammation response. But you know, there are things you can kind of try to help with that if you want to eat those foods, but it, you know, sometimes it's I don't know, it's hard because there's no generally like, oh, this is gonna be cured, you know. Like with my egg thing, I can't I I was like, Oh, we're gonna buy ducks. We have six ducks. I'm like, I'm gonna try duck eggs. So we have these, all these ducks every day they have three eggs or so, and I can't eat any of them. It's gotta be the I love the ducks, they're funny, they're great, but I can't have any of the eggs, and it's gotta be one of the most frustrating things. And I tried it and it backfired on me pretty hardcore. Like I just it just didn't work, and it's unfortunate. There's I just don't think I think it's just kind of a permanent thing that I have to deal with.
SPEAKER_00And so can you can you tolerate like egg substitute, like liquid egg kind of thing?
SPEAKER_04No, I don't know. I think if it's made out of anything with egg, like if it's just egg white, but egg substitute, like the just eggs, because it's made out of plants, I can tolerate and I can tolerate anything that's from an egg though, any sort of egg sort of thing, I cannot. And I I thought maybe it was the white, but I don't know. So I wanted out a lot of different rabbits.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, did you try the white versus just like just going like pure like egg whites? Is that still producing?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, the egg whites seem to be the problem, but then the egg yolk is it's kind of like what do you do? You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I'm not just gonna eat the egg yolks because that's I mean, there is a lot of nutrients in them, but they're also not that that's not where the protein is. So and you still have it's hard to take the white totally off the yolk, you know. So it's just oh, I really have to avoid this. It's just hard. I think like a lot of people could probably relate. I mean, there are people out there that just like can eat whatever they want their whole lives and have no problem. And I'm kind of envious of those individuals, but I think it is more common. Yeah, it is more common to see issues like that arise. And I just want to I really want to encourage people if you're experiencing that, those symptoms, like maybe work with like a dietitian or someone that is um kind of has the expertise in gut health, or I can kind of guide people to if they're like athletes and just want someone that's more specific to knowing more about athletes and how to make sure you're still fueling adequately if you do an elimination protocol, because that's probably the big bigger issue is just finding things to eat because there's like you're taking so much out, but also just recognizing that a lot of the testing, specifically food sensitivity testing, is just not there's a lot of false positives. It might be something you can do to kind of as a starting point to sort of recognize foods that maybe are high and you can kind of start there, but it's not the it'll often give you like a list of like all these different foods that you're sensitive to, and then people kind of take that as, oh, the you know, I can't have these foods, and it's probably not true for all of the foods because of the false positives, and it's just not a very accurate testing for food sensitivities. And so just be really cautious with that and practitioners who kind of take that as gospel of like, oh, well, these are all the foods you can't eat now. That's a red flag. And you know, the as much as uh the gut health testing where you, you know, do like a fecal sample or something and they test all the bacteria, that can be super interesting, but we just don't have the science yet to like back up some of those claims that oh, that you're missing these bacteria, therefore you have to like take this probiotic. It's not quite there yet, where we could be so specific with the recommendations. So I'm I agree, it could be super interesting, but it may not be like you may not find the answers you're looking for exactly either. So I I know that's not what people want to hear because I think people want to be able to like take a test or do something and be like, this is I'm figuring out what what the root cause is and this is gonna tell me everything I need to know. And unfortunately, the only gold standard we still have is just a food elimination protocol is the best way to figure that out.
SPEAKER_00When we did that, when we did that for me, I mean I was I was on an anti-inflammatory cycle, so where I was like seven days on and seven days off of a pretty powerful prescription level prescription grade anti-inflammatory. And even my massage therapist would would tell me it's like, oh, your your joints just really feel inflamed, they feel puffy, you know, and all this kind of stuff. And then we we implemented this protocol where I can't where I went off of gluten and I was able to come off of the anti-inflammatories. I have I have not had to cycle off and on like I did. I've done two cycles and they've been only for three days on those two instances. My massage therapist tells me that my joints are a whole lot better. There's not a whole lot of there's there's less fluid like around around the joint that she can feel. Uh I've leaned out, so my arms are got my arms and legs have gotten thinner, my midsection has gotten thinner, even though my weight hasn't really gone anywhere, uh whatever, but you know, I have leaned out. And so, you know, I I and you can you've asked me a couple times, it's like, oh well how's how's the how's the gluten-free going? Do we want to reintroduce it? And I think I have enough evidence to convince myself that it was the right it was the right choice to make. Did it get rid of all of my joint pain? No, it didn't. But it greatly reduced it, and so I think that it's still it's still worth it's still worth the uh the sacrifice of just saying, Oh, I I can't have normal pizza anymore. I gotta go with this stupid gluten-free pizza, but whatever.
SPEAKER_04That's an interesting thing too, because in your case, you were already like the meal plan itself didn't change much. It's just that we replaced the gluten with the gluten-free things. So Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And my training and my training hasn't changed at all either. So it's not like I trained less or anything like that. No.
SPEAKER_04Because sometimes those are factors I think of like someone goes gluten-free and now they're eating way more fruits and vegetables, you know, like a bunch of things that are just anti-inflammatory on their own, and then it's like, is it the gluten or is it that? But in your case, I feel like because we're still doing some gluten-free alternatives that are like pastas and things like that. So it's I don't know. I kind of feel like it's not that's probably not the case, but it's one thing you want to consider is like if you, you know, if you're going gluten-free, is it because you've added like more things that are anti-inflammatory? I I don't know, it gets kind of murky to figure that out. But I kind of have had a similar thing. My son had celiac, so we are all gluten-free, and I've just gone gluten-free in solidarity with him. So I'm gluten-free and egg-free. So it's challenging. This is, you know, I I'm just like, please, not dairy. Let me just have my dairy and all the other things. Because I'm if I can't, if there's more things I can't have, it's going to get more challenging. Um, but I kind of noticed I was having some subtle things with joint pain, and I've noticed really don't experience much joint issues, and my TPO antibodies went down when I so I I mean, those are just the and the antibodies that I have for my Hashimoto's basically went from really pretty high to like at least three to five hundred points lower. I mean, I had very high antibodies. Um, so that's really interesting. And same thing, I'm like, I'm not willing to I've seen benefit to this, plus, you know, I'm kind of doing this with my son. You know, I'm not saying for everyone with Hashimoto's they need to do that. It's probably very individual. That's why I think you need to do work with someone and do a try, you know, elimination and then a re reintroduction. But sometimes I think someone sees such a benefit from eliminating something that they're like, it's not worth doing the reintroduction. And especially if it's just that one thing and you're like, if you eliminate five things, then I do think uh figuring out which one of the things was causing the issue is worth it. But that's sometimes why I think doing one at a time can be helpful because you know, oh wow, this made a big difference, or I don't really feel anything. I'm gonna add it back in, I'm gonna try something else. That's probably the easier, it takes longer to figure out, but it's the easier approach because you don't have to. I mean, it's so hard to eliminate so many things and it's so restrictive that it can be uh really uh take a toll on your mental and like you know, social life and things like that if you're doing a huge, very severe uh restriction. So anyway, it is interesting.
SPEAKER_00Let's progress a little bit. I I think this this conversation kind of grew wheels and uh kind of kind of went in a direction that we didn't even have in our notes, but I think that this is a relevant conversation and a relevant topic for the overarching issue that we're talking about as as masters athletes, and you know, as we're getting older, the body just changes, and things that you used to be able to do or eat, you can no longer do or eat. So I think that I think that I know that I'll I'll speak personally, I know that I'm quick to the pharmaceutical. So I'm quick to say, okay, you know, I don't I don't feel like changing anything in my life, just give me a pill that just takes this away. And sometimes the reliance on the pill uh kind of comes to our detriment, which I've learned over the years of of staying on the anti-inflammatories for as long as I did. At one stage, I was on it for like uh over like a year and a half of taking it like every single day, and it actually caused you know my liver to kind of kind of go haywire a little bit, and I got puffy and and water retention and everything else, and my things just weren't functioning properly. And so really you have to start doing the due diligence as we get older to try and figure out okay what what's going on, what's changing, what isn't changing. Let's let's try something different, and and maybe we're be a little bit less likely to say, well, I did this in the past and it worked, it and it's I've never had an issue with it before, doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have an issue with it now, you know, and this is relevant for for as we get older. So uh let's take this one step further, and we've talked a little bit about the gut microbiome and you know how how our body responds to certain things, but let's let's branch off and let's talk about recovery as as we get older. How do you feel recovery changes as we make that transition into a into a master's athlete? What are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_04I mean, how do I yeah? I mean, I do it does take longer to recover, uh, and that can be several things. I mean, potentially, you know, I think things like like declining hormones, and like that kind of goes back to that original discussion on testosterone, because I do think that there are certain things that are declining naturally as we age that may make it harder for us to recover. And that's why I think some of the benefits of taking those things can be can be that you recover quicker, or but there's other just natural age related things that we probably cannot like our cells are just kind of aging, you know, also. And so there isn't really any magical, I mean, there's a lot of supplements out there. I still have to see, I still have yet to see the great research on like NADs or like um things that kind of help our mitochondria be able to function, continue to function optimally as we age, because that is something that does happen. Like as we age, we just have things just naturally like that it's a cellular, it's a DNA, you know, it's just things are declining. Um, we're not, you know, maybe um regenerating things as well as we used to. And that's just kind of a natural thing. I don't know how if the everything can be solved by supplements and you know, taking testosterone. There are just some things we can't really do about it. So there's just that natural decline. And I think that is probably just resulting in having to take an additional day, maybe two, you know, depending on, you know, it might be it might be more as you get older to have to recover from a hard workout. I know that's something I've noticed a little bit more recently, is I don't bounce back generally if it's a really hard workout. I probably need to take two days of just really easy training or recovery to be able to do another hard training session. And even then sometimes I go into that, you know, third day and I'm trying to do a workout and it's like, oh, this is my legs are still kind of tired, you know, from that workout three days ago. So it's just, it's just no it's even noticeable something I've noticed. So that's kind of and I really I mean, there's definitely things we can do. I just think as we get older, and I mean younger athletes can benefit from this too. They can just get but they get away with it more because they can recover quicker. Older athletes, all of those essential things that we need to do, like sleep and rest and eating, like fueling ourselves properly, those are all so much more important because we can't really get away with, you know, or even alcohol. Like it's like I had I rarely drank. My husband and I had kind of a date night last night, and we don't get that very often because we don't have a ton of help with our son. And I had a glass of wine and it just was like bad at midnight with anxiety. Like I woke up and my sleep score was like bad. It was like I usually have a fairly good sleep score. I thought I slept okay. That's the thing, is like it's tricky like that because you think you're doing a god, I woke up is anxiety, which happens sometimes, but it hasn't happened a lot lately. And I finally got back to sleep. But I woke up, even though I got seven or eight hours, it still gave me a sleep score of like 50. I was like, it was like that's the worst I've had in a long time. And I feel okay, but you know, I think I just think like things like that just unfortunately, as we age, it's just more those effects are just amplified more and we feel it more. So even in my run this morning, I mean, it was hot, it was hard, it was hard to really I just didn't feel good anyways because of the heat, but I definitely think that that poor night of sleep, alcohol the night before, the I read a mile race on Friday, it just all it all accumulated and probably was made worse by a poor night of sleep and and drinking. So I think um I'm not trying to convince people to stop drinking alcohol, but unfortunately things like that as we age just really impact us a lot more. So we have to consider that if we want to be training, like there's probably certain things that you're going to have to give up or optimize a little bit more than you did in your 20s and 30s. I remember being able to like go out in college and have a go to a party and you know, drink and get up the next morning and just like be fine, like have a phenomenal long run in college. And I I cannot do that anymore. I'll just tell you that much. So it's just, I mean, that's my personal experience, but I think a lot of people probably experiencing that as well. And I think it's not so much like, oh, these are the things you do to biohack out of it. It's more like the basics become that much more important. So I don't know, what are your what are your experiences with recovery? And do you have anything that you would add, or do you have any thoughts on like how it might impact?
SPEAKER_00I think the one the one thing that I'm learning now as as you know I'm 49 years old is the sleep thing. I mean, you know, I think that my sleep is is pretty poor quality right now. Um for some reason my sleep apnea has returned. And when I was in my early 30s, uh before I had my gastric bypass, I had really bad obstructive sleep apnea and had the whole CPAP machine. And and uh when I had my surgery and I lost all my weight, uh the apnea went away. And of course, so then I got rid of the machine. Now, I mean my weight isn't anywhere near what it used to be pre-surgery. I'm still pretty fit compared to you know what I was, but the apnea is back, and I can't figure out like why why it's back, and so I don't know if this is just an age thing where it's just kind of just starting to creep back in and it's not a lifestyle choice thing that's happening, but I am learning, unfortunately, and I'm I'm learning it kicking and screaming because I don't like it, my inability to perform well after a few hours of sleep. I've been notorious of just getting like, but let's just get five. If I'm good, I'm good with five or six, and you know, I I can still roll pretty good with that. And now I'm learning it's like if I have a couple days of like like a week of just six hours, I'm going to crash and burn. Uh, and it usually happens on the weekend sometime. And uh it's frustrating because I still I still see myself as you know, I'm in my 30s and I'm just getting into triathlon and I'm super excited, I'm working out, I'm feeling good, and I still see myself being able to perform that way, or I have the expectation that I should be able to still perform that way because I've been doing this for so long that why would I expect my ability to decline uh as I've gotten fitter? But I've learned that you know the the sleep thing is important, and I've always kind of like blown people off when they're just like, oh yeah, you need to sleep more, you need to sleep more. And I was just like, Oh, look, you know, I'm I'm a full-time employee, I'm running my own business, so I effectively have two full-time jobs. My my my training load is like close to like 15 hours a week. So I've got like two and a half jobs, two and a half full-time jobs that I'm running. And you know, it's what's the what's something that just ends up getting sacrificed all the time, and that's sleep. And I'm learning that I I can't perform when when I don't get it, and it's irritating me, and I don't like it. But uh, you know, if I'm spending this much time training and trying to get better, and I'm sabotaging it by not getting enough sleep, it just seems like it's just counter counterproductive. But then what what do you have to sacrifice in order to get more sleep? Because there's an opportunity cost associated with that. So you know, I can no longer just sit up until 10 or 11 o'clock at night working on training plans and doing things for the business, you know, generating content from the podcast and all this kind of stuff, and then just be able to walk from my office into my bedroom and go right to sleep, because that doesn't happen anymore. It used to, but now my brain it takes a while for my brain to disengage and uh I don't know how to go about doing it. I don't have the answers to it. So if somebody has answers on that on how to make this happen, how to make everything, how to fit everything in and still sleep. Feel yeah, feel free to share it on on how I can make this work because I'm at a loss.
SPEAKER_04I struggle with that too. Not I think more so because I'm still very much into like motherhood of like being a a mom and that's a job within itself, maybe, like, and then trying to work and trying to Yeah, like manage things, and I know uh it's like I kind of constantly pulled in different directions. Sometimes I'm like, oh, I need to be doing more content and I need to be doing this for building my business and getting more, you know, clients, whether for coaching or nutrition, and I know that if I put more effort into it, I would probably be able to build it. There is I I think for me, I do prioritize sleep so much that that's that stuff is probably sacrificed because I am I'm not staying up super late and it I think maybe because of my autoimmune t disease too, I just unfortunately the side effect of that is I need more sleep than probably other people do. So eight or nine hours a night. And if I don't, I notice the effects of that are amplified very rapidly, like within a day or two. I am unfunctional, I'm a crabby, irritated mother. I you know. not coping with life very well and I don't want to be that either. I want to be able to be like a good mom and you know the best mom, at least positive, feeling positive about life and being able to train. And so it is a matter sometimes of like trying to balance all these things. And sometimes some things just have to drop a little bit or I have to sort of prioritize certain things over others. And that may mean I'm sacrificing something. And lately it's probably been content building and and and it's been my training because I have had much more time over the summer with my son. And I do feel sometimes it's just tough because we want to be able to do it all. Sometimes something has to give, you know, to be able to for me to be able to get that sleep because I the consequences for me aren't just in my ability to train. It's like my whole life becomes like I just notice when I don't sleep I am irritable. I get angry like I'm frustrated I am a bit more pessimistic and I don't like that. I don't want to be that way. I want to be when I'm sleeping well I'm generally much more positive and can tolerate like I can I can handle some of the struggles of motherhood a little bit better. So you know like it it's hard because I have to I have to sometimes drop the ball a little bit on some things or yeah it's just I don't know if I have the answer. I'm just putting that out there it's just I understand the struggle but for me personally the sleep is just it's one of those top priorities because of the negative side effects are just so apparent to me that it's not worth it. And then I almost feel like also I just kind of like if I sacrifice sleep I maybe to do something else then I'm unable to like organize my thoughts. And so then everything becomes then everything's getting worse because now I can't like my productivity goes way down because I almost can't like manage things as well when I'm not sleeping and I don't have an answer for how to manage everything and how to balance all these things. I just know that unfortunately sometimes that means I'm dropping the ball on certain things that I could be doing or maybe should be doing. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I think I think one of the one of the toughest things is not just the the physical nature of recovering but to me the the mental side of recovery is way harder than the physical side of it. I don't know if this is just you know my personality or if this is just a difference between men and women but when when I see this as like if if I'm not able to juggle everything or if I'm not able to do a particular workout I really sense that as a failure on my part. You know I failed I I did not accomplish what it is that I set out that needed to be done what I thought needed to be done. And you know if I say oh I need to I need to cancel a workout because I need more sleep that would be really really hard for me to take mentally and emotionally and so I don't I don't have an answer to that one either on whether it's just me or if that's you know just an A-type personality that's a man. You know, I find it hard to accept the what I perceive as a failure on my part rather than just accepting that it it's just the phase of life that I'm in and this is these are the cards that I've been dealt and so this is how I now have to manage things and I can't I can't do everything that I want and I need to stop acting like a little toddler who who wants their cake and eat it too and just say like this is this is life. And so you know did I want to do a longer run or a more intense run because I felt like I might get some different adaptation sure but what are the consequences of that so I I don't know getting older and making that transition into a master's athlete to me it's not the physical degradation of my body but for me it's the mental acceptance of it I think is just it I don't know if it might be harder than than the physical the the physiological decline as getting older but the mental side is way harder for me to accept than the physical side.
SPEAKER_04And I know we were wanting to talk about that like in our sort of the third part of this is really that mental like the performance declines and those things that happen because I but I do agree I think for me it's like like for instance this summer I just knew knew I wasn't going to be able to have the time to that's why I didn't you know there's a several reasons why I didn't sign up for another marathon but I think I'm fairly good at like kind of looking ahead and being like yeah like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put a bunch of stuff on my training plan. I'm gonna kind of leave it a little bit up in the air some days. Know that my strength training is not going to be optimal I'm just gonna try to maintain strength over I just knew over the summer I wasn't gonna be able to have the level of training that I was able to do over the spring when I was training for the marathon because of time constraints because I knew my son would be home more with me. I knew it was going to be really hot you know over the summer and I didn't want to be doing trying to do all this training in the middle of the day. And I so I preemptively made my training plans so that it would be a little bit more fluid and I could move things around if I needed to and I didn't like overbook myself. Yeah. Is my training going phenomenally well? Am I like is my fitness improving right now? Not really. I mean it it's probably just kind of maintaining or maybe it's declining a little bit at least in some aspects but I know once I kind of have the time again I'll be able to rebuild some fitness but that's just kind of the I just did that because I the same way if I put a bunch of stuff in my training plan thinking I'm gonna accomplish all this stuff but I'm also trying to juggle everything else then I do feel like a failure. So I know that so I don't do it. You know what I mean? I know that about myself so I'm like I'm not have to be I have to understand like right now is just not the time for me to be training for something. It's just me, you know, me knowing what's all going on and then you know I kind of know okay Theo starts school next my son starts school next Thursday when he's in that regular schedule again with regular routine I can kind of increase my training um and put more on the plan and it and it'll work. But now it's not gonna work if I do that. And if I do that then when I'm not able to accomplish what I want to in my training plan, then I do feel bad like I'm failing. So I I don't want to feel bad. You know some it's like just kind of being able to accept my limitations and do try to optimize for everything else that I can optimize for. So trying to do quality workouts when I can and realize that some days I may only be able to run 20 minutes and that's all I've got. You know what I mean? So I don't know if that helps but that's kind of the approach I take because I don't like feeling like a failure either and I'm pretty hard on myself also.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I mean it it's hard it's hard to sit back here and and watch a lot of my friends racing and they're all doing you know half Ironmans and Ironman's and my goal was to get back to the Iron Man distance race by the time I turn 50, so that's next year. And I I'm sitting here now and it's it's August and I I don't see a full Iron Man in my future next year. And it's really hard to kind of sit back and watch everybody else kind of progress and and do what it is that they want to do while I'm kind of feel like well I feel like I'm just sitting here kind of stuck you know and and I'm not moving forward or I'm not moving forward fast enough than than what I would like. And you know as as I get older it it's just a little bit harder to accept and so yeah I understand.
SPEAKER_04I think that's part of it too and all the different things that are influencing our schedules then there's a natural decline in performance and for each person that may be a slightly difference or or even the ability to recover like those things aren't um the same for everybody. Like some people can continue training at a really high level and recover quicker you know for quite a while while others don't I do think when we're optimizing for all of the things that can help us recover it probably helps. But I do think there's probably some genetics there too that some people just don't age as quickly. And I think that can be very frustrating especially if you see other people that are your friends or are your age competing at a you know still competing at a high level and you're not able to or maybe life factors are kind of getting in the way and you're not able to I think that can be really frustrating. I definitely I definitely see that a little a little bit sometimes or just because I take a step back in my training and right now I'm seeing all these other women that are kind of in my age bracket like just you know being in a mile race and they were like excelling and I'm like um it did go well for me you know what I mean and I'm like okay it's probably because I just haven't been able to do the training and I have all these some other factors going on and um but it's I think it's we're always comparing ourselves to against others and I think I have to keep reminding myself try to not be in that comparison trap. But when we have expectations for ourselves too and we're not able to like you said wanting to get back into the Iron Man by the age of 50 I think that can be really hard. It's not even just that you're comparing against your others you're kind of comparing against yourself and what you wanted to achieve now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah it's not maybe possible and I think yeah I don't know I mean do we want to go down that direction with the rest of our talk and kind of you know maybe go down the I don't know maybe that that might be something that we can kind of flush out flush out some more ideas and I I think that there's I definitely want to come back to like the more mental side and the mental and emotional side of training itself because I had a conversation with with an athlete uh this week that brought up this idea and we'd already committed to doing a couple of these episodes and so I do want to come back to this because I think that this is a really really relevant conversation even for just for selfish reasons as well. So I I think now that we we've we've talked a little bit about you know how we see recovery and how it changes as we've gotten as we've now progressed in age we know that our injury risk profile is has a direct correlation to our ability to recover. So let's talk about what our injury risk profile looks like as we have now made this transition to a more seasoned masters athlete so talk talk a little bit about what what you see and and what what are your thoughts on on injury risk at this age.
SPEAKER_04I mean I do see injury injuries increase I mean it's like we can get injured at any point in our lives it's not like people in their 20s are totally not at risk. It's just that unfortunately I think it comes we'll talk a little bit about muscle mass decline and strength training but I think it does kind of come in hand in hand with some of that because now you maybe don't have as or you're losing muscle if you're not doing certain things to maintain it and that's increasing your risk. Plus, you know we do have our tendons and our ligaments are like it's harder to keep those strong as we there can be sometimes you know no matter what you do you know there's a decline in in even like in our knees like there can be like less like the mediscus or like the certain you know padding that we have in our joints that kind of help you know keep everything kind of lubricated and and smooth.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That just you know with us with arthritis or other things can kind of just decline and there's no really unfortunately like magic way to to get that back. And that's just I think a depressing sort of fact that we might have to deal with and some people are more susceptible to that than others. But the more you can kind of keep your muscles strong and be able to support your ligaments and tendons and and bones and and biomechanics just being able to run in a way that's biomechanically sound and you're not like you know maybe having some sort of imbalances which you know sometimes can get like worse as we age I think that's really important. But I I just think it is we're just more susceptible to injury. I think of my I have a really good friend. He's in I think he's 63 or 64. He's my run I do a lot of long runs with him but lately he's been dealing with um kind of like a hamstring thing and he cannot he's had so many like injuries that have kind of popped up and things that have kind of been happening and now he thinks he has like a muscle tear but nobody's really able to figure it out and he can't some days he can run okay some days he can't he's down to running every other day because he can't go out every day. I'm trying to be helpful but you know sometimes it's hard because I also think sometimes another side effect of getting older is we get stubborn and it's hard to change a little bit and so what we always did doesn't always continue to work well for us. So if you've never were big into you know lifting heavy weights or things like that when you were younger and that's and you were fine, it doesn't mean that now that you know it might be the time to kind of add that in as you age because you need to make sure you're keeping your muscles strong. So I do think um you know I kind of watching him and what he's struggling with and he never really had these types of problems earlier. I just think that's pretty common. Like he's had injuries but he's been dealing with like a string of very frustrating setbacks. So um I personally am lucky to not see that yet where I'm seeing increases in injury but I know it's something that might happen. I'm not totally like I know that I'm not going to be like immune to that potential as I get older. I mean maybe I after my pregnancy I did but I think that was more of just my body changing. But it now that I've been kind of running a little getting back and running and feeling healthy I've been lucky but I don't even think I'm immune to that injury you know the increase in injury I'm just gonna try to do everything I can to keep my bones strong and my muscles strong everything that you need to do to say injury free I'm probably gonna have to do and maybe just like the recovery piece just be even more diligent about it, you know, as I age. So I don't know what your thoughts are like do you see that increase like working with people do you see an increase in injury with older Yeah I do.
SPEAKER_00And it's not always driven by volume. You know I I think I think the adage that you're you're not overtrained, you're just underrecovered is is still a val very valid statement and I think what we find is that most of the time with these athletes is just that other piece. It's the the timing in which we need to recover has now changed. And so even though the volume may be appropriate it could be the sequencing of how we do things or the duration between between sessions might need to change. That I know that that's something that's hard for me to accept as an individual. And usually I'm I'm at the brink of something and that's that's what it takes for me for me to listen to that signal. But as I've gotten older I've started to consider that do I need to start relaxing that approach for me just to see like if if if things would be different and whether that would impact the the reoccurrence of injuries that that I seem to to deal with as I've gotten older I've I've had injuries that I've just had to continue to manage. But they never completely went away and so it's just it's like okay well I guess this is now a permanent thing that I just have to have to deal with. I think that is the case that's more relevant for masters athletes is that you just have injuries that just never they never go away so but you know they never really get worse either. You're always kind of managing those it's it's just the management of of that stress. And I think that that's why working with with a coach at the master's level is is important and I I think it's it's a good strategy to use because of the different methods that now have to be implemented as we've gotten older to to manage that stress. And you know sometimes there's a little bit of an emotional component to when you're self-coached and you're and you're building your own training plan. And sometimes that that emotional connection is hard is really hard to sever and it's really hard to step back and say look I I know that this this is the volume that I want but is it volume that I can tolerate and that's that's a hard question for me to answer and ask myself as as I've gotten older and I still want to see progress in my running but I have to do it in such a way that doesn't flare up these issues that I've continued to to manage because I feel like I'm at a good spot right now and I can still feel hints of it but it's not like you know the match hasn't been struck. And so it's a really fine line that you have to walk down to keep that match from getting struck. Because once it's struck it's struck and then you have to kind of start over again and you know you you kind of get to you don't get to observe that progression like you really want to. And dealing with those persistent persistent issues can be a challenging thing both physically and mentally and emotionally as a master's athlete and I think that's what I see most working with with older athletes is just that fine line of of trying to straddle that point between the appropriate amount of stress and over stress and and sometimes sometimes we get it right sometimes we get it wrong and you know that that's that's part of the game and that's part of the risk that that we all take but yeah and I think sometimes that line gets a lot tighter as we get old as we've gotten older it's a more narrow line. When you were younger you had a lot more leeway to go and you know you it wasn't that much of an issue but as we've gotten older it's now become a more narrow near you have very little room on either side of that line and so that's what I see.
SPEAKER_04Yeah I agree. Yeah I think it is like you're just that tightrope of between like getting it right and overdoing it is much harder.
SPEAKER_00Because I think that I think that there's a certain level of PTSD that comes from injuries. So I I know one thing that I that I deal with a lot with athletes is that you know oh I had plantar fasciitis and they remember what that felt like and they remember how long it took to recover from it. And so sometimes there's a reluctance to reintroduce stress and and a little bit higher intensity because they're trying to keep that from flaring up but then they never see the progression that they really want to see but then you know then they start to add it back on and then it flares up but because they don't understand that there's another piece to the puzzle and one that we've been preaching a long time now is the strength component. And I think that that is I think the biggest change in my philosophy as a coach and as an endurance athlete over the past three or so years is the relationship with strength training. And I I absolutely don't want to talk about it in this episode because I think it deserves way more attention but I I want to look at it and yeah because we we talked about you know why endurance athletes should be strength training and the difference between building muscle and building strength. And I think that those those are still relevant topics. And if you have not if you haven't listened to those episodes I suggest that uh you you go and and check those out in the library. I think that this relationship between strength training and endurance training gets way more integrated the older that we get. So you know if if I'm working with somebody who's who's 20 years old and you know they're pretty durable already I may not feel like like strength training deserves that big of a piece of the total overall training budget right maybe you know a a session maybe one session a week or whatever just to kind of keep some level of strength but you you get enough of it you get enough stress from from the aerobic side and just the fact that you're young your body can recover quickly quickly from it. But as you get older that proportion needs to grow and sometimes that that's hard that's hard to accept as as an endurance athlete because we think you know I I'll speak from from my own perspective is swim bike and run those are the primary things and everything else is secondary and now it's really hard for me to accept that well now strength is almost just as important as swim bike and run. And it's hard to manage that that volume and and the distribution of training and it it it becomes a little bit more nuanced as as we get older just by the simple fact that your injury risk profile has now changed as you've gotten older. It's nothing that you did you
SPEAKER_04know per se you know it's outside of your control so it's not like oh well you know I did this and I did that this is just father time you know doing doing his thing and so it it it's a bit of a a hard pill to swallow sometimes but it's the way it is yeah because I think you want I mean we tend to want to be out there doing our sport you know that's why we enjoy it is because we like like as a runner like I like to run but I have found enjoyment in strength training so I think it's just trying to figure out a way to find that enjoyable because it is important. If you can find some way to incorporate strength training make it fun like I don't know that's my suggestion. I listen to I listen to things sometimes I listen to music like upbeat like I don't know music while I'm strength training of course I mean I have my own home gym but you could listen on your headphones and that really pumps me up and it's fun or I'll listen to podcast I'll do stuff to kind of make it fun and then I also see it improvements like in my strength and that kind of keep it's just like running it's like having those sort of progress related goals with strength that can kind of help motivate. So I think finding ways to incorporate it and make it fun so it does kind of become part of the training and also part of the training that you actually do kind of look forward to. Otherwise it is just like if you're gonna have a choice between doing the strength training and something else the strength training is so important it is going to cause you to be more susceptible to injury if you're not doing it. And so finding ways to incorporate it and make it enjoyable or being kind of creative with how you add it in or you know I don't know sometimes I'll do workouts with my son and is it the most efficient workout? No. But at least like I'm incorporating it into my life and I'm finding a way to do that and at least I'm getting it done. It may not be the best way like optimal way to do it but I'm doing it. So I think it's just trying to that's my suggestion is just trying to fit it in somehow. And you might have to decrease some of the running or the other activities in order to fit it in but that's just going to be that important that you have to figure out how to do that. I don't it's hard to like keep doing what you're doing and then add stuff in. So you have to kind of figure out how to manage it all. I think we've talked a lot especially that episode um on strength training versus you know when we were talking about the strength training piece but I just want to mention it's not just about maintaining muscle mass there's other benefits to strength training that we talked about that's including like being a little bit more resilient. So in like a marathon or some of the longer distance races just that strength training helps us be durable or I guess resilient in that you can stay strong throughout your your your um biomechanics the the way you're running will won't deteriorate as much you'll be able to maybe do those last six miles and not slow down as much and so those are all benefits but it's really just the other piece is you know the loss of power as we age and power does help having better power does help performance no matter what distance you're going, reduce like sprinting or even be able to like just get into another gear and run fast. Like that the strength training does you obviously have to do speed work but that helps with that as well. So those are all other things just outside of just muscle that there's benefits to the strength.
SPEAKER_00So I just want to re reiterate that a little bit too yeah the the two episodes that back in our library is episode 67 which was called why endurance athletes must strength train and then there was episode 75 where we talked about it's called strength training for endurance athletes muscle versus strength explained and so those are the two episodes that we've done before I think that there's more to come because I really love this topic because it's a big it's a huge paradigm shift in the way that I view training and the way that I implement training for my athletes and the the various like custom training plans that I build you know now have a strength component in every single one of them. And I think sometimes it's maybe we can even talk about how to implement it. Yeah harder received but there's there are different methods and different approaches and I was thinking about this today as I was as I was finishing up my swim and you know I've I've kind of come to the realization is okay am I ever going to get faster in the water and I I think that I've resigned myself to say you know what I don't know if I really care about speed anymore. You know and I think most most athletes are going to say oh I just want to get faster in the water faster faster faster but I've gotten to the point now where doing what would be required in order to become faster would take too much of a toll on my body and I I don't think that I would be able to absorb it and recover from it. So my paradigm shift is now look I don't I could speed is secondary now I want to be the strongest swimmer I can possibly be so I want to have the muscular endurance and I want to have the strength to just have a strong pull and just be able to get my arms in position because of my shoulder issues that I have that's taken a lot of work just to be able to get my hand my arms above my head and without the strength training that would never take place and so am I willing to sacrifice speed? Yeah I'm willing to sacrifice it now because I'm 49 years old and the amount and what I would have to do to do it to accomplish it may not be worth the effort. But it is worth the effort to become strong because the stronger swimmer I am means that I have more in the tank to bike with and then the stronger bike cyclist that I can become means that I have more in the tank that I can run with. And so that's been my kind of approach as I've gotten older is I'm willing to sacrifice the speed but I I think I've replaced it with strength. And I'm seeing dividends I'm still seeing really good performance just from the strength side and really no focus or very little focus on speed.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm. Yeah I think it kind of depends on maybe what you're training for too like or speed because I do think maintaining some level of speed or sprint and you know doing some like um strides and things like that to kind of maintain some speed can be really helpful especially for runners as we age because our top end speed as that declines like our ability to still run fast marathons, you know, the sp speed and actually endurance kind of go a little bit hand in hand. So I agree I think you know strength can I think kind of make us stay actually I've kind of think if you're adding strength that just makes you be able to maintain speed a little bit longer but you do at some level have to do some something to to keep up the speed but it does allow you to stay faster longer keep your pace be able to maintain those paces longer or you know so maybe overall because you've been able to be stronger and the things you're mentioning you're actually able to finish strong still and and have good results even if you're not doing a ton of speed work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I don't I don't want you I don't want you to think that I'm not doing any kind of of speed work but the amount of speed that I do is not a big piece is no longer a large piece of my focus. So yeah it I have I've had to reint I've had to force myself to reintroduce some speed work because it I've I've always kind of struggled with that piece of my training plan as I've gotten older because every time I tried to introduce speed it would things would fall apart. And the reason is because I did not have the strength to support the speed. So once once I figured it out and I was like oh I need I need the strength piece first and then once I got that in I was like okay now let's introduce some speed work and it's and it's going well but it is just it's no longer a big focus of mine as I've gotten older.
SPEAKER_04And well I think you make a good point because I'm thinking about my own training and I think the only reason I'm able to do some of the speed work and even have the goal now of this I have this 5k goal I don't know if I I don't know I guess I'll say it because I mean what's the worst that could happen I don't achieve it. But I would like to run a sub 18 minute 5k that's a fast time. That's not it's like a 550 per mile pace at sea level. So I'm not gonna try to do that at elevation. I'm gonna try to go to sea level which will give me an advantage 28 is about where I was last year and I know I'm getting older. So the I time is only working against me at this point. But I'm like I just I really want to go for it. I'm gonna an adding requires a lot of speed. Would I have been able to do any of that you know or even get to this point where I feel like I could have that goal without strength training no I think it probably my injury risk it is so much higher the like the injury risk for doing track workouts really fast or you know speed sessions, 200s you know at you know mile pace or faster that's high a high risk for injury. If you don't have the musculature and this and the muscles to be able to support that like the strength to be able to support that you're gonna increase your injury risk and I do think for me personally the reason I am able to do that and still be able to to kind of achieve some of those really fast speed sessions is because of the strength. I really really believe that there's no way to have me duplicate like replicated in this in a different scenario where I didn't have all this strength training background and then try to I you know so I'm only saying that based off of my own experience there's no like just an N of one there's no like somebody else that's just like me doing something differently you know but I really firmly firmly believe that the only way I would even be able to achieve that goal maybe one of I mean I don't even know what my fastest K time is. I don't actually know that which is crazy. I never I wasn't the type of peep person that wrote all this down so I think it's probably 17 something but so it's pretty close to what I was the fastest time I was maybe ever able to achieve even in college. It's not gonna be the fastest I think but it'll be pretty fast if I am able to accomplish that and that's an amazing thing to be able to do. So we'll see. I mean there's always a chance that just isn't gonna happen right like I may just not be able to get faster than 1820 you know but I'm gonna go for it.
SPEAKER_03So go for it.
SPEAKER_04The only re I the only reason I think I can do that is honestly because of the strength training. So I'll put that out there. Now everybody knows my goal so maybe that's maybe that gives me motivation.
SPEAKER_00I I want to push forward a little bit because I think that there's one more little subject I think that's relevant in this particular so I want to push all the weights the the muscle stuff and the body composition stuff to next to the next episode because I think that ties in really well with with the training aspect and how to how to manipulate training in such a way as we've gotten older. But the one piece that I do want to talk about is because we've talked about recovery in this episode, let's look at it from a nutrition perspective. How does new recovery nutrition change as we now transition into a more seasoned masters athlete I mean we alluded to it a little bit in that question and answer one where I think we kind of talked about it.
SPEAKER_04So it doesn't I would say the one there's a couple things that change that we know for sure protein needs increase. So we're just not able to digest well we're able to digest it we're not able to utilize protein in the same way as we did in our 20s. So our needs for protein do go up a little bit it's not like substantial but I would say like it's more and more like more important as we age to make sure and my suggestion would be minimum 20 grams to maybe 40 grams but generally 20 to 30 grams of protein per meal and then trying to you know have at least three meals a day and for some people they'll need more protein than that generally less than 20 grams at a meal is probably not optimal. So if you're kind of thinking about it like just to make it easy instead of doing like the one point whatever grams per kilogram just kind of thinking of how you're getting protein at each meal and trying to at least have three solid meals with that much protein is probably a good starting point and it's very important as we age because we are not able to utilize it as well. It just takes a little bit more to build muscle and maintain it as we age and that's that's just that that particular nutrient hydration does change more so in the fact that as we age less likely to experience thirst. So it's not a as though I mean it's possible we we may need a little bit more because actually sweat rates do change a little bit our ability to dissipate heat and um cool ourselves down does change. It gets hard we're more susceptible maybe to heat as we age but part of that is the thirst decline we just may not be taking in enough fluid because we're not sensing thirst. I know I already struggle with that. Like hydration for me is one of the challenging things I've always struggled with is I get busy and I forget to drink fluids. And then by the end of the day I'm like oh my gosh you know like I didn't drink enough so I think finding ways to stay hydrated as we age is just maybe more important to really have that like have some sort of system in place to make sure you're hydrating as especially in the heat and especially even during training, you know, hydration becomes not that it's more important it's just that we aren't able to regulate our thirst as well. So that's those are the two I think of carbs, you know, we really don't utilize carbs differently generally as we age I mean there's some gut health issues we already talked about that might influence how what kinds of carbs we can eat and our tolerance. So perhaps you know perhaps as we age because because think we can't get away with as many things as we used to, I do think like the fueling during becomes just you know that 60 grams per hour is really just the minimum like trying to make sure you're getting enough because the you're just not able to be um kind of I think the effects of poor fueling are going to be greater in general. So trying to maybe get a little bit higher end on the fueling during. And then I it's just like unfortunately like you just we aren't able to um just like sleep and just like the other things we're just not able to get away with it as much. So when we're under fueling or we're not prioritizing pre and post workout fueling, it's the recovery our bodies are just gonna have a harder time recovering. And so those things become so much more important or at least we really need to make sure we're prioritizing prioritizing it as we age because we are struggling a little bit to recover. So anything you can do to optimize recovery including the protein and getting adequate carbs post workout especially is going to be important. So don't skip you know that post workout meal don't be like I'm too busy I can't eat you know or I'm gonna wait two hours and have breakfast that I think could be very detrimental for anybody but especially for us as we're older because we can we need ever we we need to get everything we can get you know what I mean we need to take what we can get and that's kind of like those little things become I mean important any other thoughts?
SPEAKER_00Let me let me ask you this the first thing that you mentioned in in your in the presentation is protein do you think that your emphasis on protein for master's athletes is a function of the attention that protein is getting now do you do you think that that the amount of attention that protein is getting has been exaggerated because now it's just like everything. It's like protein protein protein yeah everything so absolutely has protein now it's it's very common to to hear this product has protein okay yeah it has protein but you know do do I need protein in that particular product or yeah like chips protein chips is there is there a is there a point where it's just protein saturation where it it's being drawn into conversations that may not have been drawn in before?
SPEAKER_04Yeah I mean I obviously it is important um but I think a lot of companies are sort of because there is such an attention right now on protein and I think it's rightfully so. I think there's a lot more research on older people and the importance of maintaining muscle mass and there's a lot more of this emphasis of like 0.8 you know grams per kilogram is just what we would need just to kind of survive and maybe maybe like barely keeps enough protein on us so we know we need it slightly higher. But then I do think there's probably an influence of companies you know food manufacturing companies because it's not happen you know proteins in meat and eggs and like those natural sources of protein haven't changed. What's happening is the companies are sort of latching onto this whole protein focused movement and creating all sorts of weird things that I mean I I I have I have a couple people I work with that I have mentioned like I have actually encouraged them to buy something like the protein chips because or the they aren't necessarily athletes but or or the protein um pastas because they're really picky and don't eat meat or something like there's like their protein intake is abysmal and I'm like just fine there's products out there that you can have and for those people that's probably beneficial but do you need to be do most people who are eating adequate amounts of protein now need to be adding oops now need to be adding like protein chips and protein uh popcorn I thought I saw the other day. So that's maybe a little bit overkill but it's just the you know this the this popular like every you know everyone's saying you need more protein and the companies are just sort of jumping on that and finding ways to have these processed, highly processed foods contain more protein and just like they did in the 90s when it was like fat is bad and the snack wells took all the fat out of it but it was still sugary, still not good for you. You know like I'm not saying I'm not I I would prefer people not get their protein that way. At least it's okay to do that, you know, protein powders and protein shakes and protein bars and these protein things if maybe once in a while or once a day if you're busy but the problem is I think there's an over reliance on those products and people really need to be trying to get their protein from natural protein sources like meats and fish and eggs and dairy and tofu and you know nuts and seeds and lentils have protein. Those are all natural sources of protein try to really emphasize those and utilize those processed protein you know foods that are being marketed a little bit less. I mean it's okay to use them sometimes but don't have that that shouldn't be like the majority of the protein you're getting from your diet. So that's what I sort of tell people if that helps or makes sense. But yeah there is a I think protein's getting its it's getting its uh time in the spotlight right now.
SPEAKER_00My takeaway from this is that protein is essential in this list that we're talking for for masters athletes simply because the as we age the ability to hold on to muscle mass starts to decline and protein is going to be the building block that is going to allow us to hold on to muscle because the way that I view it is that muscle is rarely built in the weight room muscle is built in the kitchen. And so you know I think that that's why protein deserves to be in this conversation for for masters athletes not because protein is popular you know today protein is essential for this particular segment of the population for a muscle preservation perspective. Oh right and it it doesn't matter how often you're in the weight room if you're not fueling properly with the nutrients that's needed you won't build muscle mass you won't build strength and so you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot if you're leaving out that critical component and it's the food piece.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And I do think there's a lot of people that are not getting a lot of older people who are not getting enough so it's it's hard because yeah I do I think that we need to have all these weird products with protein that's a little bit weird. I'm like it's but if it's helping somebody out there getting their meet their protein needs, I don't know, you know like probably a lot of people are now eating excessive amounts because of it but there's probably a lot of people who are maybe now meeting their needs. So I it's that one's a hard one but I do think yeah it's so important as we age if you can prioritize the more natural sources of protein that's better but it's okay to utilize some of those other things but not as a primary source. And that's kind of what I tell people yeah it is so important. So yeah I think that I mean really it's probably the biggest things would be the protein and then just paying attention to hydration and you may just have to be more diligent about setting a hydration goal kind of trying to meet your needs. Uh for me it's like downloading an app that reminds me to drink literally like oh you need to drink water okay like yes because I can't remind myself apparently you know those little things like that might be helpful but yeah not not anything. There's no like profound things with nutrition it's just that it all becomes much more important just like you know sleep and all the other things as we age. Yeah, I think we have got I think we covered a lot there and I think let's we're gonna follow up I think next week like more on the body composition piece and maybe the the training like um and performance discussion and kind of what we were hinting at earlier with the the mental side. I don't know if we're gonna try to touch on that.
SPEAKER_00I I don't know if that's his whole other I don't know if that deserves to be like if this is now turned in from a three-part series to like a four-part series, you know. It's just like I don't know. Maybe it'll come eventually. We'll have to kind of see how it'll come into it together, of course.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But yeah. But I I think you know, now we're kind of approaching pretty significant episode in terms of duration. So I th I think that we've really like Katie said, we've we've encapsulated this this topic pretty well from what we wanted to cover today with more content to come. So I think we're gonna end it right here. So let's let's get into a little bit of our closing remarks. We began the episode with the talk of reviews and comments. I'm just gonna briefly reiterate those are so incredibly helpful, you have no idea how much they help. So if if you've been following the podcast or if you found a couple episodes, if this particular episode resonated with you, or if you know somebody else who you think that this uh this information would be of benefit to, I hope that you will share this episode with them. I hope that you'll consider leaving a comment and a review. Those are greatly appreciated. So we thank you for that. We also uh have the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast group, it's the private group that's on Facebook. That is your direct connection to other listeners of the podcast, it's your direct connection to us uh as your hosts. We do put out other stuff into that that area as you know as we generate it, stuff that's outside of the podcast. So if you are interested in in joining, all you gotta do is search the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast group. You answer one simple question and agree to the group rules, and it lets you right on in. And uh we hope that you will consider that and will grow that community. We are both active coaches, and so we are bringing athletes onto our rosters. If you are interested in uh trying something new, or if you're just super busy and you're tired of trying to figure out what workouts you should be doing, or you know what what sequencing you should be using, uh how much intensity do I need? How much zone two do I need? If if you've got those questions and you're just tired of trying to decipher from all the social media influencers on what is appropriate for you, uh we hope that you'll consider reaching out to us and consider us as a coaching choice. You can reach out to Coach Katie. If you're interested in dietetics or run training, you can go to fuel the number two run.com and you'll reach out to Katie. If you're interested in multi-sport or single sport training, I do custom coaching training plans, custom plans along with one-on-one coaching uh for swim, bike, run, or any of those single sports as well. You can reach out to me at taboularasoracing.com. Both of us have a lot of additional content on our websites. We have blogs and videos and and testimonials and everything else that you could that you could possibly uh want you can evaluate our philosophy as coaches to see if we're a good fit for you. But if you have additional conversation you want to have an additional conversation, please reach out. We're happy to talk to you at any time. I think that that that does it, I think, for all the housekeeping. So again, thank you guys for listening. This has been uh episode one thirteen of the endurance housely journey podcast. It it's getting up there.
SPEAKER_04I it's getting up there, it's going.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's it's really it's really nice to kind of see this number growing as as we come to you each week. Once we get on the other side of summer, we're gonna reevaluate the two episodes per week, but with the summer demands and and athletes racing and and family commitments, yeah. It was really hard to come up with the two episodes per week. But uh we do want to bring that back. So we hope that you will continue to follow along and you'll be hopefully getting additional episodes uh in the near future. So uh please stay tuned. We thank you guys for the support that you continue to show us. It's greatly appreciated. And until next time, I've been your host, Coach Justin. I'm on here with Coach Katie. So again, thank you, and we'll talk to you again next week. All right, see you later, guys.
SPEAKER_04Bye.
SPEAKER_00That 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 dot 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.com and Coach Justin at taboularassa racing.com. Again, thank you for listening to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast and remember to find joy in the journey.
