Nutritional Revolution Podcast

Mind Over Miles: Pro Gravel Cyclist Haley Smith on Fueling Smart and Racing Strong

• Season 6 • Episode 173

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In episode #173 we talked with pro gravel cyclist Haley Smith about:

  • How her mental health journey intersected with cycling
  • Evolving nutrition and hydration strategies for different terrains and climates
  • Fuel choices: gels, drink mixes, and handling GI issues on the bike
  • Mental resilience: mantras and race-day strategies

Haley Smith is a professional off-road cyclist and Olympian from Canada. Her biggest accomplishments on the bike include an Elite Mountain Bike World Cup podium, a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games, multiple national championship titles, and winning the inaugural Life Time Grand Prix. Off the bike, she is very vocal about mental health and issues associated with RED-S. Haley hold a MSc in Sport Psychology from Queen’s University, and is currently a PhD student in the same discipline. 

Please note that this podcast is created strictly for educational purposes and should never be used for medical diagnosis or treatment.

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Welcome back, everybody, to the Nutritional Revolution podcast. This is Kyla here. And today we have for you guys, Haley Smith. She is a professional off-road cyclist and Olympian from Canada. Her biggest accomplishments on the bike include an elite mountain bike World Cup podium, a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games, multiple national championship titles, and winning the inaugural Lifetime Grand Prix. Off the bike, she is very vocal about mental health and issues associated with REDs Haley holds a masters in sports psychology from Queens University and is currently a PhD student in the same discipline. This is a fantastic episode with Haley's background in sports psychology and taking that information to cycling and endurance sports. Enjoy the listen Hello everybody and welcome back. We have for you guys, Haley Smith. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to have a good conversation. Yeah, where are you uh logging in from? I am at home in a small town just outside of Bromont, Quebec. Okay, cool. is it? Do you get snow there? you getting? Yeah. Goodness. Yeah. Kudos to you. Kudos to you. The California in me is such a, I'm such a loser. I cannot do the heat or the cold. Sorry. I'm like, yeah, I suck when it comes to snow. Okay. Well, we're going to dive into all things. Gravel cycling, endurance racing, because that's what we're here to do and we love to learn about it. But before we do, I am going to have you share with us your truths and lie. I'll let you break them down. Yes, okay. So I had to think about this pretty hard, actually, and I'm going to try to deliver them even keeled, one to three. Yeah, so one, I am a middle child. Two, I have traveled to every continent. And three, I hate rice. oh, no. As an endurance athlete, I mean, you could lean on the pasta and the bagels for sure. um Travel to every continent. could see that being plausible just with where the sport takes you. um Middle child. I did not see that in my research. I'm going to go with. Like, but also when you say travel to every continent, are there bike races in Antarctica? I don't think so. ah Maybe that's it. I'm going to go with that one as the lie, but don't tell me the answer. We're going to find out. I'm trying to remember if I like saw one of the clips on like the lifegram lifetime grand pre, like YouTube things of like, did I see her eating rice for breakfast? I don't remember. uh Okay. Well, we'll find out at the end of the episode listeners hang tight. Does Haley hate rice or not? We want to know. Okay. Well, why don't you share with us first a little bit Haley? What got you interested in one just like getting on the bike, but then also taking that to longer distances. Yeah, so I mean, I've been a cyclist or I've called myself a cyclist for a very long time since I was 17, I'd say, and I'm 32 now. So it's been a long time. And it started out really as me tagging along with my dad and my brother to specifically mountain biking events. And it was really something that I found in recovery from a bad mental illness. So when I was 13, I was diagnosed with a Anorexia Undefined, was just what they called eating disorders that they didn't know how to categorize at that time. I've since been re-diagnosed with two, well, several different things, but an existentially motivated anxiety disorder, and it manifested as food control. Anyways, the bike was really my way of learning to navigate that. It was kind of like my medicine. m And that's just snowballed, I guess. So when I was released from the hospital, I started to ride. I would go with my dad and my brother. I was getting to spend time in the woods, doing something that was really challenging. So it was really mentally engaging. And it took up all that sort of brain bandwidth that was otherwise anxiously occupied. And eventually I found racing. And then it kind of just went stepwise from there until it became my life. Yeah. And for our listeners, do want to share what types of cycling events you've been involved in just for to wrap their head around the different disciplines and maybe durations and intensities? Mm-hmm. So I've really had sort of two different distinct phases of my career. uh The first 10 or 12 years of my competitive life, I was focusing on XCO mountain bike. So uh Olympic discipline where the race is 90 minutes or so. And then accompanying that with short tracks where the race is 20 minutes. And obviously that's mountain biking. So kind of like uh an obstacle course, if you will, on bikes. And then after the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021, I switched to endurance racing. I had dabbled in it a little bit before that, but I made the full switch after the Olympics and started to focus on marathon mountain bike and gravel racing. And that's what I've been doing now for the last five years. Awesome. Did that come with like the pandemic canceling races too? I know that was the case for a lot of people. A little bit. mean, I did my first sort of endurance event in 2017. I did an eight day stage race in Australia called the Croc Trophy. And that was where I really fell in love with this adventure racing. was very similar to Cape Epic, actually. It was eight days, 32 hours of racing, very rugged, off-road. And we did one or two of those every single year. And then in the pandemic with races canceled, ended up. riding a lot more, definitely over training. So it wasn't necessarily a good thing. But that, did mark kind of the pivotal point where some of it's coincidental. Like I don't think I became an endurance cyclist because of the pandemic, but there were other things happening in my life where that change sort of naturally happened around that time. Yeah, cool. So going from XCO and short track nutrition and hydration and then to something like the... Are you in the lifetime Grand Prix this year for 2026? Okay. Are you going to be doing any of the events? Yes, I'll be doing Sea Otter and Unbound, but not likely any others. OK. Well, we think of the distances like unbound or something like that, like coming from XCO. How has your fueling during sport evolved from something shorter duration to something like unbound? Yeah, it's, well, it's changed dramatically, but I would almost say that's, well, I would definitely say that's more because of advances in nutrition science, as opposed to switching from shorter to longer. When I was doing XCOs, they still kind of thought that 60 to 90 grams was the absolute upper limit that a human body was capable of absorbing in an hour. and the formulas I was using were clearly not compatible with my gut. Cause even at that, I felt sick all the time with. that level of race nutrition. But since I've come to gravel, things have dramatically, as anyone listening to this podcast probably knows, it's dramatically changed in a very short time period. So even the first year I did Unbound, I probably ingested 60 grams an hour, would be my guess. And it was not scientifically or professionally. I definitely had four Snickers in that first unbound. I had one every three hours and I had a bunch of gels and drink mix, but it was not planned. I did not know how many grams per hour I was getting. Whereas now I'm very, I've learned a lot. I've gone through some major illnesses and now it's very calculated when I'm on the bike. So in a race environment, I'm hitting that hundred grams of carbs per hour now. there are no other, I know that I cannot ingest any other macros. Hmm. Okay. So like strictly carbs, no little bits of fat or no little bits of protein, any of that. Yeah. And what's your go to carb source? Like, do you like gels, drink mixes? Like what works best for your gut? on the course, the temperature, the humidity, and the length, I think. So for example, if I were to take a five-hour mountain bike race that's very single track heavy, like our Marathon Nationals usually are, that's going to be all liquid. Yeah, all liquid. But then if I go to unbound, I'm probably going to skew a little bit more to gels, especially in the second half of the race when I just need more water. just need more. I'm a very heavy sweater, but I'm not a very salty sweater. So I need a lot of just water. Clean water, yeah. I think that's an important piece of it to think about too. I've talked to many of our guests, but also clients where there needs to be thought around the terrain and what makes sense from a, how do you get it into your mouth? Like, when do you put it into your mouth? Is it safe to put it into your mouth? Like, are your hands on the bars? Like, what is the terrain like? Are you descending? uh So yeah, I think that's something that a lot of people maybe. listeners maybe aren't thinking about right now, they're just like, I got to this amount of grams of carbs. And it's in my little front pouch. But my goodness, it's so bumpy. I can't open that or it's crumbly and I'm choking. So eh how do you think about something like that? Like for Unbound, for example, where nice rolling hills, em how are you thinking about what you want to put on your body or your bike? How are you transporting that in the beginning versus the end? Does it evolve? It does evolve. So I have a pretty, I've done unbound four times now and I have a pretty reliable system that I use. we divide unbound into three chunks because there's two feed zones. So in phase one, I always have two liters on my back and two liters on my bike. And that is always mixed at 60 grams per liter. I like a more dilute solution if possible. So that's 60 grams per liter and then I'll do whatever else I need to in gels in my pockets to make up that 100 grams of carbs per hour. I have tried to push it a little higher than that for myself and I don't really seem to be able to get over that 100 grams an hour barrier. Yeah, so that would be phase one. And then... similar in phase two and then for the final phase of unbound where it's that last 85 kilometers after the final feed zone, I just do hydration on my bike. get rid of my pack, um but I'm still just doing gels. Though every year I have something salty and solid at each of the feed zones in case I want it. It's either like a grilled cheese sandwich. One year was an egg McMuffin, like something like salty. um I don't always take it, but it's there in case I need it. Nice. I like that. had one em person tell us they like needed to have pizza bagel bites. It's like I totally remember those from when I was a kid. em But yeah, I think to your point, like depending on how the guts feeling, there could be moments where you crave different things and having that available can be really helpful and settling on the gut if, you know, if for whatever reason it's all you can take in. um With your drink mixes that have carbs in them, are you leaning towards something that has a flavor or are you going more towards like a neutral, like unflavored product? What do you lean towards? I unflavored sweet makes me want to barf. I don't my brain can't compute it. It doesn't understand how something could be sweet and not have a flavor. I no I just can't. um I like sour things. So anything that's really um first endurance has a sour watermelon high carb that I really like. Yeah, so something that's really tart. Nice. Yeah, that is that's a good way to mix up the flavor of well, flavor fatigue, too, with all the sweet stuff and it cuts it. It also keeps your I think sour like keeps your mouth like from drying out, too, because you're like it makes your salivary glands like keep producing. I don't know if you've ever noticed that, like. Yeah, and if you I don't know if you've ever experienced this, too, like if you think of eating something sour. You can like sometimes if you're really thinking about it, like Sour Patch Kids or whatever it is, you can start to feel your mouth like gearing up. em yeah, it's the brain mouth connection is very fascinating. But yeah, that makes sense. So the first endurance sour watermelon, that sounds delicious. And then what gels do you lean on? I will pretty much exclusive. I've tried a lot of stuff. I have tried a lot of different products. That's been a benefit of having, um, working with the feed for the last couple of years. And this year I've decided to work exclusively with first endurance. So I'll be using their liquid shots. Um, they're only 30 grams, so you have to take a lot of them. Um, but I do like the consistency. And I think, um, like I said, I'm someone that I tend to rely more on the liquid and their high carb is just. em It's just really good. So that's the plan for this year. that's great. Do with their gels, I haven't tried their gels before, are they different? Do they have a sour watermelon there to you go for or do you mix it up? I think they've only got three flavors right now. em Wild berry, vanilla, and espresso. So they're pretty standard flavors. m I'm not someone that really tastes my gels in a race. I'm, you just slug it down and then you don't think about it. But yeah. that's that's interesting. You say that. em Are you familiar with David Roche, the ultra runner? He was on a podcast recently and he was like he was walking through his like gel consuming technique. He's like, you just have to shoot it like past your tongue so like you don't even taste it. It just goes down. I'm like, yeah, that's an interesting technique. em Get the calories in. And I guess it like for him, it helped minimize I guess the gag reflex or getting nauseous and like stomach upset because of the result of the flavor fatigue or something like that. um Very the experiments. Yeah. Yeah. you're eating a gel, the less you're breathing. So you just gotta like squeeze it in and get it down so you can start breathing normally again. Yes, yes, that's a great point. That's a great point. um So you mentioned that you're not a salty sweater. Have you done a sweat sodium test? I've never done a sodium, like a sweat test. I have done, you know, the math to determine how much liquid I sweat per hour or volume. I, I don't know that I see the value in it because it changes so much within an individual. And for me, particularly, like I live in winter right now. Um, so the values I would get right now would be very different than by the time I'm heat adapted when I go to race Cape Epic. So. particularly as someone who lives in the climate that has four extremely distinct seasons. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I've learned, I know my sensations and I've learned, you know. I know you can't tell fully based on like salt stains on your kit, et cetera, but I do know like I've experimented with different milligrams per hour. I know what makes me feel best. So I think I have a pretty good, pretty good idea of what I am and I can adapt to it based on my climate. But no, sorry, long answer to say no, I've never done a sweat test. Yeah. No, I think, and I think to your point is this is very, a very similar answer I get from a lot of our athletes that have been doing this for a long time is that you, you've experimented so much, but also you know how to listen to your body so well and how to like finesse. And, um, yeah, I think there's something to be said for that. It was like, you already figured it out without a sweat sodium test. Um, but not everybody can do that when they're first getting started with something. And, um, yeah. So I think it's. It's helpful for people to hear. And I have even had athletes who are there like even fueling wise, they're like, yeah, I just go by feel. I'm like, how do you do that? I have to have a timer. Otherwise I will not eat. And then I'm screwed. um So, yeah, it is maybe I'm not the best at listening to my body. Well, honestly, I don't think you can really go by feel in a race in particular, because if you're going by feel, you've already gotten into a little bit of a hole. em So I'm like you, I either use a timer or I use course, em sort of like course landmarks, you know, before it's going to get really hard after it was really hard before the mean climb, etc. Those kinds of things. Yeah. Yeah. On that note, how do you do you utilize caffeine at all? Like before race, like on race morning or during race? I have, I did all last year and I was pretty, um I was experimenting, but I was having about 200 milligrams before the race in coffee, or, you know, as close of an estimate as you can get, and then about 200 milligrams in the front half of a race and a top up later on if the race was really, really long. But I think that caffeine um gives me a little bit of difficulty breathing, which is something that I've struggled with for a couple years, so I suspect that I'll be not using it this year. Mm hmm. Yeah, I've we have had other athletes mention that. And do you also notice like your heart rate drift like? I actually think I feel so good when I have caffeine. Like my heart rate's lower, my perceived exertion's so much lower, but my abdomen gets quite tight and my breathing becomes um a little bit shallower and that's not what you want. Have you, and you don't have to answer this or we can cut it out, but have you ever done any genetic testing to see if you have the ADORA2A gene? I've never even heard of it. Okay. um What we did in one of my grad school classes, was a nutrigenomics where they assess the nutrition genetic interactions. there are certain genes where people are fast or slow caffeine responders, which I think a lot of people have heard that term. But what they found out is so people who are fast caffeine metabolizers that consume caffeine will actually race faster. But people who are slow caffeine metabolizers and consume caffeine when they race, they actually race slower, which is very fascinating. But if they also, if they're a fast caffeine metabolizer, but have the ADORA2 gene, that's something that increases anxiety, which in turn kind of like then the pros don't outweigh the cons, I guess, if that makes sense. So they're like, got one from mom, got one from dad. Now I have like, I'm homozygous. ADORA2 So I'm more likely to like increase my anxiety with caffeine consumption. So that could be. Yeah. get, is this something that you can get tested? You can, yeah. The way I had it tested initially was 23andMe, which I think they're still around. you can buy that publicly online But um yeah, and then there's like other lab companies where you could get like a nutrigenomics panel. But 23andMe will sequence your whole genome, which is cool because. Then you can, when new literature comes out, you can go back and search your genome. I think that's cool. Some people don't want to have their genetic information in the hands of somebody else, to each their own there. they might make uh a copy of you. yeah, I think it's cool information to have. And then it kind of makes things make sense. Or you know what you should be doing or not doing maybe and why oh certain things are happening. uh Yeah, ADORA2 If you're constantly fatigued, not recovering despite rest days dealing with recurring injuries or watching your performance plateau, no matter how hard you train, you might be dealing with low energy availability or REDs The problem most doctors won't run the comprehensive hormonal and metabolic markers you need to actually diagnosis. They'll check basic thyroid and call it a day. Our low energy availability lab panel goes deeper. We're testing free T3. T4 for thyroid function, FSH, LH, estradiol, testosterone for reproductive hormones, IGF-1 for growth hormone status, interleukin-6 for inflammation, plus all your iron stores, vitamin D, metabolic markers, and more. This is the panel that shows what's really happening when your body is under-fueled. It's $515 and includes the lab fee through Quest, and you can test as soon as tomorrow. Link is in the show notes, available in most states. Okay, so we talked about kind of actually without revealing if this is one of your truths and lies, but what's your race morning breakfast? My race morning breakfast, so I can't eat gluten. um Are you diagnosed celiac? I'm not celiac, but this is when I developed my breathing issues a couple of years ago. This is one of the things that we found. I mean, you can't truly test for it, I don't think, but I'm pretty sure I have a genetic intolerance to it and I get quite, yeah. Anyways, so my pre-race breakfast is the Bob's Red Mill gluten-free pancakes. oh a good job with that. The secret is that you have to let it rest so you mix it and then you have to let it rest for 15 minutes before you make the pancakes so that it can hydrate and then get fluffy. Otherwise they're flat. yes, you are so spot on. I've noticed that when I've been making them as well. I've been diagnosed with celiac like when I was like 17 or 18 and my husband started. Now he has to eat like so he got the bobs and that is totally so true because like if I mix it up and then put it right in the waffle maker, it's not as fluffy versus when you let it sit. That's smart. If you have celiac, you probably know this, but gluten-free flours hydrate differently than wheat-based or gluten-based flours. You should always let your gluten-free ah batters sit for a little bit before you cook them. You're so smart. did not. I've having been celiac since I was 17. I have not put that together. Yeah. went full Haley when I had to cut it out. Yeah, yeah, I can't even imagine like, I mean, being in the sport for as long as you have and then the products that were available, I bet like you're mean, depending on when you were realized that is like. I mean, 10 years ago, it was probably pretty hard to find stuff that because everything was like using oats in it and the oats weren't necessarily processed in a gluten free facility and or they're using like a glucose from a wheat, you know, and. It's not certified gluten free. That's kind of like, I feel like still like newish in the last 10 years. So yeah, I can imagine that was difficult. This was only in the last couple of years for me. So luckily, like this knowledge was all there. And I had a, have a close friend who was diagnosed with celiac about eight months before I had to cut it out. So I benefited a lot from her, her pain because she learned all these things. I anyways, yeah. Yeah, it can be. It's definitely, definitely brutal. But the cool thing is nowadays there's like so many gluten free brands and even traveling to like um we went I was super nervous, like go to Europe. I was like, I can't be able to eat anything. All it is is like pasta. There's amazing like Italy in particular. Amazing certifications like all over the place, like fully gluten free. And they do a great job verifying their facilities and stuff. There's more options out there. um Okay, so pancakes or do you say pancakes or waffles that you like to use? Pancakes, okay. You drizzle in some maple syrup on there or? Yeah. Yeah. of course. Yeah. And I, it's not just a drizzle. There's quite a healthy slug. Yeah, extra that keeps the carbs going. Are you trying to target a certain amount of carbs at that breakfast or are just kind of eating to feel on race morning? No, I don't eat to feel on race morning. em I know a lot of people get sort of sick before a race or they're too nervous to eat, but I'm the opposite. It's like I lose the ability to tell when I'm full. em So if I didn't have a plan for race morning, I would definitely overeat and then be sick. So. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, I've definitely heard most people kind of go the opposite. It's like they're waking up earlier than they're used to, and they're not hungry, and they're nervous, and so they don't eat. em Are you doing any hydration? You mentioned the coffee, but are you doing any extra electrolytes on race morning for a longer event? well, I always have electrolytes when I wake up in the morning, every single morning. Um, but, and that's not really any different, I don't think to race day. I try to make sure that I'm really well hydrated and my electrolytes are all balanced, which I can kind of tell based on fluid retention and just how I feel, um, for the two days, well, all the time, but particularly for the two days before a race. And then I have some electrolytes, um, in a bottle with breakfast that morning. Nice. Are there any common fueling or hydration mistakes you see among maybe other riders or new riders that you know or new racers? I think, I don't, I don't really pay attention so much to what other people are doing when we're out on the bikes. I think probably most people still under fuel as a general rule in daily life. Um, I think for me in particular, in order to hit the carb targets, I need to hit to fuel my training. I've had to decrease pretty drastically the amount of fat I intake. I just ate quite a fat. heavy diet before. um So that's perhaps it's maybe not a mistake, but if people are having trouble figuring out the balance for themselves, then you might have to pull from somewhere else to give yourself more carb allowance. And that includes on the bike. Like I used to fuel with baked goods pretty much exclusively in training. And there's no, there's just, there's just no way that you're actually hitting the carb targets you need. And um my performance has improved since I've switched to carbs only on the bike. Yeah. What were some of your baked goods that you would go for? I love to bake banana bread. um I was making cookies a lot, uh different sort of homemade granola bars. um Yeah, different variations on kind of like a loaf or a bread, think, like banana or ginger molasses or pumpkin or that kind of stuff. But, and there's still a place for those certainly, especially on easy days. um But I can't do that on interval days anymore. I wouldn't make it through. Yes. Yeah. With talking about kind of pushing the nutrition and potential for GI issues, do you have you ever experienced GI issues and found a way to navigate it during a race? Oh, specifically during the race. so yes, yeah, I would say so. So last year at BWR Arizona, the Belgium Wall, Florida, Arizona, which was the season opener, um, in February, I made a drastic mathematical error and accidentally had like 230 grams of carbs in the first hour. damn, go girl. so I was, I was so sick. Like I was, I was so distended. My gut was pulling so much water that I couldn't, I had to be on the flats on my bars. I couldn't even put my hands on the hoods because I was so distended that I couldn't bend over. Um, so I had to switch to just water for a while. So that helps. Like basically you're just trying to manipulate. Yeah. osmolarity, osmotic properties. So just switching to water. I think GI distress can be caused by many different things. Usually for me, it's because I've mistimed things and overdone it, or I've em overdone sodium. Cause both of those things for me, like pull water in and then I get really icky. em And you can fix that by just like slowing down for a little bit. I don't mean you might have to your pace down, but more, mean like slowing down your intake. Um, and if I'm on the other end of the spectrum, like I've not had enough, I'm unlikely to have GI distress. I'm just more likely to have, have a bonk. Um, but thankfully like the products have gotten so good that this doesn't, unless you make that kind of error where you accidentally do twice what you intended. Um, it doesn't happen as much. It doesn't happen nearly as much. Yeah. Yeah. You make a great point with like the osmotic pressure piece. I think a lot of people still don't understand that. em But again, also, I think everybody's tolerance and gut is adapted to a certain amount. So yeah, playing with that and learning in that situation. Did you have a plain water bottle on your bike? No, I stopped at a feed. I knew that I needed it. I stopped at a feed and grabbed one. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. 230 That's or was that what you said? 230 or two twenty. Dang. Yeah, that's impressive. It's like, yeah, it didn't didn't didn't work, but it was like probably a gut training session. You could think of it that way. That's wild. OK. And then let's see. So what about altitude? Do you live at altitude? to Tude right now with this. No, I live at 280 feet. whoa. Okay. So when you're doing a race at altitude or going to altitude for a race, do you change your nutrition, hydration for the event itself? Yes. So I think I'm actually probably a good person to answer this because I struggle so much at altitude. I'm very much a sea level person. Um, and I'm also, I really struggle in dry environments where I live. Humidity is almost always over 70%. Um, so I altitude's a double whammy for those reasons. Um, and I guess basically I have to have just much more liquid. So I have to plan that my liquid is going or my fluids will be a little bit more dilute in a race. but also I need to plan for probably 20 to 25 % more volume overall. And that kind of does it. I can hit my carb targets. em I can maintain my carb targets if I increase the liquid volume and essentially thus have more dilute solutions. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize that too when they go to altitude. Sometimes they don't think they're sweating as much because it's so dry and then they end up under hydrating. So yeah, that is a tough one. And then what about for high heat? Like how do you operate in high heat? Do you do any heat training? Do you do any sauna exposure? How do you prep for something like that? Yes, so definitely I need to prep. I'm quite naturally bad in the heat, I think. I need a full two to three weeks to get ready for it. I do use the sauna. sauna um or hot tub, I've used both in my athletic lifespan, but I try to start at least three weeks before the key event, ideally further so that you can have a more relaxed um ramp up of the heat protocol. Otherwise it has to be kind of intense. Mm-hmm. but I'll try to do a heat exposure five to six days a week post-training. It doesn't need to be insanely hot, but it does need to be sort of immediately post-training for 20 to 30 minutes. Yeah, so I prep for it that way and then I make similar fueling adjustments um in the heat. So essentially just more liquid, but I keep the sodium and the carb constant. Mm hmm. Nice. so sodium stays the same though, even in the heat with more water? yes, I have never noticed a problem for me with that. I do notice If I, I can tell when I need more sodium, like it becomes pretty obvious, but there's only been a couple times in my life that I can identify where I actually needed to add more salt. Yeah. That's great. Yes. That's the interesting thing with like the sweat sodium losses too. Like it does seem like some people are better at sparing and kind of almost like there's a little bit of a recycling process to the sodium at the skin level. But yeah, and regulating sodium balance. is some people really let it off and some people can hold it well and keep blood plasma in like a good place. I would love to talk about, so before we hit record, we were talking about your schooling and we did get a listener question too related to, I feel like somewhat related, but they asked if you have a mantra that you tell yourself or say when things are getting tough, like in a race, for example. And for our listeners, maybe you want to, before you answer that, maybe you want to brief them a little bit on what your schooling is and if you've taken any nuggets from that into sport. Yeah, so I'm currently a PhD student studying sports psychology, and I have my Masters of Science in the same discipline. um But honestly, think most of my education on the psychology of performance just comes from being an elite athlete, from working with my own mental performance consultant for 10 plus years and going through the trials and the failures and the successes of having a sport career. um Yeah. So I mean, school has given me some, but life has given me a lot as well and learning from my consultant. But I certainly have mantras. They change frequently from race to race, from training to races through different periods or seasons of life. The one that I found most pert... And it's so they're so individual. So I almost hesitate to share mine because you'll hear it and you'll be like, what? wow, that makes, that's, that's not powerful. Why would you say that to yourself? Um, but the one I was using last year was remember who you are. Um, because I had, I had just struggled for quite a while, um, for probably, I don't know, 18 months to perform at my own potential. And so that was a mantra that really brought me into the moment. Um, like whenever it was hard, just remember who you are. You're someone that responds this way. You give this effort, et cetera. Um, and then another really basic one, well, two more really basic ones that feature heavily in my rotation are I can do this. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. you can do this, Haley. And I just sort of repeat that to the exclusion of other thoughts when the moments are tough. em And then the final one, it's not so much a mantra as it is more of a reminder, but em it's just you're doing it. Like I think we, when we are faced with these hard moments, like take an interval, for example, you're four minutes into a five minute interval and you want to quit because you think you can't do it. but that's not reality because you are currently doing it. So all you have to do is do it for one more pedal stroke and then you do it for one more pedal stroke and it just brings you very here. So you are doing this. Anyways, those are three examples of ones that I'll use. That's really cool. When you're in a race, are there any tools you use if you ever start to get in your head? I don't know, you get a flat or something happens and you get dropped from the pack or you're just getting in your head about what kind of negative self-talk or spiraling. Is there any tools you use then? Or the same ones? I do a lot of prep for races and these are things that you train over time. um You don't just, you know, craft a race plan once and then expect, you can't expect yourself to be able to, that muscle's not trained, that mental muscle is not trained if you don't train it. So I do a lot of prep work and I set a lot of task oriented goals, not even necessarily process goals, but actually task uh focused goals. And those are things that I'll return to. in the race. So to use your example, if I have a flat tire, I will have planned for that. I will have planned my response to what the flat tire is going to be and I'll be able to lean on that. I'll know that I'll know where my plugs are. I'll have that rehearsed. I know exactly what I'm going to do in an attempt to fix it. And mentally, I'll return to a mantra that I have set for that um or an intention that I have set for those moments. And it's often triggered by asking myself a question, what do I need to do right now? What can I do right now? And that brings me into a problem solving approach, like I said, a task orientation as opposed to an emotional response, because you really don't have time for that. You don't have time for emotions in that kind of a situation. Yeah, so that's kind of my strategy, but... I'm only able to do that in the moment because I have practiced this so much for every single race since I was 16 years old. I've done a race plan that's, you know, I start working on quite a ways before the race that is a rehearsed response to any and all eventualities, good ones and bad ones. Yeah. So that actually leads me to like a couple of questions. So talking about race day, fueling, all of that stuff, how often are you practicing that in your training, the hundred grams of carbs per hour and the maybe like water products you want to use on race day? How often are you practicing that or how far out from the race? I don't practice it in the off season. So in the period, the month long period where we're not actually training. Um, but outside of that, I am working on that sort of gut training and race nutrition plan, um, at least once a week. And then, so in, know, in my long ride or my most intense ride of the week, I'm, hitting those targets. And then anytime I have like legitimate intensity, I'm also pushing up to 90 or a hundred grams an hour. Um, just so you can hit the quality in the workout that you otherwise wouldn't be able to. Yeah. Awesome. Do you are you also practicing your race morning breakfast? Um, probably once a week, once or twice a week practicing. mean, just having pancakes. Yes. You want me eat more pancakes? No problem. I love that. uh OK, so when you finish a race, all that fueling, hydrating, you cross the finish line. What is your appetite like? and or are you trying to get yourself to get into like recovery and nutrition ASAP, going more off how you feel? What is that first like hour to look like post race? So if I'm starving, I've done it wrong. I've done the fueling wrong. So usually when I cross the finish line, I feel pretty depleted and I'm very tired, but I'm not like searching for a burger immediately. Like it's not the only thought on my mind. It used to be because we didn't understand how to eat enough. um But now I will make sure I have a recovery drink, um which is usually about 60 grams in a bottle. of carbs, sorry, it's like a four to one ratio, I think, of carbs to protein. And then within an hour, I have a real meal. And at that point, I do want some fiber, I want some colorful food, and I want some like fat and salt. So um you still have to recover with carbs, but if I've done my loading properly, so I do do a bit of um prescribed loading for 48 hours before the race, you've done your race morning, and you've done your race fueling well, you shouldn't be in too much of a carb deficit if you look at that whole three day period. em You still need carbs for sure. But at that moment, I'm more prioritizing like wholar foods, more balanced macro profile. And I don't like, I let my brain have a little bit of a break. After I've had my recovery drink, I let my brain have a little bit of a break from optimization. Mm-hmm. I think that's healthy. Do you, this is kind of like a common thing I notice in the after the last race of the season, which makes me the way you just said that made me think of this is like, do you find it helpful? Because usually there's a body break. You like get some time off the bike. Does that also correlate with less focus on nutrition and specificity to diet and like you give yourself a brain break from all of those things. Yeah. this was really the 20, 25 was really the first year that I paid legitimate attention to it and worked with a dietician because I, I had to, I had REDs and I had to get over it and I couldn't do that by myself. So we really paid attention to it and it really changed the way I ate. I ate so many more carbs than I've ever eaten in my life off the bike in particular. so I knew that I would need to, I I've changed my habits that that's that's I don't think you can allow yourself to stop thinking about it if you have really bad habits that you're going to fall back on. And by really bad, I mean not eating enough. So if you are a person like me whose tendency is to not eat enough, then not focusing on eating for performance is not probably going to help you in the off season because you're probably going to revert to restrictive things. um So I'll just say that as a caveat, but this year, um I was extremely diligent. I built much better habits. I know how to still fuel recovery now and fuel regardless of if I'm training. So yes, I didn't really think about um performance nutrition from November 1st until January 2nd. Like I didn't really think about it or worry about it or yeah. That's great. mean, think uh there's a time and a place to take... It's important to take a brain break and give yourself a dedicated brain break because you are so dialed in for so much of the year and there's so much thought and energy that goes into these things. And I feel like it also helps you reset, prevent that burnout, reset and get excited for the next. Awesome. Okay. Well, I want to be mindful of your time here. um I'm going to jump to our lightning round and then we're going to find out what which was your lie from the two truths and lie. um So what is your go-to fuel when nothing sounds good? Annie's gluten-free mac and cheese. What's your most underrated piece of gear for a long off-road event? um Underrated piece of gear, long off-road event. um Probably like a thin layer in your pocket. You never know what kind of weather you're gonna run into, so an emergency layer. Smart. And then what's the best workout for confidence heading into a key race? I am philosophically opposed to using a workout in close proximity to a race to determine whether you should be confident or not. Love it, love it. Okay. And what's one boring habit that can you feel like consistently drives your performance? Um, boring habit, um, going to bed early. Yeah. sleep. Gotta get that recovery time in. Um, okay. I'm going to jump back to your two truths and a lie. So we had that you are a middle child. You've traveled to every continent and that you hate rice. I was thinking that every continent was the lie. Am I right? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Sweet. Okay. We've been to every continent except Antarctica. Wow. Cool. So you don't hate rice? Or do you do hate rice? hate rice. I actually really hate rice. is greatest displeasure of my life that I now have to sort of like, on it. Yeah, shoot. Yeah, you just have to like jazz it up with some stuff maybe. Yeah, I'm learning the way of rice, but it's not something that I... I don't know. I don't really hate many foods, but I really don't like eating rice. Yeah. Is it a texture thing? Um, maybe, maybe, I don't know. I, we used to eat like, um, like parboiled rice when I was a kid. And I think I just like, didn't like it as a kid. And now it's just persisted into adulthood. Yeah, what about sushi rice? Like when you if you go out to sushi, do you do that? I do like sushi, but I like the other stuff that's in the sushi. Not the rice. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's certainly other carb sources out there to utilize like pancakes. I know you can find it online. I just discovered this. There is a company called Queen Street Bakery and they do bagels and they're gluten free. And their ingredients are super clean, like the oil, there is some fats in it, so it wouldn't be, but it's olive oil. But the other thing to be mindful of as an endurance athlete is there is fiber in it from psyllium husk. but ingredients-wise, it's like still 50 grams of carbs. And then I think there's like nine grams of fiber, which is a good amount, but the ingredients are really clean and it's like, I know they also do breads and I think English muffins and stuff like that. pretty good for a gluten free product. em So check, yeah, check Queen Good Street out. I have no affiliation with them. I just discovered them at Whole Foods recently and I was like, my gosh, I'm obsessed with these. Okay, so what's coming up on the 2026 race calendar for you? So my first race will be BWR Arizona again. And then I head over to South Africa for Cape Epic, come back home, race Sea Otter, go back over to Europe, race the Traka and then end my spring with Unbound. Potentially adding Levi's Gran Fondo in there, but I'm sorry. Yes, the 360 in Spain. Cool. my goodness. Yeah, that's a packed first like couple months of the year. eh Yeah, it's heavy on the volume that the second half of the year is more mountain bike and potentially a little spicier efforts. but yeah, it's going to be a fun year. awesome. And then where can our listeners find you and follow you? uh Mostly just Instagram, so @haleyhuntersmith and then on January 14th, I'm launching a pretty exciting initiative or something that I'm quite excited about, but my personal website will also go live then, and that's a place where you'll be able to follow this initiative, follow my research, so I'll be able to share things that I can't think of the word for right now, the things that I write, the things that academic Hailey writes uh will be shared there and then some race stuff as well. Amazing. Do you like foresee yourself working one-on-one with patients or do you want to stay in a research setting like moving forward? The dream would be to be in a university environment as a professor, but work on the side as a performance consultant. So that's what I'm working towards. Yeah, that's amazing. Very cool. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Haley This has been so fun. Thank you, like I said, thank you for asking me. was a lovely conversation. Yeah, this is great.

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Kyla Channell, MS

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