Embarking on a journey towards triathlon is not just about physical endurance; it's about mental fortitude and personal transformation. Join me as we dive into the inspiring story of Chris Kenon, a triathlete from North Carolina, USA, as she shares her remarkable journey from a complete novice to a seasoned competitor.

Learning to Swim with YouTube

Chris didn’t plan to be a triathlete. She was a runner, but a chance encounter led to a spot in a team, which quickly escalated from just completing the run leg to signing up for a full Ironman. It was a daunting task for someone with limited cycling experience and who couldn’t swim, but she didn’t back down. Chris taught herself to swim in a local pool by watching YouTube Videos! She tried to mimic their form and practised until she was confident enough to tackle the race.

Transformation through Dedication

Chris's journey goes beyond athletic achievements, delving into a transformative shift in her health and well-being....

Training availability is an important consideration for every high-performance endurance athlete. Illness or injury can leave you unable to train properly and set your goals back weeks or even months. Fellow sports dietitian Dane Baker joins me to share practical tips for improving our immune system and overall training availability.

Training availability refers to an athlete's ability to consistently train or be available to play. 

Injury and illness are the main factors that can disrupt training availability, and setback an athlete's goals. While we can take steps to reduce the risk of illness and injury, it’s impossible to completely stop them from occurring. This is why Dane prefers a focus on immune tolerance over immune resistance. By building a robust immune system, athletes are better equipped to tolerate illness and reduce its impact on training. 

If you’re looking for ways to build a stronger immune system, Dane recommends focusing on these key...

Liz Blatchford is one of the world's most successful triathletes of all time.

Blatchford’s 18 year racing career began in the ITU circuit in 2000 and transitioned to long course racing in 2012, winning her first Ironman at Cairns in 2013. Her career boasts victories in various 70.3 races, Ironman Cairns, and the Ironman World Championships in Kona. To top off an epic career, she was inducted into the Ironman Hall of Fame in 2022. 

Blatchford attributes her success in triathlon to her nutrition, gut training, and trust in the professionals around her. Her approach challenges the current trend in triathlon of carbohydrate restriction and emphasises the importance of individualised training and nutrition strategies.

Blatchford recalls working with her sports dietitian, Greg Cox, to dial up her carbohydrate intake to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight per hour on the bike, a level that Taryn notes is considered "way up there" for most athletes. Blatchford says...

I'm a big advocate for nutrition. Your body is the number 1 thing that will get you to the finish line.

Yet most triathletes see a dietitian LAST, after they've:

• Tried and failed to get their ideal body composition
• Tried every random fad or quick fix diet
• Struggled with fuelling and vomited their guts up on the run, had to race to the loo multiple times, or planned their training runs around the toilets on their route!
• Bonked, hit the wall, repeatedly fallen into a hole or peeled themselves off the pavement
• Suffered from a stress injury/fracture or chronic fatigue. 

As an Advanced Sports Dietitian, I can help you with your training and a meal/race plan and I've worked with many triathletes, both 1:1 and in the Triathlon Nutrition Academy. What I, and they, can tell you, is the long term benefits kick in when you engage further - take ownership, prioritise your overall health and learn and understand the foundations - the HOW and WHY of nutrition.

• Control the...

3 nutrition habits every triathlete should be doing daily

It's so hard to pick just 3! There are so many things you should be doing to improve performance.

My advice - get the fundamentals sorted first. Instead of chasing shiny objects and doing the 1%ers – here's where we need to be. 

My 3 nutrition habits you should be doing every day to help improve your performance as a triathlete:

1. RECOVERY NUTRITION

• 95% of athletes I’ve seen do a crap job of their recovery nutrition.
• If delayed, it doesn’t contain the right building blocks and isn’t doing your training justice.
• We need to master the art of recovery nutrition, not only so we have the energy to get up and go again but to ensure we're not doing long-term damage to our overall growth, our bone health, and our hormones. 

2. EAT A VARIETY OF PLANT BASED FOODS

    FRESH FRUIT AND VEGGIES, NUTS, SEEDS, LEGUMES

• Food option first – not a pill or...

Why aiming for 120g of carbs per hour is a mistake

This statement may be seen as controversial - but if I don't say it, then who will!??

Putting my Advanced Sports Dietitian's hat on, I can tell you that aiming for 120g of carbs an hour is a mistake!

And let me tell you why...

For the majority of you, it is a mistake, because you're not going to be able to tolerate that level of fueling.

• The research (a paper in 2020* that came out of Spain by Aitor Viribay and his colleagues) was done with elite athletes, under very specific testing conditions. It's great research but not necessarily applicable to the average age grouper.
• Intestinal absorption is the rate limiter - you can consume it, but it's of no value if your body can't absorb it and the longer you're out there for, the more things will back up in your gut.
• If you are going to aim for 120g of carbohydrates an hour you need to build up to it, systematically and strategically, to avoid gut issues - nausea, fullness,...

What's the best protein powder for triathletes?

A number of people have mentioned protein powders to me lately – as if it was the best thing in the world.   I’m going to dive a little deeper into protein powders (and try not to offend supplement companies in the process!!)

FIRSTLY – I have a food first philosophy. It is extremely easy to get enough protein from food without the need to supplement.

As a supplement, that’s exactly what they should be used as: an addition to a balanced diet when you can’t get enough protein through real food for whatever reason.

Reasons we might advise using a protein powder:

• For convenience – if you have a busy lifestyle and seem to be always on the run!
• To meet protein needs directly after a heavy strength-specific session – where we are trying to maximally stimulate muscle protein synthesis (building new muscle). 
• To make sure your recovery meals still...

How to lose weight the easy way with TNA athlete Renee Ingram

Despite not being a focus of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program, weight loss, or body fat loss is a surprising side bonus for many of our athletes. 

Academy member, Renee, is a great example of how eating more strategically, instead of constantly trying to eat less and cutting carbohydrates, can lead to body fat loss, without really trying.  

In our recent podcast episode, Renee shared her nutrition journey prior to seeking support from an endurance sports dietitian specialist. She’s been on a big ride (pun intended) and has seen many nutritionists, dietitians, naturopaths etc.

Some of the key light bulb moments she’s realised about eating for triathlon…

• You don’t have to count calories to lose weight
• Eating more carbohydrates hasn’t led to weight gain 
• By eating more strategically around training, it’s easy to achieve your body composition...

Signs you might not be eating enough to support triathlon training

How do you know if you’re eating enough to support training for three sports? 

The body is smart. It will give you some warning signs if you’re not fuelling properly. Some warning signs will be a light touch like a feather, others will be harder like a brick being thrown at you or, louder still, like being hit by a truck!!

Did you know that your body fuels training first, before spending energy to support our daily bodily functions – like breathing, digesting, growing, and living!!??

Here are a few signs you’re not eating enough:

• You’re not training well and/or your motivation to train is low
• You’re not recovering very well or quickly enough
• You keep getting annoying niggly injuries 
• You continuously get sick or can’t seem to shake things
• You have weird or exacerbated gastrointestinal issues
• Your menstrual function is light, irregular or completely absent...

What is a Hydrogel? Does it improve endurance performance?

Hydrogel technology is making a wave in the sports nutrition scene with products like Maurten hitting the market.

But what is a hydrogel? And is it beneficial to endurance performance?

I asked Andy King, exercise physiologist at the Australian Catholic University, to join me on a recent podcast episode. Andy co-authored the review paper on all of the research to date on hydrogels and their effect on endurance exercise performance. So there was no one better suited to answer these questions for us! 

What is a hydrogel?

• Basically an amped-up carbohydrate drink
  
  

How does a hydrogel work?

• Delivers sugar through the stomach and intestine into your bloodstream to your muscles
• In gel form, it moves the carbohydrate mixture through to your intestine quicker - approx. 40% faster
  
  

Are there any negative effects of using a hydrogel compared to regular sports drinks and gels?

• May negatively impact some athletes...