Episode 651: Race Nutrition with Alex Larson

0:09Ryan Kunkel: Welcome to The Running Public with Bracken Crocker and Kirk DeWint. Whether you are a brand new runner or you already have a great mustache, we're here to help you increase your running knowledge and present it at a practical level. This is The Running Public.

0:30Ryan Kunkel: When you're ready to take your training or racing to the next level, go to the running public.com. We have both monthly subscription training plans,$19.99 a month. And Bracken and I both offer one-on-one customized coaching. Again, go to the running public.com and check out our offerings. So where are you coming to me from?

0:49Brady Hunsaker: I am located near Duluth, Minnesota. So for runners, they think of grandma's marathon. That's typically the hotspot of runners when they think of Duluth or if they're like, where's that? I usually tell them, my grandma's marathon.

1:04Alex Larson: So Kirk, who did not get to join us today due to internet outages and power outages, ran grandma's last year. And he is Minnesota.

1:11Brady Hunsaker: Yeah.

1:12Alex Larson: He's Twin Cities based. Now he's out, moved out to the lake area. And then I'm Milwaukee. Okay.

1:18Brady Hunsaker: Love it. All of us are Midwest. Yeah. We love working with our Midwest clients because we're Canadian. or Canadian, one or the other. You guys, we just get you when you're from the Midwest.

1:30Alex Larson: Yeah. How long have you been in Duluth?

1:32Brady Hunsaker: I grew up here. I moved away for about 10 years. I lived in Winona, Minnesota for about four years. And then I was in Rochester for five. That's where my husband is from originally. And then I told him, I was like, I'd really love to move back to my hometown. And so he was up for it. I know he loves it. He thinks this is a really great place to live. that there's so much to do outside. Yeah. It's just wonderful.

1:57Alex Larson: Well, I spent one semester of college at UW La Crosse. Okay. I crossed over to Winona from time to time.

2:03Brady Hunsaker: Yeah. Yeah. I loved Winona. That was my first dietitian job was working there, and I didn't know any -

2:11Alex Larson: At the university?

2:12Brady Hunsaker: No, just at the supermarket there. Oh. I was a supermarket dietitian. And day four of the job, I was on the radio. I was on their local TV station doing nutrition recipes. And it was a really fun job. And I got to know a ton of people in that town. When I moved there, I lived in this little tiny apartment. And it's a college town. So it was like a college shack of an apartment. And I had a dog with me. And that's where I really grew my love for triathlon was when I lived there.

2:48Alex Larson: So when did triathlon roots start? Were you a runner swimmer growing up? Were you a cyclist growing up?

2:58Brady Hunsaker: Neither. Actually, yeah, I grew up really into horseback riding and horse showing. And then I broke my foot in college from a horseback riding accident. And the orthopedic surgeon told me I'd never run again. And I was like, okay, well, that sounds like a challenge. And so obviously I've ran since that injury. and um i started swimming though because when i had an external fixator if you like think of like the pin sticking out of your foot um or like a halo like that's what i had that for four months and then once they took the pins out it broke it i i my fifth metatarsal they couldn't even count how many pieces it was and it was just smashed and it was kind of twisted so they put the pins in to straighten it out and then it was four months of wearing that and then when they took the pins out there like your foot is still technically broken um so no running or like tons of walking and so I started swimming and that became kind of my social thing with some friends was swimming at the pool twice a week and then when I graduated college I was like I still want to stay active so I signed up for this sprint triathlon because I knew how to swim and I could run and I bought myself like a six hundred dollar hybrid bike and my husband who's my boyfriend at the time was like, you spend how much on the bike?

4:10Brady Hunsaker: And I was like, joke's on you now because I spent like 10 times that much on the bike. And so when I moved to Winona, I was like, oh, they have Trinona. It's a really popular local triathlon there. I've done this sprint triathlon. And that's where I really got hooked was I got the tri bug. And next thing I knew, three, four years later, 2014, I was doing Ironman Wisconsin. And that was where I really felt my calling to go went to sports nutrition. It wasn't really on my radar prior to that. But just witnessing people struggling with cramping, GI issues, bonking, all of the works that happen during those endurance events.

4:52Brady Hunsaker: And that's where I thought, you know, I think I need to help my people. This is where I kind of felt my calling and I started Alex Larson Nutrition to work with endurance athletes.

5:01Alex Larson: I like that. So if I had to rank back when we started this podcast, which would have been just pre-COVID. What sources are guests came from? I never would have ranked anything equestrian related. And yet you are our fourth guest, I believe, minimum fourth,

5:20Ryan Kunkel: whose roots are in horses.

5:22Alex Larson: Really? Yeah. We had one who worked in the stables and then got big into riding, two that grew up riding, and then one that was big into dressage. Interesting. I don't think there's a binding agent between that that would lend itself to endurance sports,

5:35Brady Hunsaker: but if this keeps happening, I'm going to have to start.

5:38Alex Larson: Here's the thing.

5:39Brady Hunsaker: Horses are a lifestyle. You're either in it or you're not. It's your whole world. And for me, anything I do, I like to do it really well. And it's so expensive. People talk about how cycling is so expensive. And I'm like, it should have come from horses because it feels pretty cheap to me. I can buy a$6 ,000 bike and I don't have to feed it every day or have fat pills and all of that every month. So yeah, I don't know. I think it's more of just being fully engrossed in a sport. And I don't know. But I loved horses growing up, but it's just not for me. Now that I have three young kids and a business, it's just I wouldn't have the time to invest into it.

6:27Alex Larson: I find triathlon interesting and cycling in general because in my opinion, they are always ahead of running. they're always more lab based they're always more science based I mean yeah there's a lot of voodoo involved with triathletes but

6:42Brady Hunsaker: athletes love their data in triathlon and especially cycling because you have power meters right like you're not really able to measure that yet in running like how much power and effort yeah like you can't measure it in watts really very well.

6:55Alex Larson: They do I mean they have stride pods and they have foot power meters but it's not

6:58Brady Hunsaker: everyone takes you with a grain of salt it's not like a power meter on a bike No. So I would agree with that. But I think what the nice thing about running is you can go out, you can throw your watch on the counter and leave that and just go out and run. And there's a beauty to that too.

7:16Alex Larson: There is. But I credit cycling with our current craze of ultra runners hyper fixated on fueling. Because when you're trapped on the bike.

7:26Brady Hunsaker: Carbawakening. Yeah. Carbawakening.

7:29Alex Larson: But when you're trapped on the bike, you can't just be like, oh, I'm going to eat bacon at the next aid station. It became a bottle-based fueling, which necessitated scientific involvement. And now runners get to benefit from that. So interesting that you got into the Ironman world and right away saw a need for nutrition because it breaks so many people.

7:49Brady Hunsaker: In 2019, what we knew about sports nutrition isn't even close to what we know now. I think that's probably the most interesting thing is just in the past 10, 12 years, we have come so far in how we fuel athletes. And I have this mantra with triathlon that the bike is the buffet. Because what's nice about the bike is it's easier to carry, store, put fluids in your bottles and keep those on your bike. Whereas like road running, you know, it's not all races let you carry a hydration vest and like it's it's looked down upon. And so a lot of times I tell my marathoners, I'm like, I need you to bring a handheld with.

8:31Brady Hunsaker: I need you to stay hydrated. I need you to feel more. And let's think of different ways of how we can do that, because it's not as convenient with road running versus with trail running and ultra running. it's very common to wear a pack and have that access to those things and keep yourself well fueled. And you have to, if you're going to be running for a 50K plus, it's just a hardcore necessity.

8:59Alex Larson: So what was next step after Ironman Wisconsin, which is a notoriously difficult course?

9:03Brady Hunsaker: Yeah, I had just gotten married. So this is the thing about my Ironman training. I got engaged, married, changed jobs, and moved all in the same summer I trained for Ironman, Wisconsin, that I do not recommend. So I had a lot of changes happening. And I had been dating my husband for 10 years. So it's not like we needed a get to know each other phase once we were married. So I was pretty ready to start a family. But it took me two years to get pregnant and I ended up doing IVF to have my oldest, who's now nine. And then I was able to spontaneously get pregnant with the next two, which was really a weird thing.

9:43All of a sudden I was cured of

9:46Brady Hunsaker: infertility first and there's no reason. And I was diagnosed with unexplained infertility with my first. That's a great diagnosis. Yeah. It's the worst. And people that have gone through, like start going through the process, I warn them, I'm like, you might not get answers. You start the testing and all that. I often said, I'm like, just be prepared for them to be like, we have no answers for you. And that is equally just as frustrating as having a diagnosis. So that was my main focus after Ironman Wisconsin was starting our family. And so I did take a nine-year hiatus from endurance sport.

10:29Brady Hunsaker: 2024 was when I got a gravel bike and I started cycling. I knew I couldn't go back to triathlon. I was like, there's no way I have time to train for three sports at once. I got to give kudos to the triathletes that have kids. I don't know how they do it because it's hard just to train for one sport and they have to do triathlon with all three.

10:50Alex Larson: We talked about this before. They're either an incredibly effective individual or an incredibly ineffective parent.

10:57Ryan Kunkel: Those are the only two routes.

10:59Brady Hunsaker: I know, right?

10:59Alex Larson: You have to be not present or you don't get to sleep.

11:02Brady Hunsaker: Correct. And I really like to sleep.

11:04Alex Larson: so I opted to just take it once.

11:07Brady Hunsaker: It's nice to not screw up your kids too. Yeah, I want to be present for my kids until usually around 12, I hear. 12, 13 is when they start wanting to spend less time around you. And so I'm like, you know, if I'm going to go back to triathlon or running, I will wait until they're teenagers and they don't want to spend all of their time with mom. So that's kind of my plan right now. But right now, I really like gravel cycling. It's a very fun sport. I'm still running every once in a while, But it was nice to try something new with gravel.

11:39Alex Larson: That's interesting. And then from first Ironman, what did your nutrition path look like? Because you were out of college by that point.

11:47Brady Hunsaker: I was out of college, yeah. What was your original degree? Dietetics was my bachelor's. I do have a master's in the counseling world. So then, like I said, sports nutrition wasn't on my radar. And then I started my business, Alex Larson Nutrition, in 2018. And I went full time in that 2021. And I do now have two other dietitians who are also athletes that work with our clients. And so it's been a really fun journey of getting to connect with other athletes. I think one of my favorite wins for nutrition is not just the PRs and the BQs and those types of things. But it's the athletes that are parents that have jobs that are struggling with like really poor energy levels and consistently training and trying to eat well with all of that.

12:42Brady Hunsaker: And when they go for their long run on Saturday, and then they feel like a zombie the rest of the day, and they really feel like a crappy parent, we get them feeling better and they can go for that long run, have a great long run, and then have the energy to clean their house or go do activities with their kids and they feel really great the rest of the day. And just seeing that shift is one of my favorite wins, I think, for athletes.

13:07Alex Larson: So what does that look like for you then? In that specific example, that Ultra World's bigger than it's ever been. The demographic of our listeners has shifted trails bigger than it's ever been. And so the long run is more prevalent than it's ever been. What does that process look like since And so many people are going through that post-long run just on the couch, not useful to your world.

13:33Brady Hunsaker: Yeah. I think there's two main buckets of work that I look at. Number one is I will look at how they're fueling the workout itself. Are they taking in any sort of carbs beforehand? And then how much are they taking in during? I think that athletes need to start within the first 20, 30 minutes of those long runs of starting to get in fuel. that's where they're going to have the best gut tolerance. They're going to get ahead of their nutrition. If they're waiting too long or they're not on a really good schedule, then it's really easy to get behind. And once you get behind in ultra distance running, it's really hard to get caught back up both in fueling and hydration.

14:09Brady Hunsaker: So that's the first bucket of work I look at. If they maybe are taking in only like 40, 50 grams of carb per hour, I'm like, okay, let's start gradually finding some easy ways for us to increase that by 5, 10 grams of carb per hour over the next two weeks, and then seeing how that feels and going from there. I'm a big fan of hydration mixes and fluids because you're already having to carry those fluids with you. We might as well add some carbs and electrolytes to that. So you're more efficient with everything that you packed with you and carried. And then post-run, you're looking at that recovery.

14:49Brady Hunsaker: And recovery is more than just a protein shake after your workout. It is an all-day affair because for endurance athletes, the frequency and the duration that we are training, every meal and snack that we're having throughout the day is an opportunity to support recovery. And getting into that consistency of eating regular meals and snacks, I see a lot of athletes that have a skimpy breakfast, maybe a decent lunch, but often not enough. And then they'll have most of their calories in the evening at dinner. And that's just delaying recovery. If we can do a lot more at breakfast, a lot more at lunch, or if you're running all morning and you're basically missing a meal because you're running for four or five hours, then we need to look at, okay, how can we make up for that nutrition elsewhere in the day?

15:39Brady Hunsaker: And then also the days around that as well. So those are the key buckets of work that I look at to make sure that we're not having big gaps in nutrition. We're getting enough protein. We're getting enough carbs. We're timing carbs, especially around those workouts. And that's where we tend to see those energy levels in just their day-to-day just explode. They feel so much better.

16:02Alex Larson: So what is your window post stopping your watch at the end that like do not exceed blank before the process begins?

16:12Brady Hunsaker: Yeah, I had an athlete that messaged me and they said, oh, my coach told me I have to get something in 20 minutes, start eating or drinking 20 minutes after my workout. And I was like, well, I was like, it doesn't have to be exactly like within 20 minutes. I think for a lot of us, we're not super hungry after a workout. So that gets a little challenging as well. I would say within, I mean, the sooner the better, especially with those ultra distance events and training. But if you can get something in like a snack within 45 minutes, if you can drink your nutrition within 30, 45 minutes, that would be great.

16:53Brady Hunsaker: And then having a meal within two hours. Those are my typical guidelines. But if you are, let's say you are doing a long run Saturday and a long run Sunday, then getting in nutrition as soon as possible on Saturday is absolutely vital to set you up for success on Sunday. Because what we found in the research is it can easily take at least 24 hours to fully recover from a big training session. Or if you look at like stage racing, it takes about 24 hours. And a lot of times by the time someone finishes their workout and the time they start the next one the next day, it's not been 24 hours. So you really have to think of how can I optimize recovery as soon as possible and get myself as recovered by this time I start the next one.

17:43Brady Hunsaker: And then once you finish that one, hopefully you have a rest day the following day and you can get yourself caught back up. But you have to think of it really as what's the priority here, depending on what your training schedule is.

17:54Alex Larson: Are you prioritizing anything nutritionally in those first 45 minutes and then two hours?

18:00Brady Hunsaker: Yes. Hydration, replenishing electrolytes, carbs, and protein. If you don't get enough protein, your muscles aren't going to have anything to repair and rebuild those muscle tissues that have been taken a beating. But if you don't have enough carbs, your body is going to start using that protein as energy. So both are very important. you'll hear ratios of you know three to one four to one of carbs to protein i i find i first want people to get in the habit of just eating after the workout and then once we get into a good habit then we can start looking at the more nitty-gritty of like having a more ideal ratio um that's just my personal preference so i'm like okay let's start with the low hanging fruit and then build some of the higher hanging fruit when it comes to recovery.

18:52Brady Hunsaker: And it doesn't have to be like those kind of post-recovery like powder shakes that you blend up. It could be some Greek yogurt and fruit and granola with a little bit of honey. It can be a banana and a protein shake. It can be a sandwich. It could be whatever works well for you, depending on where you're at. Sometimes for me, a few years ago, I had done some swimming and it was in the summer. And when I got done swimming, I was starving, which is pretty common for swimmers. And so in my very hot car, I stole my husband's big Yeti cup and I stuck one of those like Fairlife Core Power drinks in there with some ice cubes to keep it cold in my really hot car.

19:42Brady Hunsaker: So I could drink that And then also have like some fruit or something that I kept in my bag in the locker room for my drive home. So thinking of like, where are you at when you're finishing? Is there something you can bring with and have prepped? Or if you're at home and you're notorious for not refueling really well, have it already ready to go in your fridge for you to grab and take with to the shower and consume while you're getting yourself ready for the day. So thinking of those efficiencies and being able to implement them and practice them, I think is really important. I like that.

20:14Alex Larson: You talked about back-to-back long runs. Stage racing is probably bigger than it's been. There's this trend of people that'll do 50K one day, 50 mile the next at these races or the goofy challenge down in Disney. People who are stringing together efforts that theoretically you shouldn't, but you're going to. How does this change for you if you are sending it multiple days in a row? Yeah.

20:43Brady Hunsaker: What's interesting about this stage race research is there's one particular study that had some fancy equipment where it could in the moment assess someone's muscle and liver glycogen stores. So glycogen is our body's way of storing carbohydrates for future exercise. And so we store that both in our muscles and in our liver. Our liver has a limited supply of storage. Our muscles have a much more substantial supply. And what they found is that when it came to replenishing glycogen stores, taking in both glucose and fructose throughout the day actually really helped replenish both liver and muscle glycogen stores.

21:31Brady Hunsaker: Liver especially, that one rebounded much faster within that 24-hour stage race timeframe. With muscle glycogen, it only replenished about, I want to say like 60 to 65%. I can share that.

21:44Alex Larson: In 24 hours?

21:44Brady Hunsaker: In 24 hours, yeah.

21:46Alex Larson: Regardless of what you ingest, it's not popping up.

21:49Brady Hunsaker: Even with the most optimal in ingesting of carbs throughout the day, the muscle glycogen never fully reloaded. So it was like, okay, make sure we're getting fructose in addition to glucose throughout the day because fructose gets absorbed through the liver and gets stored as glycogen there. So that's where it was kind of interesting with those stage races is meals, protein throughout the day, very important for recovery, but making sure you're drinking or consuming some sort of sucrose-based sugar-based that has both glucose and fructose in there to really help maximize those glycogen stores as much as possible.

22:29Brady Hunsaker: But yeah, when you're having like back-to-back days and the goofy challenge, is that three days? I think so, yeah.

22:38Alex Larson: Unless they do two in the first day.

22:40Brady Hunsaker: Is it 10K half marathon marathon?

22:43Alex Larson: Yeah.

22:44Brady Hunsaker: Is there a 5K in there? Unless it's five half full, one of the two. Yeah, I know it's for sure at least three. So hopefully you're going in to the first day already having carb loaded for two days and really going off with Topped Off and then focusing on that recovery, going into the half marathon. Again, after that race, recovering really well and not being too depleted by the time you get to the full marathon.

23:11Alex Larson: So is it just mandatory to fuel better and earlier throughout the races then if you can only get back to 60 %? Yeah, 100%.

23:19Brady Hunsaker: The research is a little, from what I've seen, when you're fueling more earlier on, you will be sparing muscle glycogen somewhat, but you'll especially be sparing that.

23:34Alex Larson: It's not two channels, but they don't pull as strong from either or, correct?

23:39Brady Hunsaker: What's nice is that with consuming fructose and glucose in your exercise, they're not competing against each other. We can only absorb so much glucose at a time. And so I say the glucose gets absorbed via the bus. That's how I say it. It goes down this one pathway and it takes the bus and there's only so much room on the bus and then fructose takes the train. And so they're not competing against each other. So it allows you to get more sugar and energy to your muscles at a time and getting cleared from your intestines and hopefully decreasing your chance of GI symptoms as well.

24:16Alex Larson: So how, or let's just give this example of back-to-back days of racing. On day two, gun goes off. How long are you waiting before you take your first sip of fuel?

24:27Brady Hunsaker: Well, hopefully I've taken it like 10 minutes before the guns go south.

24:30Alex Larson: You've done everything right up until this point.

24:32Brady Hunsaker: Yep. Yep. And so there I would probably 20, 30 minutes once I've started to settle in.

24:37Alex Larson: You can still take that time.

24:38Brady Hunsaker: Yeah, I think so. I mean, if you wanted to start five, 10 minutes in, but usually I like to wait until 20, 30 minutes in just to give some time for that initial fuel that you took 10 minutes before the start to kind of work its way through your gut. And it'll depend on gut tolerance too for the athlete. That's the theme I think of any sports dietitian is it depends. There's so many nuances of nutrition. But yeah, I would say starting somewhere in that like 20 minute increment and it depends on how much you're taking in for fuel. Are you taking in a 50 gram carbs fuel gel? Are you taking in a 20 gram Morton gel?

25:18Brady Hunsaker: That's going to make a big difference too. And how soon you start taking things in and how often.

25:24Alex Larson: So with that, are you a fan of the IV approach to fueling during race or space it out a little bit more and take a little more substantial density each time? Or is it simply it depends on your gut tolerance?

25:37Brady Hunsaker: I think it depends on what form you like to take. If you're strictly like a gel person, A lot of those, you have to take the full thing in one sitting and toss it in the bin. If you are someone that's doing gels, but then also some hydration mix in there too, you can sip on that hydration mix, kind of get that steady IV supply that you mentioned, and then also supplementing with some gels here and there to just keep that blood sugar high enough to be supplying a consistent amount to your muscles. So it kind of depends on the forms and what people are doing. But I like, especially for ultra runners, doing a hydration mix in their fluids, having a goal to drink X amount of fluids per hour, then we know, okay, you're getting, let's say 50 grams of carb every hour from your tailwind.

26:36Brady Hunsaker: Let's supplement with a 20, 30 gram gel every hour and there we're at 80 grams per hour you know just doing keeping the math simple is really helpful because you don't want to be math in out there on the trails and so if we can find a system that keeps you somewhat in the ballpark of where you need to be carb wise per hour and

26:57Alex Larson: the math is pretty easy that's always a win in my book so perfect world uh people's emotions don't factor into it preferences don't factor into it what are you doing with someone's nutrition for or 50K or above? Is it drink everything you can drink on the timer every single time and only supplement what you have to? Or would you just mix it dense enough that you're just taking the same amount every time? Or are you staggering ever to give your stomach breaks?

27:27Brady Hunsaker: Here's where I would probably look at it strategically because flavor fatigue is definitely something that can happen in the later hours and GI distress definitely happens later on. So I would start with probably doing gels early on and also intermixing some real food just to delay that flavor fatigue as much as possible. I love ultra runners because you guys have just an absolute buffet. If there is any reason for me to start ultra running, it is going to be for the snacks 100 % because I love me a cup of noodles, that salty, savory stuff in those longer all-day events. So I would look at the race and what is being offered.

28:12Brady Hunsaker: Is it self-supported? Is there aid stations? What's going to be offered? And then making sure we're testing some of those items out in training, but also relying between aid stations on having some sort of hydration mix just for the electrolytes and a good amount of steady supply of carbs, whether that's tailwind and they're high carb. the regular scratch has a super high carb mix or their regular and finding what the athlete likes, because I think taste is the number one most important factor of sports fuel. If it doesn't taste good to people, there's no way that they're going to be able to consume it while they're exercising.

28:53Brady Hunsaker: And then it's pretty much useless. So finding things that people really enjoy taking in. But it's hard for me to say like in a perfect world, what does that look like? Because every athlete is so different. I truly believe that sports nutrition has to be looked at from an individual standpoint, but I think shifting it as the race goes on to anticipating what they're going to want to take in is really important. My cycling coach did the Unbound XL last year. It's a 350-mile bike race. She came in second. I asked her, I'm like, what in those later hours of the race, what tasted good at the gas station?

29:35Brady Hunsaker: She goes, I thought for sure I was going to like some of the sweet stuff. Like I really love gummy bears or nerds gummy clusters. She goes, but I couldn't, there's no way I was eating that. She goes, I eat Pringles. I'm like, love it. You know, like light, fluffy, savory, salty. That's usually what tastes better to us later on. It can give a real morale booster. So being prepared for that and being willing to adjust on the fly and be ready for that, I think is also a really important skill for ultra runners.

30:06Alex Larson: So it sounds like you are a proponent of getting ahead within reason.

30:12Brady Hunsaker: Kind of getting ahead. Yeah. Within reason for gut tolerance. But yeah, because once you get behind, it's really hard to get caught back up.

30:20Alex Larson: So explain if you can for us the science behind getting ahead? How much can you get ahead and how long can it hold you over for when inevitably you hit a low patch?

30:33Brady Hunsaker: Yeah, that's a good question. So let's say we have been practicing and training with you taking in 90 grams of carb per hour. I would probably aim for that in those first few hours and then assess and having you assess kind of how does my gut feel? Do I need to shift some of my carb sources in the later hours, looking at how far you're at in the race and maybe in like thinking of like with hydration mixes, some of the unflavored hydration mixes are a really great option. You can start with something that's got a flavor and then shift to the unflavored later on. Kind of thinking through different strategies.

31:14Brady Hunsaker: But it's going to depend on the athlete of what they can tolerate. If we know they can tolerate 100 to 120 grams, they're a pretty high level runner early on. Let's do that to have them get ahead and then shift down to maybe more like 70 to 80 grams of carb per hour in the later hours. But also hoping going in that they've carb loaded and they've topped off and done all of those things to prep for it too.

31:39Alex Larson: In some ways, this conversation is almost funny because we're talking about shifting down to 70 grams per hour, which is probably like 35 more than anyone would have done a decade ago.

31:52Brady Hunsaker: Yeah.

31:52Alex Larson: Like we were so much farther ahead than we were that.

31:55Brady Hunsaker: Oh my gosh. When I did Ironman Wisconsin, it was 30 to 40 grams of carb would have been the recommendation back then. And I'm like, that is wild. Like if I could go back in time, I would have been, I would have done so many things different in that race. And we, like I said, it's a carb awakening. We're in the high carbon era of, of endurance sports. And it's so fascinating.

32:19Alex Larson: Well, and I had a race report from an athlete a couple of weeks ago, and they said something like, as soon as I got below 80 per hour because of my gut, I just knew I was running on empty. And I was like, this is the one downside of this craze is we are, it's like a reverse placebo. We now feel like we're under fueled at 80 grams per hour. Like you were fine at 80, but you felt like it was a reduction. And as such, it helped you bunk. but you weren't bonking at 80 grams of carbs per hour.

32:49Brady Hunsaker: Yeah. And I think for the athlete, as they progress in their sport, as they get faster and as they get stronger and they're able to sustain a pace for longer,

32:59Alex Larson: they do require more energy to do that, right? I can think of a great example is I had a triathlete

33:05Brady Hunsaker: who actually lives in Wisconsin by Madison. And he, honestly, he had so many carbs every single day. He carb loaded basically every day. It was like 600 to 700 grams of carb. It was just baseline carb needs because he had a very active job. And then he also trained 15 hours a week. And so when we had him riding out for three, four, five hours, him doing 90 grams, he's like, I'm still finishing these rides and heading out on my run hungry. And I was like, you know what? Let's try 100. And we did that. He's like, I kind of feel like I could go higher. I'm like, let's do 110. And we ended up having him do about 120 grams per hour on the bike for Wisconsin.

33:51Brady Hunsaker: And then we dialed it back like the last half an hour, 45 minutes, just so that he had, cause he sometimes had an upset stomach, like starting the run. So those are like situations where, yeah, you can get by with 80, but if you feel really good at 120, then let's try and see how we can sustain that and maintain it in the easiest way possible as a runner.

34:13Alex Larson: Well, and the reality is logically, if a runner is high level, if they already have better oxygen uptake than their peers and they have higher or better lactate clearance than their peers, like it stands to reason that they could have better GI processing than their peers.

34:31Brady Hunsaker: 100%. Yeah. I just wrote about this actually on Substack where they found with some pretty intense two weeks of gut tolerance training that they actually absorbed carbohydrates a lot faster than prior to the gut training. So 100%, I think that our body is adaptable in so many ways. And with that higher level of performance and higher level of fueling, you're just more efficient at it. Yeah.

35:01Alex Larson: So there is a fear out there though, that with higher density of carbs per hour, you increase the risk of GI trouble. What are your thoughts on that?

35:12Brady Hunsaker: Yeah, 100%.

35:13Alex Larson: Other than the obvious, which is you have to test this in every single meaningful training run, where like, let's say my window currently is I'm 70 to 90 grams per hour, like on autopilot. I don't even notice I'm taking much in other than just the task of it. I get above 90 and I realize I'm fueling and if it's hot, this could be an issue. If it's cold, I'm totally fine. But if I approach 100 grams per hour, it's a task. So if 70 to 90 is my comfort zone and 90 to 100 is like my, if I need to thread the needle in a race, this is where I'm sitting. But I understand there could be a drawback. How would you coach me through a moderate temperature ultra?

35:59Alex Larson: Where am I starting? Is it the high end of safe or the low end of risk or where do you sit?

36:05Brady Hunsaker: In terms of gut tolerance?

36:06Alex Larson: Of how you would start a race. Let's say my comfort zone is 70 to 90 grams per hour. Anywhere in there, I'm fine. But every gram over 90, I start to notice things. Where are you starting me on race?

36:18Brady Hunsaker: I would have you stay at your comfort level.

36:20Alex Larson: High end or dead set?

36:22Brady Hunsaker: Yeah, the upper end of your comfort level. Granted, if you're going into a race and it's going to be nice and cool and you're starting in the morning, for example, it's going to be nice and cool, we could push the limit a little bit because you're going to typically have better gut tolerance. Once it starts to get hot out, your body is going to shift blood flow away from the gut. It's going to go towards your skin and your muscles to help keep your body temperature regulated to keep you going. And with that reduced blood flow to the gut, it's going to delay gastric emptying. You're going to have more fuel and fluid sitting in your stomach for longer, which can put you at risk for that nausea upset stomach.

37:06Brady Hunsaker: You're going to have more fuel sitting there in your gut, delaying getting absorbed because, again, that blood flow is not optimal. So being a little strategic that way, I think, can also be really helpful. But hopefully your comfort zone is also that comfort zone when you're a little bit later on in the race and you're handling that heat well too. So it's so hard because like I said, there's so many nuances. But that's where I would probably do the upper end of your comfort zone unless it gets a really nice cool morning. And then I'm like, let's push the limit a little bit and then we can dial it back.

37:43Alex Larson: So obviously then that pairs with you need to master your cooling strategies in order to, like your gut does follow with your core temperature and all of that.

37:52Brady Hunsaker: But with carrying then, with races where you're just further between aid stations and you have to carry something on you, do you have a preference how your athletes carry theirs?

38:02Alex Larson: Chest versus back versus waist? Do you care if they, is it better to wear a waist and keep a cold liquid on it to keep the temperature slightly lower? Or is it better to keep your waist uninhibited by any expansion? Or do you not care as much as it just personal preference?

38:19Brady Hunsaker: I think it's personal preference. I mean, I certainly can share what I like. I mean, I like a hydration fix. I don't like things around my waist. but again however it's comfortable to the athlete and easiest for them to carry everything that they need I think that's the way to go Do you have a preference?

38:42Alex Larson: Well I personally have preferences yeah I can't stand hydration vests Oh really? Yeah I will go out of my way to avoid them I have one hydration vest that it truly disappears but it's not super convenient for accessing what I need. So I force myself to use waist belts because it's the lesser of two evils. But certainly when I get past two hours and my stomach changes its sensitivity to anything, there is a downside to have something wrapped around it. If I'm trying to carry a leader on me, it has to be relatively tight. So there is a downside to that. Yeah.

39:21Brady Hunsaker: Yeah. I will say to those that wear a larger bladder on their back, the question I get from a lot of athletes is how do I know if I'm drinking enough? So here's my hack. Okay. You ready for this? So if you think back to your college days, when you took a shot at the bar, that's one ounce, right? So like one big gulp is you have to count your gulps. So thinking about, okay, if your goal is to drink, let's say 24 ounces of fluid every hour, you have to try and get in about six gulps every 15 minutes. So when your watch goes off, hopefully you've got like a reminder to like drink because people forget or lose track of time, especially - Timers are mandatory.

40:03Brady Hunsaker: They're mandatory, right? So when that timer goes off, you count those gulps with those, and that way you know roughly how much you're taking in every hour and keeping up with emptying that bladder on time.

40:16Alex Larson: Yeah.

40:17Brady Hunsaker: That's my favorite hack. And that seems to work really well. I have just had an ultra runner I worked with who would have some like cramping GI upset issues. And I think a little bit of it was dehydration. And so she coned her gulps every 15 minutes and that worked really well for her.

40:34Alex Larson: Yeah. My very first long distance race, I wore two bottles on my hip and an old fuel belt. This was, I don't know, 16 years ago. and it went fantastically. And in my next race, I wanted to carry more. So I wore a bladder on my back and I completely misjudged how much I was taking in. Did you?

40:56Brady Hunsaker: Yeah.

40:56Alex Larson: And like you described, the first thing I did after realizing how much was left in my bladder at the end of the race was went home and tested out. I did it differently. Instead of, I was, I'd take a small, spit it out into a beaker, take a medium, spit it out.

41:11Brady Hunsaker: Okay. Yeah, yeah.

41:12Alex Larson: What are my gulp rates? And then again, now you have to count. This is how many... There's no other way to know, unfortunately.

41:19Brady Hunsaker: Correct. Yeah. And I say that to cyclists who wear hydration packs. I say that to ultra runners. It's easier if you have the vest where you can carry a half liter collapsible bladder on each side of your chest. Then it's like, okay, I'm going to down this one first. And then you can measure it a little bit more. But if you have a large pack on your back, then you got to count the gulps. And even if you switch it up here and there, I think it's important to just continue to practice that because then you're just in that habit.

41:53Alex Larson: Well, and I also think it's a centering practice while you're racing. People will initially hear it and say, that's ridiculous. I'm not counting to 24.

42:01Brady Hunsaker: You can count four to six gulps every 15 minutes.

42:05Alex Larson: But the reality is every time you're doing it, you're not thinking about your calf. you're not. It gets you back in and it's like a process-based goal. If I just, timer beeps, I count out six, all right, that just bought you another 15 minutes. It actually can be, it can generate momentum more than it will drive you crazy.

42:24Brady Hunsaker: Yeah. Yeah. Hannah is a dietician on my team and she used to do triathlons and she's like, I used to break up my races or my training into how many snacks I got to take in. She's like, oh, it's not a three-hour workout. It's like 16 snacks or something like that. Interval workout now. Yeah. Sometimes you have to think of the fun way of how we do our sport.

42:48Alex Larson: So two or three times now you've mentioned carb loading. And again, I graduated college in 2010. And trail running, I ran track in college, middle distance, 800, 1500. I didn't drink water during a workout because I never had a workout longer than 60 minutes. So I had no clue and it was kind of the wild west of fueling and carb loading was enormous at the time and really word of mouth how it was done. And I feel as if its trendiness has really been lost as we've gotten better at fueling during races and as people have gotten better at just generally not being underfueled in training. Not that we're good at it yet as runners, but it's kind of started to finally become chic to fuel for a lifestyle of being an athlete rather than be continually underfueled because lighter is better and then suddenly you're constantly injured.

43:46Alex Larson: So as under fueling has left, I feel like carb loading is talked about significantly less as well. Because people, I think, weren't carb loading. They were coming back up to where they should be in normal training weeks originally. But you keep mentioning it.

44:02Brady Hunsaker: I'm a big fan.

44:03Alex Larson: Okay. Talk to me about that. All right.

44:05Brady Hunsaker: So if your race is going to be over 90 minutes, I think implementing a carb load is very important. And to a lot of people, they think of a carb load as like a big pasta dinner the night before. And it's much more than that. Um, there's actually quite a bit of solid research on carb loading and the purpose is to really super load your glycogen stores going into your race. Um, I like to tell my marathoners, I was like, the carb loading is going to hit you in the final 10K of the race. That's where you're going to notice it the most. Or for ultra runners, if no matter how great your fueling plan is during your race, if you are not carb loading, it's that that fueling plan into race is not going to save your soul.

44:46Brady Hunsaker: So I'm a big fan of going into the race fully topped off with like super, super, was it super saturated glycogen stores? Because it's going to pay off later on in the race. And I do find that athletes recover from their races a lot better as well. They don't see as much of like a inflammatory post-race weight gain with water retention. They bounce back faster. there's less muscle soreness because their body just doesn't get as stressed because it actually went into the race really well fueled. And it's a great insurance policy. So sometimes your race plan might be perfect, but the execution just didn't go as you wanted it.

45:29And having that

45:30Brady Hunsaker: backup carb load really can save you. I had a cyclist last year who had a big race ride that he was wanting to do it under seven hours. And he talked to the race director so many times, like confirming this is the fuel that's going to be at the aid stations. It's going to be there, all of this stuff. And he, he was like, promised me, he's like, Alex, no, I talked to them. They said, it's going to be there. And I'm like, I don't trust them. He's like, nope, I believe them. I'm like, okay, well, when he got to those aid stations that the volunteers were like, we haven't seen any of that. And so he had to really just go with what he had brought with him and stretch out with just the couple gels that he found here and there at aid stations.

46:16Brady Hunsaker: And he was like, Alex, if I hadn't carb loaded, he goes, I don't think I would have actually came in under my time goal. He did, but he was like scraping at the bottom of the barrel in that last hour.

46:27Alex Larson: So it's the emergency shoot.

46:29Brady Hunsaker: It's the emergency shoot. Plus also it's just going to help support your race. And when we talk about a proper carb load, we are looking at, the research says optimally 10 grams of carb per kilogram body weight. You start doing the math, there's going to be some sticker shock. It's a lot of carbs. So thinking of someone that's like, we'll say 70 kilos, 10 grams per kilo is going to be 700 grams of carb. That's a lot of carb. You have to start earlier on in the day. You have to be really strategic. And it's not about high calorie, it's about high carb. So typically I try and have athletes keep things fairly low fat and protein can be somewhat moderate throughout the day.

47:14Brady Hunsaker: It doesn't have to be a lot. Keep it low fiber because all of that carbs, it can be a lot of fiber if you're doing fruits and oatmeal and high fiber things. And one to two days for ultra runners, probably two day for sure.

47:32Alex Larson: Two days at 700 for this theoretical athlete?

47:35Brady Hunsaker: Two days at 700 each day. Yeah, it's a lot. I like to personally aim for the savory carbs like rice with some seasoning on it. I love pancakes with syrup, so I'll definitely do that in the morning. But if there's any way that I can get more savory carbs in, it usually helps me go into my race and not already be tired of sweet things. so it does require some practice though so if you do have like a saturday sunday big weekend of training runs do a test carb load on friday you'd be amazed at how much you can learn from doing some trials and then you can go into race week feeling really confident you know how to execute that carb load and know you're going to tolerate it really well so give me a a safe

48:21Alex Larson: simple. People love set it and forget it, which unfortunately is rarely a thing. You have to adapt things as you go. But if you just had a blanket, this is the simplest, safest one I would say to start with for your next back-to-back long run day. How would you tell people to start? What is that day of eating going to look like?

48:41Brady Hunsaker: The day that you're running?

48:42Alex Larson: No, the carb load.

48:43Brady Hunsaker: Oh, the carb load. Okay. As soon as you get up in the morning, I would look for some really quick high carb foods. Like I said, pancakes with syrup work really well. You can certainly do some oatmeal, but just add a lot of brown sugar to it. Hawaiian rolls, King's Hawaiian rolls are one of my favorites. God, those things are so good. And you can sit there and eat like six to 10 of them. There are 15 grams of carb per roll. So I like to buy a party size pack and it's a serving of one. I just eat that all day long. Just the roll straight or anything? rolls straight up. Some people like to add like some jam to it, which I totally respect that.

49:22But I just love it.

49:25Brady Hunsaker: And I go to Costco, I get the two pack, one for me, one for my kids, because they definitely see me eating those and they're like, I want one. I'm like, here's your own bag.

49:35Alex Larson: I also like to do a bottle of like a high carb hydration mix in the afternoon.

49:42Brady Hunsaker: if I do that and it's got anywhere from 80 to 120 grams of carb in there and I drink that then I usually for sure I usually aim for 600 to 650 um for a race and if I drink that bottle then I for sure can hit my carb load um by dinner if I don't then I'm like in the evening I'm like I don't want to eat like I'm so tired of eating um a lot of people think that carb learning is going to be really enjoyable.

50:09Alex Larson: Nothing's enjoyable pre-race.

50:11Brady Hunsaker: Nothing's really enjoyable. Though if you can find some fun foods, things that you really like, I would avoid doing a lot of juice. I've seen athletes have some pretty bad GI impacts by just overdoing the juice. Especially things like apple juice can have more of a laxative impact for athletes. avoid too spicy of foods. And like I said, if I see a garden salad on someone's carb load, I'm like, what is this doing on here? I was like, this isn't going to help you come race day. I don't want to see like really high fat pizzas on there with lots of cheese. I want to see more of the lighter high carb foods, lower fat.

50:55Brady Hunsaker: Those are going to be your most successful.

50:58Alex Larson: Would you add higher fat into any duration of race you're prepping for, Or would it have to be like a MOAB, like a multi-day thing for you to even care about that?

51:06Brady Hunsaker: With like a multi-day thing or even a 24-hour, I think you do reach a certain point where any calorie is a good calorie during the race. But for a carb load, that fat isn't going to help load glycogen stores. Yeah.

51:22Alex Larson: So then race morning. Kirk and I are both of the mindset that if your race starts early enough, we don't care. get up earlier. We do not care how early it starts. Get up and get fueled. If you're not going to get any sleep, you're not going to get any sleep. Start earlier, get it in the week leading up. We do not accept the excuse, well, the race started at six in the morning. I'm not getting up at three. It's like, well, your competition is getting up at three. You need to get up at three and eat. But that doesn't mean we're right. That's just where we stand on this. Where do you stand on race fueling?

51:57Alex Larson: And you've come off a carb load, but now you've floated some things off overnight. What does your morning look like?

52:04Brady Hunsaker: Yeah, I would say giving yourself at least two hours. And it kind of depends on the form that you're going to be taking in those carbs. So if you're going to be doing some liquid carbs, a bagel, which is usually 55 to 60 grams, unless you're going to Panera and that cinnamon crunch bagel is 85 grams of glorious carbs. That one's a winner. So if you're traveling and you need some carb loading, that cinnamon crunch bagel is delicious.

52:34Alex Larson: I'm not aware of that. There we go.

52:36Brady Hunsaker: Yes, it's very good.

52:38Alex Larson: Are you affiliated with Panera?

52:39Brady Hunsaker: I'm not, no. She gets some kickbacks. I do. Or their chicken noodle soup in a bread bowl is 120 grams of carb. My team and I, we are like high carb hunters out there for like our athletes. we're always looking for our favorite foods. We have a whole list of our favorites. But for traveling, we try and find some good options for our athletes. And Panera is consistent across the country. So it works out really well. You can usually find it at most, unless you're in the middle of the boondocks, you're not going to find it. But if you're at a fairly like...

53:16Alex Larson: So what are you shooting for in the morning for pre-race? Let's say up until the point where you head over to the start line.

53:23Brady Hunsaker: The recommendation is one to four grams of carb per kilogram body weight. And so I would look at, okay, what can we get in that you're comfortably going to be able to start?

53:34Alex Larson: So the same 70 kilo runner who is having to take in 700 the day before.

53:40Brady Hunsaker: Yeah. Now this morning they're taking... Hold on, I'll go to Mathman. That's what, 70 to 280. It's a pretty wide range right there.

53:49Alex Larson: Is there a benefit performance-wise to be at the 280 versus the... I mean, in theory, yes, but...

53:54Brady Hunsaker: I mean, yeah. You're increasing your blood sugar, basically, so that you're going into that race with accessible sugar right there at the start. So that's what we're looking at. But if you can get in 120 to 150 before the race, I think that's fantastic.

54:12Alex Larson: Okay. And then you cut that off roughly two hours prior.

54:16Brady Hunsaker: Yeah, I'd give it a couple hours to digest if you can. And then you have the line. Yeah, I'm someone that really struggles with race nerves and the thought of food before a race just makes me want to vomit. So I do plan on actually working with a sports psychologist this next year to navigate all of that. But liquid carbs certainly are very helpful while you're also trying to get down some solid foods.

54:40Alex Larson: I talked about this on here. So I'll be brief because people, they've heard that too many times, but I really struggled with that in high school and college, but my races were short enough. It didn't really matter. But as soon as I got post-college and started running real duration races, it got to the point where I traveled with a Nutribullet. Do you remember that infomercial, the Nutribullet blender so that I could blend stuff up and drink them in the morning? And I was throwing, one time I threw granola bars into the blender and real food and Uncrustable and blended just anything to try to drink it down because the act of chewing was a non-starter.

55:19Alex Larson: So I feel you. It's a miserable place to be in looking at it knowing I need this.

55:25Brady Hunsaker: I know.

55:26Alex Larson: And there's not much I can do about it.

55:28Brady Hunsaker: This is my job. And I sit there this morning and I'm like, I cannot get this down. And so I have my backup carbs in a bottle and I drink those.

55:38Alex Larson: Do you use something different than what you're going to feel with on course?

55:41Brady Hunsaker: I try to do a different flavor. My races are like three to four hours long. Okay. So it's not like a huge deal.

55:49Alex Larson: You're not dealing with flavor fatigue too much?

55:51Brady Hunsaker: Not usually, no.

55:52Alex Larson: Okay.

55:53Brady Hunsaker: But yeah, that is actually, as an athlete, the number one thing I'm working on right now is that performance race anxiety.

56:02Alex Larson: Yeah. Yeah.

56:04Brady Hunsaker: And it impacts GI. It impacts flavor and appetite. It impacts a lot of things. Heart rate. Yeah, heart rate. Oh, my God. Yes, heart rate. Sleep. That was my last race. That was the biggest problem is I woke up in the middle of the night and I had an instant adrenaline rush. And then I couldn't fall back asleep the rest of the night. I was so mad. I just went home. I didn't even race. Oh, really? Yeah. I was so exhausted. and I'd already been kind of thinking like,

56:35Alex Larson: I don't really want to do this race.

56:36Brady Hunsaker: I'm just, I know I can do it, but I just, I'm not in a good mental place. And - Is it getting worse? A little bit. So I have a good friend who's a sports psychologist and so she's got a team and so I'm going to start working with them in February on the performance anxiety and race anxiety. And I'm excited to just have some tools to work through and it's just another part of being an athlete.

56:58Alex Larson: You are not the first person I've talked to who in, let's call it stage two of adult career, during the comeback or the second part, have ramped up race anxiety. Something that, like one I was talking to the other day, did not really have true competition anxiety. And now as a 40-something-year-old has it. And it's interesting. Well, here's the thing.

57:23Brady Hunsaker: Before kids, I never podiumed in triathlon. I just wasn't a fast enough runner. and so I was like I'm doing this to be social and have fun and to finish and have that sense of accomplishment because with triathlon like there's some really fast athletes and now in gravel I have the potential to be on the podium and like do really well and I want to like I've set that as a goal is like I really want to put everything into this and see what I can do and so like there is a little bit of added pressure there when you when you care a little bit more And so, yeah, it's interesting. And sometimes I hear from athletes who say like, oh, I'm not that serious of an athlete.

58:05Brady Hunsaker: I don't, I'm not worthy of working with a sports dietitian or I'm not worthy enough to fuel myself. I'm like, I do not care if you never race. But if you are someone that trains consistently, you deserve to be well fueled and feel your best.

58:17Alex Larson: Your body and your mind don't care about your stopwatch.

58:21Brady Hunsaker: Correct.

58:22Alex Larson: The rules of fueling and mental health are the rules. They don't apply to a performance level.

58:27Brady Hunsaker: Yeah. And people assume I'm an elite athlete. I'm like, I am not. I am just a mom of three that is trying to be the best athlete that I can be. I'm not an elite level. And I'd say pro athletes, we've worked with just a handful. Otherwise, the majority of them are athletes that are just every day. They love this sport and they want to feel better and fuel better and reach their goals. And fueling is a part of that. So I just want to reassure people that there's no level that you have to reach to deserve to fuel yourself well.

59:03Alex Larson: No, and pros need to fuel correctly because they're riding the razor's edge of volume and intensity and recovery.

59:09Brady Hunsaker: They're always looking for that 1-2 % that's going to give them the edge.

59:12Alex Larson: But their life is crafted around their pursuit.

59:15Brady Hunsaker: Yes.

59:16Alex Larson: So if they need to be left alone for four hours to nap after a long run, they get that. and real people have every life that happened, every moment of life happens after the workout. And so your fueling is more important for life happiness than a pros.

59:32Brady Hunsaker: Yeah.

59:32Alex Larson: Firmly believe that you should not sacrifice your happiness because you're training.

59:36Brady Hunsaker: Yeah. I was up at 4.30 this morning to get on the bike by five so I can get my workout in because I had a busy work day and things this evening. I'm like, there's no way I can get my workout in during the day. And that's what most age group amateur athletes have to do.

59:52Alex Larson: Yeah. Okay. So I know we're rolling to the end of your time here, but just a couple of bullet points. What are the main big holes you see in people's nutritional approach to being an endurance athlete? This can be day-to-day eating. This can be fueling. This can be race day. Just what are the commonalities you're seeing?

1:00:10Brady Hunsaker: Yes. I think that eating enough at breakfast and lunch is really important. fueling the workout enough, even if it's an easy endurance effort workout. If you're out there for two hours, I want you to fuel it, even if it's an easy pace. I also think that eating well is a skill set. I think some people assume like, oh, I should know how to eat or they do their own research. I'm like, it is something you have to practice and you have to practice a lot in order for it to become a skill set and to become a routine for you to do consistently. And that is where we see the best results. So that's my two cents, my bulleted point for my fellow athletes out there.

1:00:53Alex Larson: Okay. Are you currently taking athletes on?

1:00:56Brady Hunsaker: We are, yes. So my team and I, we always have athletes that are graduating each month and so it makes room for new athletes to come in.

1:01:03Alex Larson: There's three of us. Mary on my team works with a lot of our marathoners

1:01:07Brady Hunsaker: and a lot of our ultra runners. Hannah and I work with a lot of cyclists and triathletes. we have a really great team.

1:01:16Alex Larson: It's hard in the endurance world oftentimes because lines blur in communities. It is personal. It is friendship-based. It is communal. It's not cut and dry business. But this is your time to self-promote and humble brag. Why should people choose you over the other options out there?

1:01:32Brady Hunsaker: I can't speak to what the other options out there are. Okay. So why should they choose you? Yeah. So I have one main signature program. We work one-on-one with athletes. So it's all personalized, individualized to the athlete. I will say our specialty actually is working with athletes on body composition. I was just looking at our stats. 78 % of our athletes come in with some sort of body composition goal, usually a weight loss goal. And we are able to, we've got a pretty good success rate. It's not 100%. We don't bat a thousand. But we are really good at helping athletes improve body composition while also still being able to perform well in their sport and have great energy levels and love how they eat.

1:02:11Brady Hunsaker: I think that's really important that there's no way I want people not enjoying what they're eating. And I want it to be simple. I want it to be doable. So that's my spiel. You can find us at alexlaurstonnutrition.com. And I do have a podcast as well called Endurance Eats, and we focus on strictly endurance nutrition topics on there.

1:02:32Alex Larson: Well, we'll obviously send people that way for that, but I feel like we could do an entire Here another hour about simply that last piece you said, which is how do we change body composition while training?

1:02:44Brady Hunsaker: Yeah. That's my favorite topic.

1:02:46Alex Larson: I said at the beginning of this off mic that this is the stuff I don't touch.

1:02:50Brady Hunsaker: Yeah.

1:02:50Alex Larson: And we get these questions constantly and it's not my realm and so I don't speak on it. And I love you for staying in your lane.

1:02:58Brady Hunsaker: And I don't give people running training advice because that's not my specialty.

1:03:03Alex Larson: Well, and I think it's important to speak to the things you know and admit the things you don't. But specifically, if you give running advice to someone, maybe they don't improve as rapidly. If I give nutritional advice or body composition advice to people and I shouldn't be, I can actively screw them up and their mental health. And that does not need to happen. Yeah.

1:03:24Brady Hunsaker: So if you are interested in the future, come back on. I would love to. Yeah. Happy to talk body composition. That's one of my favorite things to talk about. Good.

1:03:32Alex Larson: Because we have a lot of people in the hybrid space and those are people coming over from other sport backgrounds and realizing they need to get to a certain place for run performance. And it is a big contentious piece, which is when and where and how in my season do I possibly go about changing my body? Yeah.

1:03:53Brady Hunsaker: Yeah. I mean, I definitely years ago used to be in the camp of like, no, we got to wait till offseason. But then I'd work with ultra runners. I'm like, you don't have an offseason. You're always ready for a 50k. So I'm like, we got to figure out how to do this while you're still training pretty high volume. And that's something that my team and I, we've developed that skill over the past few years. And we're pretty good at it. Like I said, we don't bet a thousand, but Yeah, you work with humans. Yeah, yeah. And we can give the most perfect advice in the world, but it's up to the client to actually put it into practice.

1:04:20Brady Hunsaker: And so we try and make sure we've got a good system to help them be successful in doing that.

1:04:25Alex Larson: All right. Well, I can already see the messages that are going to come in saying, please book Body Comp Part 2.

1:04:30Brady Hunsaker: I'd love that. Sounds great.

1:04:45Thank you.