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This week on the podcast Mikki chats to Paul Booth, sports nutritionist and exercise physiologist who helped lead Ruth Croft and Tom Evans to victory at the UTMB race in 2025, just gone. Mikki and Paul chat about his background, his thoughts on the 120g of carbs that some athletes are pushing (and subsequently his PhD research is studying) and the specific strategies used by both Tom Evans and Ruth Croft in the 100 mile iconic race. They also discuss other nutritional strategies, how these may relate to age group and midlife athletes.
Paul Booth is a sports nutritionist and exercise physiologist with a specialist focus on ultra-endurance performance. With over 20 years of experience in academia and applied practice, Paul has worked extensively with elite and amateur endurance athletes to optimise fueling, recovery, and race strategies.
He is the Lead Nutritionist for the Salomon International Team and consults with athletes across trail, ultra-running, and endurance sports. His research and practice centre on translating laboratory findings into practical approaches that account for the individual demands of athletes in real-world competition.
As a PhD researcher, Paul’s academic work investigates metabolism and nutrition in ultra-running. He has completed more than 80 ultramarathons and over 150 endurance events across disciplines including trail running, cycling, Ironman, and ski mountaineering. His combination of scientific expertise and personal experience allows him to provide grounded, evidence-based strategies tailored to the unique challenges of endurance sport.
Creators and Guests
What is Mikkipedia?
Mikkipedia is an exploration in all things health, well being, fitness, food and nutrition. I sit down with scientists, doctors, professors, practitioners and people who have a wealth of experience and have a conversation that takes a deep dive into their area of expertise. I love translating science into a language that people understand, so while some of the conversations will be pretty in-depth, you will come away with some practical tips that can be instigated into your everyday life. I hope you enjoy the show!
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you
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Hey everyone, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mikkipedia and this week on the podcast, I speak to Paul Booth, sports nutritionist and exercise physiologist who helped lead Ruth Croft and Tom Evans to victory at the UTMB race in Chamonix 2025. And I am so stoked that I got to sit down and chat to Paul. We talk about Paul's ultra background, what sparked his interest in his research area around
00:33
carbohydrate utilization in ultra endurance events, his thoughts on the 120 grams of carbs that some athletes are pushing, and as I said this is what his PhD is looking at, and even higher carbohydrate intakes that some athletes are, and just what the scientific rationale there is for that, and what are the potential pitfalls. Now, Paul is by no means a low carb guy, but he really understands the research around carbohydrate.
01:02
And so we delve into that and the complexities of carbohydrate oxidation usage and then where else the rest of that carbohydrate goes. Paul is also super generous with his knowledge and he shares the specific strategies used by both Tom Evans and Ruth Croft in the 100 mile iconic race. And so we can learn all what the elites do with their nutrition strategies over such an event. um
01:31
We spend a long time speaking about this and I found it so fascinating. Equally important though, Paul and I also discuss, you know, to what extent we can translate that or transfer that to us middle aged athletes. You know, what are things that we have to think about? So we spend a uh good deal of time chatting about that too. So for those of you unfamiliar with Paul, he is a sports nutritionist and exercise physiologist with a specialist focus on ultra endurance performance.
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With over 20 years of experience in academia and applied practice, Paul has worked extensively with elite and amateur endurance athletes to optimize fueling, recovery and race strategies. He is the lead nutritionist for the Salomon International team and consults with athletes across trail, ultra-running and endurance sports. His research and practice center on translating laboratory findings into practical approaches that account for the individual demands of athletes in real-world competition.
02:30
As a PhD researcher, Paul's academic work investigates metabolism and nutrition in ultra running. He's competed in more than 80 ultra marathons and over 150 endurance events across disciplines, including trail running, cycling, Ironman and ski mountaineering. His combination of scientific expertise and personal experience allows him to provide grounded, evidence-based strategies tailored to the unique challenges of endurance sport. And I have put both
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Paul's Instagram account, which as he says, this is the place to find him in the show notes along with his website information as well. Before we crack on into the interview though, I would like to remind you that the best way to support this podcast is to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform that increases the visibility of Micopedia and it makes literally thousands of other podcasts out there. So more people get to learn from the experts that I have on the show like Paul.
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both. All right team, enjoy the conversation. I like it, you've got the kit on. Paul, thank you so much for joining me in your late afternoon. Super stoked to chat to you. I follow you on X and have a look at what you do, but more importantly, this weekend has been such a big success for your athletes. I'm just so curious to dive into the strategies that you use with Ruth and Tom at m UTMB, but also how they translate to potentially
03:59
just us age group athletes who are just out there trying to figure it out for ourselves. And I just always love a chat with another nutritionist. So thanks so much. Thanks. And yeah, thank you for the invite. Paul, can we start because you're not just sports nutritionist, exercise physiologist, academic, but of course you're also an athlete. And can we just kick off a little bit with your journey into the ultra events and whether or not, if at all,
04:28
those experiences helped shaped sort of how you think about sports nutrition. Yeah. So if go back, let's say 20, 25 years here in North England, fellow running is big. So fellow running is essentially trail running em with navigation thrown in and a lot of mud and a lot of rain and a lot of rocks. So yeah, so that was my introduction really. em And again, this was sort of before ultras were
04:57
Ultra so to speak. Um, then there was a lot of long distance fell races, um, which were like technically ultras, uh, there were lots of long distance scouting events, lots of long distance walkers association events, which all ended up being rain events. Um, so again, that's how I kind of fell into the space. So it's B I was just doing more and more longer events and seeing a little bit of iron man triathlon at the time as well. Um,
05:23
but then I realized how much I hated open water swimming. Just up to the ruin as much as possible. em And then kind of what led me into this space, I suppose, was through that. I suppose in many respects, I had everything dialed in as much as I thought I could and did. But I was seeing other people who were sort of, I suppose, my peers, but were just excelling so well and thought, you know, is this about genetics?
05:51
You know, is this about training? Like, what is it? So, so I kind of did a bit of deep dive into everything and got a little bit more interested in nutrition there. And I thought, you know, what is that one thing in nutrition? There must be, you know, a secret meal plan or a secret recipe or some, some magic supplement that I can take. you know, it will help me and transform me help my recovery, help my performance. So then like through that, through that sort of combination of
06:21
of racing and training, it sort of led me on to the science. So before work every day, I'd be reading the scientific literature around that, be testing things, I'd be chatting to people all the time, and kind of going through that. And then over that journey, over that period, I suppose it's brought me up to this point where after lots of training, lots of thinking, two postgraduate degrees and the best part of a PhD,
06:49
I've got to a point where I understand now and realize there is no magic supplement or super meal plan. You know, it's just, it's just working hard and eating right. What is your PhD on? Is your PhD sort of looking to fill the gaps that you're sort of working in day to day with the athletes like in terms of nutrition? What are you studying? Yeah, yeah. What are you looking at? Yeah. So like most research, like I'm kind of following those research questions and
07:18
My PhD, I won a scholarship for that purely based on, I suppose, a lot of things which are trending at the moment, which I didn't see answers for. And that's really on high carbohydrate intakes within ultra running. And really, I suppose you could call it post glycogen PhD. So what goes on in the later stages of an ultra, certainly when athletes are in a more glycogen depleted state.
07:47
In particular, aspects of fatigue, performance, like changes to metabolism as well, aspects of muscle damage in there as well, and how that might inform metabolism and exogenous carbohydrate oxidation. So all there are all the different aspects really. And when I started to look at that initially, em what I realized was there's roughly about 3000 papers em on ultra running, but you start to break it down as only em
08:16
roughly about 60 of those papers are on performance. And then if we start to break that down, look at carbohydrate intake, there's less than 20. So most of the studies that you see on carbohydrate availability, in terms of the work we do, usually it's an exercise session up to maybe three or four hours, whereas for an ultra, this is when people are just getting started. There's people on UTMB over the weekend who are running
08:46
40 hours and even the elites, know, the fastest elites were doing that course in 19 and a half hours. there's a long way to go. So there's a big space of time there in terms of what we don't know, and those ultra events, and also a big gap in the literature because it's just not covered. So I kind of saw that and thought, okay, let's try and plug that gap a little bit. So I had a number of questions around that research area.
09:13
Yeah, interestingly say, because this is what I think too when I look at the literature. When people put out, and I know that we'll get into, because you've already mentioned the 120 grams of carbs an hour for longer distance stuff. And I look at that and see that it's a cycling time trial or something that goes for three or four hours, which even in a sport like Ironman isn't actually, how applicable is that when someone is out for 12 hours, which is where my head was at thinking about it.
09:43
it was a cycling event. I know that think the International Journal of um Sports Science Nutrition has some sort of guide to ultra running nutrition. And I remember thinking, wonder where they get this information from because I don't think there's a lot out there for those eight, 10, 12 hour plus events. And to your point, something like the UTMB, which is like, you know, over a day for some people. um So I imagine that
10:12
Yeah, I could see that there are lots of gaps to fill. So Paul, do you want to, like, if it's all right, can you just talk through, like, what are the main questions for what you're looking at? Yeah, so a big one, a big trending topic at the moment is em 90 versus 120 grams of carbs. So on that, like, there was a huge gap there. And I'd probably say the catalyst for this work.
10:42
And the fact it's trending is ITOR's work and actually ITOR is, he's one of my friends, but he's also the performance director for the Solomon team. at the moment though, no one's really looked at performance. And actually, once you start to dip into research and you look at all the carbohydrate papers, which deal with performance, particularly carbohydrate papers that deal with dose response, there's no papers yet that have found any benefits of going above
11:12
90 to 100 grams. In fact, some of them suggest that the sweet spot is even lower than that. on one hand, we've got people taking in excess of 120, 140 grams an hour, even up to 200 grams an hour or more now, where there's quite literally no science to support that at all. And again, like we've got the idea that higher oxidation rates
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may improve performance, but so far the evidence has failed to support that. So again, it's trying to do something really within that ultra space to answer this question. And in the ultra space, it does seem most popular. And I think that is because obviously a large part of those ultra endurance events are going to be when you're running with depleted energy and certainly depleted glycogen stores.
12:10
So exogenous carbohydrates are more than likely going to fill that gap. you know, that's when we would think about, okay, let's take on more carbohydrates to be able to maintain that performance. So, yeah, that's sort of the background really. So we just finished a study where we had 16 elite ultra runners running on the treadmill for six and a half hours at different speeds, some different gradients.
12:40
and we're feeding those athletes 13 C-stable isotopes. So it was an observational study, but we were looking at lots of different variables and measuring those, thinking about how metabolism changes. And we were measuring the isotopes through both breath and blood. So actually we've got a good understanding of liver glycogen as well and muscle glycogen. So we were able to look at those whole body stores and really start to think about
13:08
pacing strategies, the difference between men and women as well, because it was completely gender balanced also. So that made a nice comparison. And then also looking at where carbohydrate uh sources are coming from as a substrate. And again, even over six and a half hours, we were finding quite a lot of athletes that there was uh still a fair amount of glycogen oxidation in there as well, which kind of made us think a little bit more about some of the paces.
13:38
you know, some of the feeding strategies, fueling strategies, and that's kind of pushing on the next studies we've got in mind. But yeah, that was quite interesting. I'm not written that up yet, just because I'm still going through a lot of the data and yeah, it's been a particularly busy summer. Yeah. Preparing UTMB and a number of other races. Yeah, Paul, so with regards to
14:03
to that with the isotope, just so people understand what that does, that's able to trace sort of carbohydrate utilization. that what the purpose of the isotope is? Yeah, that's correct. So yeah, so it's 13C stable isotopes, so non-radioactive, usually derived from maize. So what we do is prepare some carbohydrate drinks. And at this point, we're using carbohydrates at 90 grams an hour, because in ultra-urine studies,
14:33
Nobody's done that yet. So rather than go high carb, we decided to go with the current recommendations, which are 90 grams an hour, a two to one glucose to fructose ratio. So starting with, as I say, those current recommendations before we move on to anything else. So in future studies, we've got some something to compare to. And then, yeah, we make up the drinks, feed them to the athletes, add a small amount of glucose and fructose isotopes to those. And then
15:02
As the athletes run, we test every 30 minutes. So they hooked up to a metabolic cart and then also to a mixing chamber. So we're able to look at whole body em substrate use, and then we'll take some breath samples in vacuutane and send them to the lab. And we'll be able to look at what the isotopes are in there in terms of using a formula then to understand how much of what they're breathing out is exogenous. So what we've fed them.
15:32
At the same time, with that cannula as well. So we'll take blood and then we'll look at things like three fatty acids, insulin, glucose, lactate, and then the amount 13C that appears in the blood as well. And then that gives us a good picture of what's going on right across the duration of six and a half hours. Yeah. Would you expect individual differences in there even among the elite athletes, Yeah, there's absolutely massive differences.
16:02
much more than I ever thought I'd see. Yes, it's, I mean, we're trying to, I'm sort of nailing down what some of those differences are at the moment. And what we're seeing quite a lot is in terms of that, like that exogenous oxidation, simply fits in with demand. So sometimes when people have got a great demand, once start digging into the data a little bit, you'll see that they've got the running economy isn't quite as good or actually
16:32
across the duration of exercise, that athlete might be a little bit less durable. So that kind of lactate threshold might have slipped a little bit. So we just put in a little bit more effort in. So finding some of those nuances there, we've got data on the gait as well. So we're looking at foot strike, things like that, and how much someone's gait might change as well when we start to see aspects of fatigue occurring, aspects of pace and heart rate as well.
17:01
So yeah, so there are massive differences there. And I suppose what I'm also seeing recently is like we've had a lot of elite British ultra runners through the lab who've won lots of big races, both in the UK and around the world. But like one of the key things I've been seeing. So when I got Tom Evans in the lab, who just won UTMB, it's a slightly different. So there's a difference between
17:31
what I regard a world class athlete and elite athlete. if you look at the athlete participation framework, which was written a few years ago, again, their tier system, tier four is elite athletes and actually tier five is world class athletes. And there's not so many of those world class athletes in the world, but the differences are absolutely massive. So I suppose on some of the elites,
18:01
I will see numbers quite often I'm quite surprised by that, but don't really stack up as high as I thought. And it seems with some of the elites actually, they're so good because they put the hard work in, you know, they've nailed the training. It's well structured, they put in the hard work in every day. They go in out and actually they've made themselves elite through, being a professional athlete and working hard at that. Whereas the world class athletes.
18:29
you know, they're doing exactly the same. They're all professional athletes, but I would say they've got much more genetically gifted. And what about carbohydrate utilization? Like, do you have a sense of their ability to tolerate? Like, is there a shift there as well? Yeah, definitely. I mean, in what someone can tolerate in terms of carbohydrates by the gut. Yeah, I mean, it was a pay promise suggesting that elites are much more able to tolerate high carbohydrates, but perhaps that's because
18:58
they tend to take on more and, you know, you have a higher carbohydrate diet, fuel the training more. And again, it's quite mixed as well, I would say. But we still do some training around that. And then sorry, what was the other part of the question? Yeah, just that, just with these, these are the differences like that you see between even elite and the world class, like there's a shift in their ability to tolerate carbs, maybe even under fatigue or
19:27
that kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, what I would also say is I do see, I do see the differences between athletes. And I particularly see the difference between men and women too. Men seem to be able to deal with it a lot more. Yeah, between the world class and the elite, again, there is a slight shift in terms of what can be tolerated as well. I think, again, that might well be through training.
19:57
In terms of what's needed for the athlete in terms of carbohydrates, there's a big difference there. So in the world-class athletes such as Tom, like fat oxidation is through the roof. So out of everyone I've ever had in the lab, Tom is easily the highest. So in elites, quite often see fat oxidation peak in about one gram a minute, which is amazing in Tom.
20:27
we peaked at 1.5 grams a minute, even when we're feeding him 110 grams of carbs an hour, where we would usually see a lot of suppression of fat oxidation. again, his was just massive, even at really high speed. So we're talking sort of 14, 15 kilometers an hour. Wow. Well, this is interesting. You must know the FASTA study that came out 2016 with Bollock. And he looked at those.
20:55
keto-adapted athletes. I think that the highest, their fat oxidation was maybe around that 1.5, 1.6. uh Yet, of course, they had that specific period of time where they were very low carb to really push that oxidation up. Whereas the likes of Tom Evans, it's potentially it's his genetic makeup plus his training plus everything that he can be super high carb yet also have this just an ability to use fuel.
21:25
And again, we tested him multiple times. say, I mean, the first couple of occasions he was in the fed state. So when we tested him there, he kind of peaked at about 1.3, 1.4, so really high. And then we him back in the lab in a glycogen depleted state. So we got his coach to do some glycogen depleting exercises within 36 hours before he came in the lab. And then we just fed him up on
21:55
Lots of omelets basically, lots of protein in the meantime. So he was still meeting his energy requirements. So he came in in a much more glycogen depleted state. Then we did a little bit more fatigue and exercise within the morning, got him on the treadmill again in the afternoon. And then that's where we uh used the isotopes and did the measurements. And as I say, he peaked at 1.5 grams a minute there. And that was a duration of four hours on the treadmill. But as I say,
22:25
taking in 110 grams of carbs an hour. Yeah, so it was amazing to see. I've never seen numbers that high before under those conditions also. Yeah, crazy. And were you able to do a similar sort of protocol with a female athlete, like an elite female athlete to see what happened? And albeit these are individuals, I know, but I'm just super curious. Yeah, we've had elite females in and
22:54
And done exactly the same protocol. But I've not had anyone that would suggest his world class on the same level as Tom. I don't mean that in an offensive way to... just reality. But yeah, like he was born into this, he was born for it. And I'm not... So I've not seen the same with other athletes and I've not seen the same with female athletes. And actually what I would say the difference is also is what I've seen with female athletes is...
23:24
What I'm finding is when they take on high amounts of fat oxidation is suppressed more, or at least it appears to be. So again, on paper, it looks like they oxidize greater amounts of exogenous carbs. But then when you start to dip into details, we can see that that's actually just through great suppression of fat oxidation. And I've not necessarily seen like.
23:51
I mean, I'd say it's a little bit on par between for oxidation between men and women, but I don't really see very often women oxidizing more fat than men, even when we adjust for body composition. So we use the data from the DEXA scan to do that again. But it might well be to do with, you know, the training status of the athlete, the history of the athlete, things like that. But that's the other kind of things that I'm finding.
24:20
That's interesting because often when I look at literature and people chat about this, people always talk about the female's ability and much better, they're more superior at burning fat than men. And often that's actually the thing put forth, not by people in the field, but by other people for this idea that at some point woman's performance in the ultra will surpass that of men. I talked to, I can't remember, Guilliam Mulay?
24:49
I think if I said, I'm not sure if I said his name correctly. He might still be with Salomon, I'm not sure, but he was like, this is, you know, I don't think that's actually going to happen anytime soon. But one of the reasons for people suggesting it is because women are better at burning fat, but in your research, you haven't found that. No, no, not at all. And again, I would say that, yeah, there's obviously, we're talking about fat oxidation, but there's a lot of other things at play.
25:17
So don't think we can always put it down to, you know, one variable or one, you know, physiological trait like Tom. Yeah, Tom's an amazing fat burner. Matt really, you know, helped us put his nutrition plan together and dial that in as closely as possible. But there was a lot more going on than just that. And if, and if that wasn't the case, then we might have actually got him on a, you know, a higher carbohydrate raise plan. Yeah.
25:47
But on that then, Paul, do you want to chat us through Ruth and Tom? uh You were really great on X in your thread about the race plan for both of these athletes. Can you chat through how you came up with the strategy for the athletes to then go and utilize and take out the win at Chamonix? Yeah, great.
26:17
Yeah, so similar structure for both. em And we did the double so it worked. Again, I'm not taking any credit for that because they might, they're like world-class amazing athletes. And the likelihood is they could have probably done it without my help. But the brief of both was, so Tom came to me and his brief was, look, I want to win UTMB. In my two previous occasions, I've had to withdraw.
26:45
because my nutrition because I've good gut issues and and this is a point where it's been at. So he said, look, 120 grams doesn't agree with me. I don't want to I don't want to do 120 grams an hour, all the way from UTMB. I want a different strategy. So that was fine. So we worked with that. And then uh kind of the key things there were, you know, really looking at what Tom's physiology is. So
27:14
sort of backtracking a little bit in terms of what I've been talking about already. Those first things we did was to get him in the lab and follow the signs. So again, do max and sub max tests. So we were looking at, as I say, his carbohydrate and fat utilization, looking at where his lactate LTE1, LTE2 was and predicting at what point and what average pace he might be running UTMB at.
27:42
And then, yeah, long discussions with Tom where we went through all his previous data. So going through training peaks, looking at his previous outings for UTMB. So the previous two where he's DNF'd, I think 2022 where he podiumed. Looking at other races, looking at his recent training data, see how fit he is now. Looking at publicly available data from other athletes as well.
28:11
And then just long discussions with Tom as the as the athlete client, where what I did is break it all down into thinking about what the demands of the course would be on well on his substrate use more than anything. So, you know, how much how much would this section take out of him? Or has he found that in this section he's felt fatigue previously or
28:38
Where's he felt a little bit low and where's he had high points and things like that, all with the notion of play it safe and don't give him gut distress. So again, from those laboratory tests, once we got him into the lab with the isotopes, you know, it's clear to see that even when we were giving him 110 grams an hour, actually, he was only oxidizing about 59 grams in, as I say, in a glycogen depleted state. uh
29:07
roughly 14 or 15 kilometers an hour. And so what I realized there is the overall pace he would be doing if we were to feed him that much and a little bit more to make up for oxidation efficiency, oh then he would more than have enough carbohydrate availability to win the race. So we went so so was quite confident then and then I broke the race down into different segments, so to speak, which
29:36
would be placed in a low carbohydrate state, which was 80 grams an hour, a medium or moderate state, which was 90 grams an hour, a high, which was 100, and then like super carb, a super high, which was 110. So this was all about thinking of sections where he'd struggled with energy in the past, and also thinking about those sections where he could make a break.
30:05
basically the points where he needed to have the most carbohydrate oxidation rates, also where his oxidation rates were peaking the most. So again, so we structured the whole course on a system based around that 80 to 110 grams. So on the sections where there was a higher, where he felt most fatigued or there was a higher demand for
30:33
work maybe is, I'm not sure if I said that correct, that's when you were like, right, let's go for that super 110 grams of carbs. But there were other sections where he might've just been able to cruise a little bit where you backed off the carbs. Exactly. Yeah. And we'd plan again, we'd plan around peak oxidation. if, let's say, as an example, uh Gran Col for a, and the Balkan era before that, when you come out, call my air,
31:03
And, you know, that was that was a point where both Tom and Ruth said they had sort of kind of low energy there. em It's more of a struggle going up Grand Col for a and it's dark at the time as well. But it's also an area we highlighted where it where that's where athletes can actually make a break and start to lead the race. So it meant that, you know, an hour to an hour and half before he hit that we went much higher with the carbs and fed him up in advance of that. And also, we
31:32
We jumped in and like they usually wouldn't have caffeine until later, but actually I put caffeine in on the way down to Cormier, a larger initial bolus to really get them focused to that section. And both of them were actually able to make the break at that point as well. so that strategy seemed to work. Amazing. And when you're like caffeine wise, obviously they both tolerate caffeine. Like when you say large bottles, what 200 milligrams that kind of.
32:01
Yeah, 200. Yeah. Yeah, amazing. Yeah, most of time I would go in with more than that, but there's so much variability between athletes. I mean, I tend to go in as high as I can on my initial balls, but then, yeah, I was a little bit restrained on this. Just the length of the race, that the end? To your point, I guess there are so many variables that you have to sort of consider. What are your, what's your caffeine?
32:28
What, 400 milligrams, 500 milligrams, is that what you often use? No, I try and go up to, again, it depends on the race. with this, so what we did, we went in with that initial bolus, then every couple of hours we top up with 100 grams of caffeine. And then later, but yeah, so yeah, definitely not 100 grams. Do not take 100 grams. I just had to clarify that. Yeah, yeah. No, definitely, definitely.
32:57
little slip up there. em But yeah, 100 milligrams every two hours, em and then larger bowl less few hours before the end, which will be 200 milligrams. And it depends how we go in with the caffeine as well. I prefer to use caffeine gum, because it's going to reduce gut issues, and it's going to start working within 20 minutes rather than 40 minutes or something, but it depends.
33:26
what the athlete prefers. Sometimes some of the athletes find caffeine gum a bit stronger and full on. So with Tom and Ruth, we had a mix between gum and actually taking caffeine in 100 milligram doses through gels. So Paul, with Tom, before I jump to Ruth, so obviously he had DNF'd and he thought it was a lot related to his nutrition. couldn't do 120. Like was his gut fine the entire time on the slightly reduced to
33:55
to a lot reduced carbohydrate? Yeah, yeah, exactly. em So again, I would say it was probably only like, quite literally just several hours where it went up to 110 grams. And we structured it as well for practical reasons. you know, he, he'd been trained a lot with his poles. So he was really putting the effort in on the climb. So he'd have his poles and then he just is unable to take a gel. So
34:25
At times we'd use just purely fluids on certain sections. Other times we'd choose where he could take a gel. And then sometimes on the descents, it was more difficult for him to take anything on. actually we realized that we could really push the carbs before uh like a demanding climb, let's say. then that would, and then he'd top up a little bit at the top of the climb where he's putting his poles away. And then we would go.
34:53
a lot easier and bring it down to 80 grams off the back of the climb where his heart rate would drop. But also, it just wasn't practical to take more on again, if we if we were starting to top him up there, you would never have met those numbers anyway, because he just he was unable to do that. Shealy through the through the way the courses and the technicalities of it. So yeah, so structured em in that sense. then it yeah, in terms of I was overall carb numbers. When I did the maths originally,
35:23
It worked out to be 94 grams an hour on average, but yeah, it didn't get any gut issues. But by the time he got to tree on, um, in the latter stages of the race, he didn't want to take on as much because, um, he was just getting overheated. And I think that's because. Early on, we realized he's really high sweater. He's got a really high sweat rate, which is to be expected by a world-class athlete. That's part of that adaptation process. So quite often we're giving him three bottles.
35:52
but he would quite often turn up at the aid stations with one bottle full still. So I think he just missed his hydration mark a little bit and that led to a little bit of increased temperature. So we've actually put him off taking the high carb. So actually we dropped down to more 80 and 90, but he did drink more Coke than what we expected on the course. So overall as an average, he probably hit between 85 and 90 grams an hour across the whole course.
36:22
So it worked and he didn't get any of those gut issues which he'd had previously. Obviously he didn't DNF the race and went on to win it. while, mean, like again, that area around from Cormier to Grand Col for A was where he'd had particular difficulties in the past. So after Grand Col for A, was a checkpoint La Foulet. So we knew if he was strong when he got there and he felt good and he was still taking food on, then we were a good place.
36:52
Um, so once he arrived there, actually, he'd managed to make 10 minute break on his nearest competitor. He's running really strong, felt really good, could take plenty of food on. Um, so actually that's when we could kind of breathe a little bit. Um, and we're past that kind of danger zone, which was good. And again, we kind of knew that he had enough energy on what we giving him to, to be able to push on and actually make a break at times as well. Yeah.
37:20
And when they come into the aid stations, are you talking like with the food there, like, is that all part of that 80 to 90 or, you know, whatever the target was in there or are there other things going in for satiety or just to help settle the, well, he didn't really need settling the stomach, but do the athletes, do those elites deal with food in the aid station the way that the age group is do, I guess? Yeah, different, I would say. So, with Tom,
37:49
Yeah, and to elaborate on the differences a little bit. Yeah, with Tom, obviously there was a number of points where we could meet him as a crew. one person would go in, because only one person's in allowed at any point. everything, I've written directions for the whole race for him. He'd memorize those and that crew member would go in and give him those directions. But then, yeah, so we'd have his nutrition prepared for what he was taking.
38:18
Bottles which were full with drink already with card mix some empty card make card mixes if he needed them some gels and things like that he would take so so all the other age stations he would pretty much bypass them and he would either take on water and mix it with his own mix or just take on plain water or well in addition he would take on some coke as well every single point previously to complain that his mouth felt a bit too sweet and it felt a bit sticky and actually
38:48
He got to feeling thirsty as well, quite a lot. I mean, there was a lot of things going on previous years. So this year we made sure that he had a bottle of just cold plain water at all times. eh So he was able to take on that carb mix, but actually just clean his palate and wash it a little bit with plain water at every crew point as well at the A stations. Part of that brief this year was to put a little bit more solid food in. so we came up with the idea of Tom's takeaway, which was basically
39:17
every aid stage, every crew point sorry that you went to, we would make up a meal that always roughly gave him 50 grams of carbs. So that was either through an energy bar, which was made of mostly rice and oats with a little bit fructose in there, or actual rice and then little sandwiches, some Haribo, things like that. And they were all perfectly weighed out so we could take a different or 250 mil of coke.
39:45
So we could take a different combination of both. So we might take some Coke and Haribo, or actually might take sort of like one of the sports bars or something like that, or half of that and half a Coke or something. So we knew we always had that kind of that main food going in. And part of the initial plan was actually to put kind of mini bacon sandwiches in as well. Oh, delicious. Exactly. That weren't necessarily adding something in terms of overall energy, but...
40:14
would just change his palate a little bit from having all that sweet stuff to just putting something in that was a little bit more salty and actually something to look forward to. that was all in there. So that worked really well. And then we'd add extra gels here and there. And we got a few different new flavors and things like that to add to the mix as well. So that was all kind of particularly good. Again, just that little topping up with Coke.
40:43
So yeah, so Tom stuck to the plan really well, and that was really dialed in. then it just those last couple of hours when he overheated a little bit, but he still managed to put his foot down. think, you know, the kind of the, uh, the Testament that someone showed me some day at the other day and mentioned that the split between, um, Sean pay lack and Chamonix in the second half was the fastest second half split in UTMB history. Again, people can write in and tell me if I'm wrong on that.
41:13
it's someone else's data, quote him there. So it shows that actually, you know, is more than adequately resourced in terms of carbohydrate intake. But again, that all that all boils down to the fact that we've done the extensive testing in the lab with a metabolic cart with the isotopes. And we understood that exactly the intensities he was going to run at throughout the race. Joseph, who's on the team, had a really well designed, well structured pacing plan as well.
41:41
So we kind of knew what was going on. So we knew exactly, you know, how much carbs to give him because also we had a good understanding of how much of that was oxidized. So we never pushed it too much because again, that was a main brief and that's what, you know, that's where he came unstuck in the past with his nutrition. Yeah. Paul, you mentioned that, you know, just maybe 20 minutes ago when you were doing initial testing with Tom that, you know, 59 grams of carbs were oxidized.
42:11
what happens to the other carbohydrates? So is this where it starts to ferment in the gut? Like, what do we know about that? Yeah, I mean, that's a really good question. And that's one of the main questions on my PhD and something that I'm thinking about constantly. yeah, if you look, so over the course of time, all those carbohydrates will be emptied from the gut.
42:39
not all them are oxidized. yeah, where does this big gap go to? And even infusion studies like COIL found like a gap in some of the infusions studies and just didn't realize where those carbohydrates went. like we might think, oh, well, maybe they get malabsorbed, but actually we've seen athletes take on huge amounts of carbs in race and not getting any good distress at all. So in terms of malabsorption, we'd expect to see
43:08
know, increased bloating, things like that, which we're just not seeing. I'll see higher insulin rates for some people and I will see some people who are oxidizing a lot more than 90 grams for sure. And that changes with lot of different people and over different time courses. But yeah, like I was reading one study where they were giving people 180 grams an hour and actually they were only oxidizing sort of 40 odd grams. There's some research there that suggests that
43:37
carbohydrates will go into other tissues. And some of that might be stored as em glycogen in type two fibers. There's an idea that some of those carbs will be uh de novo lipogenesis, so stored as fat. But again, both of those are, A, increasingly unlikely, and B, probably not stored on the same amounts of what we've seen in terms of where that gap is between
44:07
carbs which are being oxidized and carbs which are just floating around the system somewhere. em So maybe it could be absorption through the liver because again when we see, know, like was great paper by Javier Gonzalez about taking 100 grams an hour, it's a sucrose paper but what he was really clearly showing was that preservation of liver glycogen as well and you can Drupad already studied that previously. So, so gamers,
44:35
There's a number of areas where those carbohydrates might go. Um, but I just don't have a solid answer to that yet. Um, when I do at the end of my PhD, if I do get an answer, then, uh, yeah, happy to jump back on and chat through that. It'd be interesting, but I've also taken a bit of a gamble that when we're so again, if you look at triathlon, I always had the idea that like for a long time, um, athletes have been taking 120 grams of carbs on the bike.
45:05
Those high carbohydrate rates and that increased osmolality is going to reduce gastric emptying. So it's well, if we're taking more on the bike, then actually we probably drip feed in the run after. So it means we can kind of drop down the amount of carbs we're taking. So we still got there and actually partly increase in recovery markers that we might see on a high carbohydrate intake during exercise. Perhaps that's simply just drip feed in.
45:34
glycogen resynthesis immediate on the cessation of exercise. So these are all things that which yeah, could really do with kind of, I need some more people in the lab to stick a nasal tube in and see what's going on in the gut a little bit. again, people aren't always up for doing that. I've, I've seen and I'm not sure you'll know the literature clearly way better than I do. But people talk about a sort of an accelerated breakdown of muscle glycogen if you take on board
46:04
you know, this high amount of carbs. Is this something that you have been able to study or look at or do you think about Paul? Yeah, that's good because that sort of led me into doing my PhD purely because a couple of the papers from where I do my PhD, which leads back at university, the lead author on them was Andy King. And my PhD supervisor, John O'Hara, is also on those papers, one of the authors. yeah,
46:34
They were really, really uh robust, great papers on that performance response to high carbohydrate doses. And what they found was, again, over 100 grams of carbohydrates an hour in dodgy-ness, glycogen stores even, were used much faster. So when they performed a time trial, those athletes on, again, roughly 90 grams actually performed better.
47:04
than the athletes on over 100 grams. some more and again, that research has also been done by other researchers when I think Gareth Wallace at Birmingham did some research about that also. So again, it's some strong research in that and that's why quite often for the athletes I work with, like a lot of time I might take them up to 120 grams, but not often and that's usually going to peak there. But certainly in those first few hours when,
47:33
glycogen stores are higher, I'll always ensure that we usually max in out on sort of 90 grams an hour. And this is what gets forgotten about so much at the moment, within the chats and discussions on social media, the fact that we've got glycogen stores, we've got endogenous fat stores that we use for fuel, not everything has to come down to taking huge amounts of carbohydrates. Now, can we talk about my cousin Ruth? Obviously she's
48:03
I mean, she's Kiwi, so that's why she's my cousin. uh Similar process, obviously, with regards to testing with Ruth. Yeah, I was quite literally thinking about your cousin. Yeah, so with Ruth. Yeah, exactly. Exactly the same thing. So with Ruth, I started to work with Ruth a little bit later. em So
48:28
In the summer, she lives in Annecy and then she was doing a lot of training around Chamonix and then she went up to teens for a long time to altitude training. So I didn't get the same opportunities to get Ruth in the lab, but we did use a little bit of a different tactic. So after UTMB in 2024, Ruth had an amazing performance and really sort of solid second half to that performance, which enabled her to come second to Katie Scheid. So, so she did amazing, but she didn't win the race. Yeah. So this year.
48:57
breathe from roof was to em essentially go in harder, have similar tactics, slightly similar pacing plan, but just go in a lot harder and make up some of that perhaps lost time early on. So that meant that we had to reformulate a strategy in terms of carbs. Roof was on an average of 80 grams an hour last year, which I found that, em which like probably wasn't enough or
49:26
you know, covering her carbohydrate availability from what she wanted to achieve on the race this year. So, yeah, I looked at, again, I did a similar thing. So I looked through all her background data. I heard her had her maximal heart rate. So I use heart rate data from previous outings for UTMB and other races to predict that a little bit. Then I also compared her data that had
49:52
to other elite athletes data, or the female elite athletes data that had. And then so it broke that down and got a good understanding of what she might need across the race, and what those demands were, which were again, for her, slightly different than Tom's in terms of where that peaked and where she was gonna make a break and things like that. So again, we did a similar thing with Ruth where we maxed out on 110 grams an hour and we went as low as 80 at times.
50:20
So like my main worry was, the reason for the lack of sleep in the weeks leading up to UTMB was the fact that with Tom, what happens if, yeah, we saw his gut out, but actually he's just not getting enough energy. He's just not getting that carbohydrate availability and it's ruined his performance. So he's not gonna win just because we under fueling him. And then the main, the other issue for Ruth was, okay, you know, maybe we're able to make a
50:50
perform, enable her to perform best is probably a better term, give her that high carbohydrate availability. But the flip side is, what if she gets gut issues from that because she's not used to it? Because you hadn't tested, did you say you did all of this based on heart rate data and, and, but you weren't able to get her in the lab? So you weren't able to sort of physically sort of see what's going on? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
51:16
So I did a similar structure to Tom and obviously spoke to Ruth a lot. We talked about where she was going to make the break. We talked about where she'd felt fatigue previously. You know, what our ambition for race was. We looked at pacing, things like that. So I structured and broke the race down into similar segments that I for Tom and use exactly the same strategy. Ruth looked different than Tom though, where those demands were. And then with both athletes, I spoke to him.
51:45
probably every day for at least six weeks before the race to do gut training. So the idea with that was to go in and choose specific training sessions across the week where we would do that high carbohydrate gut training. So we use different techniques with that where some of them would just go in with high carb. Some of them we would do a sort of carbohydrate pyramid, let's say. Some we would leave it alone, let the athlete decide.
52:12
Because at the same time as doing the gut train, we also didn't want to reduce the quality of the training. So we didn't want to, we didn't necessarily want to bring gut issues on because it was a really important block of training, but we wanted to really push that gut more. So again, with both athletes, we knew we were peaking on 110 grams an hour. And there's some great university, there's some great research that comes out of Ricardo Costa's team at Monash University. And well, everything they
52:41
touch in terms of the guts, amazing. But again, in one paper, they talked about a buffer zone of in training, increasing carbohydrate intake, 20 % more than what's expected on the race. So we did something similar. So quite often, we would go as high as 140 grams an hour for both those athletes for short periods, just to get those those athletes comfortable. Initially, I was slightly worried about Ruth because the first the first few times said, Oh, well,
53:11
Yeah, my gut feels quite heavy and a little bit bloated, but actually it didn't really take very long for to get over that. So it worked really well. again, I directed that all the way through to UTMB. So we put that strategy in place and gave Rufo same directions. And with Ruth, she's really easy to work with because she's really nice and she's already got a really good idea already. And then what we did was just more finessing what she'd already did.
53:41
what she started giving it a little bit of direction and just giving her a prompt at times just to increase the carbs and, just be more tactical with that as well in terms of, you know, where, know, where she might want to have some of that sort of peak oxidation. So all the way through her gut, her gut worked really well, you know, she didn't get any gut issues. She felt great. She felt fine. She didn't have a lack of energy. had a similar strategy with the caffeine as well. And then
54:10
Yeah, after the race, we went for coffee and had a chat for a few hours. And there was one point which kind of famous clip from the race where she stopped at checkpoint and had three gels all at the same time. And I said to her that wasn't in the plan. She had a little bit of a backlog. So I just took them all. But she didn't get any gut issues from that. So about 75 grams of carbs all in one go, absolutely fine. So again, that gut training worked really well and she stuck to the plan.
54:40
took in all those carbs. So again, the difference between those athletes was really the fact that with Tom, we were going down and with Ruth, we were going up and Tom's famous for taking 120 grams of carbs. But what people don't realize is it just didn't agree with him very well. So again, we manipulate, move that around a little bit. So the gamble with both was, we going to underfeed or are we going to overfeed? And if both of these athletes
55:08
DNF because of that, then yeah, I'm going to give one take and blame for that. Thankfully, that didn't happen. I'm here now talking about it rather than hiding somewhere. I totally appreciate that. interest like, when you just said at the start that, it was you needed to, what Ruth thought was, I've got to go harder in that first half. Like, that's a scary strategy, you know, like shit, like what happens if
55:37
you go harder in that second half, in that first half, and then that second half just like completely disintegrate because you pushed it too hard, which I know isn't necessarily a nutrition issue, but just from a pacing issue, like it's a gamble, but man, clearly everything paid off, like amazing. Yeah, definitely. And I think also looking at Ruth's history and all her data, it's clear that, you know, she's built a career up doing the OCC, CCC, winning those.
56:06
win in Western States as well. think she's won the Mont Blanc Marathon as well. so she's been really like really careful and really strategic with her career to build that up. And then yeah, doing UTMB, but she's clearly got great durability. And she's got that strength to really push on in the second half race. So was quite confident about that. And I thought if we can actually feed her a little bit more in that first half, then hopefully we should be able to sustain that durability more in the second half of the race and
56:35
Yeah, and it paid off and exactly where I've kind of put that high carbohydrate availability in and some of those larger boluses of caffeine also fitted in where I expected her to make a break and it did. And again, it may well just be coincidence that I'm claiming the credit for here, but it worked. And as I say, she won. So yeah, so it's fantastic. And she's a very worthy winner. She's lovely person.
57:03
That's amazing. And a similar buffet style when you get with the crew checkpoint as well, like a bunch of things available. No different for Ruth, actually. She just she just wasn't bothered about solid foods at all. We had quite we had quite a limited em range of what she would actually take in terms of gels and drinks. And she's sponsored by Nether Second now. So we went in with a lot of that. But yeah, she and Coca Cola again.
57:31
but she just was not bothered about solid food at all. Yeah, interesting. like, and she's great. She says, right, just tell me to do something. I'll do it all the way through the race. So, so it's kind of, it's quite easy to work with. And because I've worked with Tom longer, we'd already built that model and have that template to work on where, where Tom's brief was more complex. Yeah. Ruth's was simple. m
57:58
And not simply, it still had its complexities in terms of working it all out. But actually, we had a little bit of better starting point. Yeah, nice one. What about sodium, Paul? how do you, like, were you doing, do you buy into the sweat testing? Like, what's your thoughts on things like that for athletes? I mean, what I would say about that would probably get me cancelled. I mean, it's, it's not so with Tom, as an example.
58:26
Yeah, in the lab, first time he came in, and I'll tell you a bit more about the lab as well. yeah, the first time he came in, uh we did some uh sweat rate testing and some sweat composition testing. So again, we were doing the sweat composition testing using flame thermometer, flame photometer, even flame thermometer, what I'm talking about. So again, all under laboratory conditions, really great. We looked at uh whole body.
58:56
um, sweat sodium rates. And again, they were really, really low, um, which I would expect to see for, for an elite athlete. So we tested that. And then also we did some, um, heat training with Tom. So, um, with my colleague, Dr. Daniel Snape, he took him in environmental chambers and, um, did a heat test with Tom at 40 degrees. And then we did a heat protocol with Tom where he came back to the uni a number of times.
59:24
uh... we checked his core temperature looked at sweat rate looked at sweat sodium rate uh... we basically just got him to run on the treadmill uh... at forty degrees and again every time we do that with an athlete what we tend to see is a reduction in core temperature uh... increased sweat rate also a lowered sweat sodium rate we did some altitude work as well which i'll talk about in a moment but then when we got over to chamonix we did more testing with him in chamois so he done so dan gave him a whole
59:54
passive heat protocol to do while he was there as well, which was just three sessions a week, which we also gave to Ruth as well. Again, we're trying to do the minimum dose possible. So he would get some of the adaptations through that to deal with the heat and some of those physiological adaptations as well in terms of room. But we weren't going in heavy because we didn't want to disrupt the quality of his training. So again, it was led by the science and it was led by the expertise from Dan.
01:00:24
and what we'd done in the lab. it wasn't going out and running in a ski suit for everyone because we just knew that it'd make life miserable for Tom, but also just reduce the quality of his training. So it was effective minimal dose and it worked really well. He was more than happy with that. So yeah, so we did more testing in Chamonix. So I looked at his sweat rate again. I looked at his sweat sodium composition on a number of other occasions. And actually that started to go down.
01:00:53
So with that, you know, we use whole body equations and then we use another formula to look at what Tom's sodium needs would be per litre across the whole race. when we it, it was so low, like ridiculously low. Once I looked at all the sports nutrition products he was taking and all the foods he was taking, his needs were more than adequately met through those. Yeah, interesting. So we just didn't need to add.
01:01:22
additional electrolytes at all. you think that's where some athletes might go wrong? Paul, like with the sodium piece of it as well. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, just because there's just so much nonsense out there around this. It's just supplement companies trying to cheap salt off at maximal prices, you know, explain to athletes that they need it. And yeah, electrolytes and sodium are needed, particularly across an ultra. But if you look at the work of another
01:01:52
part of Ricardo Costa's team, Alan McCubbin, has done some amazing work around that, which goes up to five hours. So unfortunately, we don't quite know what goes on after five hours, but we can certainly make a guess. And there's a great Martin Hoffman paper from Western States, which looks into that as well. I mean, for anyone listening, would say, like, have a look at Alan McCubbin's work first and then look at Marty Hoffman's work. But again, they explain it really well. em But...
01:02:21
I've got another athlete as well who, when he takes large amounts of sodium, he just swells up. So we're always really cautious with that. And I know another couple of nutritionists who work in elite cycling who find the same. So I'm always cautious of that. So I'll try and do that sweat sodium testing and make the predictions on the existing science, is out there, rather than making it up myself. And I don't want to overdo that as well, purely because on the flip side,
01:02:50
know, there's a chance that we're going to increase gut osmolality, oh which in turn, you know, could lead to, to an athlete actually getting gut distress and in no way is me saying, like, don't take electrolytes, I'm not pushing that at all. But it's maybe something that people need to visit, you don't need 2000 milligrams of sodium per liter of fluid. And then when people are getting tested, and it's
01:03:17
and they have really high concentrations of sweat sodium, I think, well, eh are you being tested in the laboratory conditions? Are they cleaning the skin surface correctly? Where are they doing the patch placement? How are they removing the patch? Secondly, how are you sweating? you putting a little device on your arm and sitting in someone's office? Or actually, you're sweating through exercise? What's the intensity you're working at? That's going to change sweat sodium concentrations.
01:03:47
How well heat adapted are you? What else? Yeah, what level of athlete are you as well? How much sodium do you have in your diet? So again, like whenever I have an elite athlete and I work with a lot because I've got the Solomon team, again, we always see really, really low sweat sodium. Even when we're testing in the field, the instruments I use to test that, will calibrate them. We will do a sweat sodium test and I will recalibrate again to make sure.
01:04:16
So it's pretty accurate. So again, you're always gonna get rough figure because it's gonna change so much between different conditions. But when people start to say, I've got really high sweat sodium, think, okay, what are the testing conditions? And also, know, like your body, when you've got too much sodium in there, it's gonna get rid of that through urine and sweat. So.
01:04:40
What have you been doing that previous week? Have you been taking 2000 milligrams of sodium every drink you have? You know, do you get a lot of sodium through your diet? And I've seen over probably 250 ultra em runners diaries. And I've only ever seen two athletes under the recommended daily allowance for sodium intake. People are more than double in the day to day diets. Easy. Yeah, totally. Oh yeah, easily. Yeah. And then finally,
01:05:09
You know, some people are being tested after going out and taking like massive amounts of sodium bicarb. So, so you're thinking, okay, they've just taken a five gram hit of sodium there. So let's say they've got, let's say they've been adding sodium to all their drinks and then be going out and eating a high sodium diet and they're taking bicarb. The body's going to get rid of that. So as soon as you start testing that sodium, sorry, that's sweat sodium concentration, of course it's going to be high. Yeah.
01:05:39
Do you know Dan Plews? Do you know who I'm talking about? I was going to mention Dan, yeah. So Dan, interesting, he's from Yorkshire where I live. my, Professor John O'Hara, who's my supervisor, you'll be glad I've got his name twice on this podcast. He was Dan's supervisor when he did his master's. I've spoken to Dan quite a lot and he's great because
01:06:05
I mean, he almost looks like a controversial figure now, because again, he's one of the few people who's going against some of the trends at the moment. And he's actually using the research and he's talking about the science in a way that makes sense rather than just going with what influences might say, let's say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking about him with the sodium, because I call him a sodium denier. uh you build a very good case for why.
01:06:35
In fact, Dan's probably more right than others, ah to your point. But also, of course, his carbohydrate recommendations, they're quite different. They're quite a lot lower than even probably what you're talking about with a lot of athletes. Equally different. You guys might work with different types of athletes as well, obviously. But a lot of the research that I'm aware of comes from the likes of
01:07:01
looking at what Dan looks at and conversations that he's had. So yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, and I think when it comes to carbs, I just think Dan's really smart in terms of he's not low carb and he's not high carb. He's just like what's needed. think, and again, Dan might pull me up on this if I'm wrong, but I'm sure when he got the Ironman age group when
01:07:31
I'm sure he said in the marathon for that year, he took one gel. Yeah, yeah, that was at Ironman California. Yeah, one gel. He got slammed for that. It was funny actually what kind of uh outrage that created on the internet. But yeah, interesting, eh? But it worked for him. You he can't deny the results. That's it. And I can't imagine that more carbohydrate would have resulted in a better result.
01:07:59
That's what a lot of people think and say that, well, imagine if you had more of that. Yeah. And again, like just so I don't get canceled again, I'm not a proponent for low carbs. But my whole PhD is looking at high carbohydrate intakes with certainly no bias. But for some people, higher carbohydrate intakes work. So again, with Tom, like lower works for him because he's running an ultra. So he's running at
01:08:28
is what essentially a slower pace for him. know, Tom can run a 28 minute 10k any day of the week. You know, he was a cross country champion in last few years. So he's a very fast runner. actually, on an ultra, he's slowing his pace down, which means he's using a hell of a lot of fat for fueling and his reliance on carbs just isn't as much. Whereas other runners, if some if someone wanted to keep up with Tom's pace, let's say, and
01:08:58
weren't as good at burning fat, then yeah, we would certainly have to review those carbohydrate intakes and push them up more. But again, I would still be guided about what the research says in terms of what those maximal carbohydrate oxidation rates may be. I just think it's clutching for straws when there's very little about the performance benefits of going over 100 grams an hour.
01:09:27
And actually, there's some like, like at least 2025 years of solid research that's talking about, you know, the limits of carbohydrate oxidation. So the fact that a few people are trying this and chatting and saying it's really working as a carbohydrate revolution. Just think it's wrong, you know, for a hundred years and certainly since the 1960s, you know, we've known that carbohydrates will support performance.
01:09:55
not really a revolution. think it's just the fact that people have started to take notice of taking carbs a little bit more. And now, now those rates of carbohydrate intakes being pushed up. People are sat up and notice and actually they're taking on more carbs and they probably finding their sweet spots somewhere along the way. And the additional carbs are taking on are either just simply being tolerated or they are resulting in gut distress, unfortunately for some people.
01:10:23
So think people are kind of understanding it better, but simply, you know, and it's not, there's no finesse to it. It's just that they are actually fueling properly for once, maybe over fueling, but if it's not hurting, don't worry. And again, like with the guys on my team, what I'm always saying is, you know, if we've not done that testing, you know, we have a luxury of testing with Tom and it's great, but if you've not got that testing.
01:10:51
I'd quite often try and go high within the limits and based on some of the other data I've got, which I can make those comparisons to. Because if you can go a little bit higher, you're able to tolerate that, then actually, and you don't get gut issues at all. No, there's no, yeah, then there's no reason not to. You might as well have that high carbohydrate availability, you know, rather than sort of putting things in the balance. And again, as I say with Tom, perhaps we would have had him on 110.
01:11:20
120 grams an hour. But part of that brief was it doesn't work for him. So we had to come up with a new strategy. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? you said, you listen to my podcast, know, I'm much more on the lower to moderate sort of side of carbohydrate. And I think as well, Paul, I just think about people my age, age groupers going out there, like slamming 100 grams of carbs each weekend. And I just
01:11:48
I do think about the health implications of that, which obviously, I mean, don't know how much, I mean, your brief isn't to think about the long-term health of your athlete, not that I'm suggesting that this is, I mean, it's a late sport. It's an entirely, it's almost a different sport, I think. But do you think I'm a bit out to lunch thinking about that? Like, what's your view on the sort of metabolic parameters and the metabolic health issues for age groupers, I guess, who are like late 40s? Yeah, so me.
01:12:16
I'm now, I 50 a few weeks ago. Oh, happy birthday. uh Thank you. I'm into that, I don't know, old category now. Yeah, no, you're right. mean, with everything I do, em working as a nutritionist, as a physiologist, like the number one thing is health. oh You can't put performance before athlete's health. So the rest of the time I am working on making sure that athletes...
01:12:44
athlete has an optimal diet and they are first and foremost meeting all their nutrient needs. Yeah, and just kind of get on to your point. Yeah, again, in in training, someone's putting away 100 grams an hour, most of time, it's not needed, I would say it's only ever needed in training if you're an elite athlete. And actually, you know, you are Pagacha, and you're going out for a training ride and
01:13:12
And it's 350, 400 Watts. Yeah, you're going to put all that away, no problem. But he's still going to be probably one of the world's best fat burners because he won't be to do that otherwise. But yeah, for anyone else, like maybe you might want to reach for a hundred grams during a race. know, if you want to perform well, you're able to tolerate that. But in training, no, you don't need to because
01:13:39
Unless you're doing gut training. And this is what I found with athletes in the past. When we have tried to go on the high side and do some really like large gut training. They've often said to me and said, look, I've put so many carbs away while I've been running. I've not got really that much room for them in my dinner and other meals. So actually there, the nutritional quality of those meals outside of training starts to suffer. So all of a sudden they've taken on these super processed carbs, much lower in fiber.
01:14:09
lowering in all nutrients apart from carbohydrates. And then it means they're missing out on certain key nutrients at other meals. So again, it's, it's having that balance. So it's not necessary, not taking on drinks and not taking on gels or anything or bars, but just being sensible with the amount that you need to take and choosing times where you might take those and times without, nobody needs to take 120 grams an hour when they're going out on a two hour training run.
01:14:38
Yeah, yeah, you anything under 90 minutes, you don't need anything anyway, particularly through a training run. Like, again, this is what I saying earlier in this conversation, people have forgot about the fact that we've got endogenous fuel sources there. And we want to have flux through them. don't want to, you know, we don't want to suppress liver glycogen oxidation all the time.
01:15:05
We don't want to suppress fat oxidation all the time. We our bodies working as it should so so it's a balance I'm not really got like a specific answer for it, but I'll just say People don't need it and again people might say again. There's some amazing research to say from ITO It's groundbreaking research about 120 grams an hour and recovery, but for most people the likes of me and you You know so long as we're eating it
01:15:34
some good sources of carbs outside of training in balanced meals and I think it's more than enough a lot of the time. beer count? A good craft beer? I hope it does. If it does then I'm the best recoverer in the world. Nice one Paul. Hey this has been super insightful. I could check you for hours and I'm mindful of the time.
01:16:01
Where can people find out more from you, Paul, and your work? And also, I mean, when we kicked off, you said, I mean, I know that you're super busy, but can you just let people know sort of like if they wanted to reach out to you, uh where they'll find you? Yeah, I mean, probably the best place is if you go on Instagram. So I'm ultra.endurance.nutritionist. Nice. So yeah, find me on Instagram.
01:16:28
And then also you can go on my website, which I don't update very often, which is www.performancegains.co.uk. Yeah, you'll find my email on there, I get like basically I'm one of those people that when I get an email, once it goes off the page, I sort of forget about. So if you do want to get in touch with me, I'm always happy to have a chat. The best way to contact me is actually through uh direct messages on Instagram. Nice one. So yeah, so find me there.
01:16:58
Yeah, lovely. Well, I'll put links to both of those in the show notes. And I think Paul, I mean, this has been such a great chat. I've really enjoyed it. And I think you undersold your role in the um success of The Weekend for both Ruth and Tom, because like so often it really does come down to people's nutritional strategies and you guys just absolutely nailed it. So well done. I'm really looking forward to seeing how things look uh for your athletes coming up.
01:17:28
Excellent, thank you. Thanks for being nice, it's great chatting. Amazing.
01:17:44
Hopefully you loved that chat. I just love talking to another nutritionist. It's just so cool. We just sort of get in and just start chatting and I was just so grateful that Paul was so open to coming on to chat to me and you can just learn so much from people who are in it doing the work with the athletes in the environment and if you look
01:18:08
and follow Paul on Instagram, you will see that he has just spent so much time over there in Chamonix with the athletes. looked really cool. It looked so cool. So hopefully you enjoyed that. Next week on the podcast, uh I get another opportunity to chat to someone in the field. I speak to Claire Turnbull about her new book, End Your Fight With Food. Really great. Love that conversation too. That is next week.
01:18:37
Until then though, can catch me on Instagram X and threads @mikkiwilliden, Facebook @mikkiwillidenNutrition, or head to my website, mikkiwilliden.com and flip me an inquiry about when the next Mondays Matter Accelerator program is starting. All right, team, you have the best week. See you later.