Episode 158 - Fuelled for Success: Preparing for her first Ironman with Christine Orlowicz

Fuelled for Success: Preparing for her first Ironman with Christine Orlowicz

I’m joined by Christine Orlowicz, a dedicated age-group triathlete from Fort Myers, Florida, who’s been having an exceptional race season. Christine joined us late at night to share her journey, challenges, and success in mastering her nutrition plan, all while balancing a demanding career as a physician.

Originally a runner, Christine entered the world of triathlon almost three years ago, with her first race being in December 2021. She started incorporating swimming and biking into her training routine, and triathlon was a natural progression from there. One of the biggest things Christine loves about this sport is the community, which she’s found a lot more welcoming and supportive than for other sports she’s been a part of.

From the onset, Christine recognised the importance of proper nutrition in her triathlon journey. She joined the Triathlon Nutrition Academy well before hitting her first 70.3 race and this has paid off majorly.

Links:

Check how well you’re doing when it comes to your nutrition with our 50 Step Checklist to Triathlon Nutrition Mastery

Start working on your nutrition now with my Triathlon Nutrition Kickstart course 

It’s for you if you’re a triathlete and you feel like you’ve got your training under control and you’re ready to layer in your nutrition. It's your warmup on the path to becoming a SUPERCHARGED triathlete – woohoo!

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Episode Transcription

Episode 158: Fuelled for Success: Preparing for her first Ironman with Christine Orlowicz

Welcome to the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. The show designed to serve you up evidence-based sports nutrition advice from the experts. Hi, I'm your host Taryn, Accredited Practicing Dietitian, Advanced Sports Dietitian and founder of Dietitian Approved. Listen as I break down the latest evidence to give you practical, easy-to-digest strategies to train hard, recover faster and perform at your best. You have so much potential, and I want to help you unlock that with the power of nutrition. Let's get into it.

[00:00:00] Taryn: Welcome to episode 158 of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast.

[00:00:26] Taryn: Thank you for wrapping me around your ear holes today. We are having a great week. It is the final week of Triathlon Nutrition Academy program doors open and they do close this weekend. So if you've been sitting on the fence, deliberating about whether you should get some help with your nutrition or not.

[00:00:41] Taryn: You have a few short days before they close. So it's the final time you can work with us for 2024, which is very exciting. So go and check it out dietitianapproved.com/academy. If you do want to level up your nutrition with the only, and the best triathlon nutrition program in the world.

[00:01:01] Taryn: Woo. my guest today is joining me very late at night. She's ready to go to bed all the way from Fort Myers in Florida over in the Eastern time zone. And yes, she has thankfully stayed up late to talk to us tonight because she's having a cracker of a race season.

[00:01:17] Taryn: and I wanted to introduce you to Christine. Welcome Christine. Oh, yeah. Thanks so much, Taryn. 

[00:01:24] Taryn: So you've just had a smacking race at Ironman 70. 3, Wisconsin, and I would love to talk to you about that. But you're also on the road for your very first Ironman at Ironman Florida in a few short weeks. So I would love to talk to you about that as well.

[00:01:39] Christine: Yes, absolutely.

[00:01:41] Taryn: So please stay awake. Have you had a coffee? A late day coffee? 

[00:01:45] Christine: no, no. I want to go to bed after this, so, so

[00:01:48] Christine: no coffee. Yeah, 

[00:01:51] Taryn: and wasn't a caffeine user until we got into her, but now she uses it. She's a little bit of a dabbler of the caffeine as an ergogenic aid. So maybe we could talk about that today as 

[00:02:01] Christine: yeah, definitely.

[00:02:03] Taryn: So before we get into your awesome race performance at your 17. 3 and Ironman, how did you find and fall in love with the sport of triathlon right in the beginning?

[00:02:12] Christine: Let's see, I started doing triathlon almost three years ago. My first race was December of 2021 and I had been running for two years before that. A friend of mine got into running and then everyone was like, Oh, running is bad for you. It's bad for your knees. You shouldn't do it, blah, blah, blah.

[00:02:28] Christine: And I'm like, well, I don't, I don't really agree with that, but. I was like, well, I can do some cross training and you know, I know how to swim and maybe I could bike and so then it was like, well, why not just do triathlons? And, uh, you

[00:02:39] Taryn: Natural progression.

[00:02:40] Christine: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:42] Taryn: All is history. I love that. Running's bad, so let's just do three sports instead, because that makes way more sense.

[00:02:48] Christine: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Much, much less chance of injury when you've got three different things going on. 

[00:02:54] Taryn: Yeah.

[00:02:54] Taryn: totally. And what's your favourite part about being an age group triathlete?

[00:02:58] Christine: I mean, a few things. The triathlon community is awesome. more so, I'd say, than most other sports communities I've been a part of. It's just super welcoming and, everyone wants you join in.

[00:03:09] Christine: it keeps me active and exercising, because otherwise I'd love to just sit on the couch and chill. but when you have a race coming up, you've got to put in the exercise. And I like to eat, and so, uh, you know, when you're doing all the exercise, you, you can eat more, which is a very nice bonus.

[00:03:26] Taryn: Yeah, don't we all love to eat? I don't know many people that don't love eating.

[00:03:29] Christine: blows my mind when people are like, oh, I forgot to eat lunch today. I'm like, you, you forgot what? I, I

[00:03:34] Christine: don't understand. 

[00:03:35] Taryn: people like that either. They obviously don't get hungry, but yeah, food for me is so much more than just putting something in the pie hole to tick a box. Like there is so much emotion and joy and flavor and yeah, so much enjoyment from actual food.

[00:03:50] Taryn: the art and process of eating.

[00:03:52] Christine: Yes. Absolutely.

[00:03:54] Christine: I'm just a pickier lover than you, but but yeah. 

[00:03:57] Taryn: Yes, that has been definitely a challenge with working with you and your nutritionists. How picky of an eater are you? You're like, what about this, Christine? And let's try this. And you're like, no, Taryn, I don't like avocado.

[00:04:06] Taryn: And no, Taryn, I don't like that. And I'm like, Oh my God, your poor mother.

[00:04:10] Christine: Yeah. I mean, I've gotten much better, Taryn. It was, it was rough for her when I was a kid. So, you've got it easy now, working with me.

[00:04:18] Taryn: Oh, thank God.

[00:04:19] Christine: Yeah.

[00:04:20] Taryn: You do have a very busy life too. You're a physician, you work full time, you're a crazy cat lady, and now instead of training for one sport, you're training for three. Like, how do you fit in all the training and exercise and eating and planning in a really busy life?

[00:04:35] Christine: I mean, you know, you have to have it, everything scheduled and sometimes things don't happen, you know, like, oh, it was, supposed to do, I don't know, whatever this weekend, oh, you know, didn't get the whole list done, but like the house didn't burn down, so, oh, oh. Well, it'll, it'll happen next weekend.

[00:04:51] Taryn: Progress over yeah. Exactly. Yes.

[00:04:55] Taryn: And so you're a very clever lady as a physician and somebody that likes the evidence base. Surely you could have figured out how to do nutrition for swim, bike and run yourself.

[00:05:05] Christine: yes, you know, I would have had some knowledge of what to do, and like, trial and error gets you a whole lot further, but when I was first getting into triathlon, and, reading online, and on Facebook, and whatever, and, you know, You know, nutrition kept coming up as like a really big thing to think about.

[00:05:21] Christine: And, hearing horror stories of people who screwed up their nutrition terribly and were like, Oh, that race was miserable. And so, you know, I think I started with the Triathlon Nutrition Academy probably earlier in my triathlon career than most people. I hadn't even been doing triathlons for, for a year.

[00:05:37] Christine: I hadn't done my first 70. 3 when I started with you.

[00:05:40] Taryn: That's the perfect time, Christine.

[00:05:42] Christine: yeah, I mean, I could trial and error a whole bunch of races and screw them up and waste a lot of time and money, or I could just, like, go to the source and get the information mean, it's like, yeah, you can Google what to do for a medical condition and try a bunch of things random people say, or you could just, like, go to the textbook that says, well, here's what you do.

[00:06:01] Christine: And okay, let's do it. So, yeah, just start with good information from the beginning.

[00:06:07] Taryn: Well, I think that as well, but there are so many people that have been doing triathlon for a long time that have never even thought to get some help with nutrition. So , I'm glad that you came in early and I wouldn't even say it's early. I think that nutrition should be laid into training ASAP.

[00:06:21] Taryn: The faster you can do that, The better athlete you will be long term and the less chance you're going to F it up and get sick and injured and all those sorts of things. So maybe early, but my, my goal is to really just change that whole rhetoric for people that nutrition is something that they do later.

[00:06:38] Taryn: And it's an investment they make way later because the earlier you can do it, the more advantageous it 

[00:06:42] Christine: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. 

[00:06:45] Taryn: So, Ironman70. 3, Wisconsin, you did really recently. What are the sorts of things that you did for your nutrition so that it worked out on the day for you. What did you do in the lead up? How did the day go? Like, give me a race report.

[00:06:58] Taryn: Cause we haven't actually talked about it specifically yet.

[00:07:01] Christine: So yeah, I mean, back like in the spring, probably I started thinking about like what I was going to want to feel with and you know how many carbs per hour and what, what products and everything. And then from there on and all my long rides and run, just like testing it out and making sure I was happy with it.

[00:07:20] Christine: And going to talk a little bit about how I came to the idea of using same thing with carb loading too, like the, you know, last few really big bike sessions before hand, like, I did my carb loading plan exactly as I was going to do it in Wisconsin.

[00:07:38] Christine: And, I mean, I So, um, and was like, okay, I need to go to a Panera and a Starbucks for some of the foods I'm having. And, okay, there's ones by the hotel in Madison, Wisconsin. And like, went and had that here, too. And I had already looked up that, yep, I can get those things in Florida as well at Panama City Beach.

[00:07:56] Christine: So, you know, with the thought that, okay, if it works in Wisconsin, then I'll do it again in Florida. So Yeah, testing out everything and making sure it all worked.

[00:08:06] Taryn: Yeah. Amazing. That's really good planning, right? Forward planning to know that you can get what's on your carbohydrate loading plan wherever you are. Cause you love to 

[00:08:14] Taryn: race away. I remember the photo of you packing all of your carbohydrate loading stuff to go international to 

[00:08:22] Christine: Yes. Yes. To Slovakia. yes.

[00:08:26] Taryn: So good. And this carbohydrate loading plan that you did for this race, I haven't actually got your race report yet, because it's something that you've been tweaking and evolving and trying to really optimise lately so that we can get all the right levers in the right, doses, if you want, for you.

[00:08:43] Taryn: How did carb loading in this plan go?

[00:08:45] Christine: Carb loading went really well. It was the most, I think, calories I've taken in for a carb load. I've taken in a lot of carbs, but it was a lot of calories too. And so it was like, from the time I woke up each day, I had to be thinking about, I mean, it's like when you're racing and you're like, oh, I got to, I got to drink.

[00:09:01] Christine: I got to drink, I got to drink. It was the same thing for the two days of the carb loading. Oh, I've got to eat. This is the next thing. This is the next thing. This is the next thing. Just keep eating. 

[00:09:08] Taryn: Did you love it or did you hate it?

[00:09:09] Taryn: As someone that it was, it was, I don't know that I, I loved it because it was like, Oh man, I got like, I'm not quite hungry yet, but it's time to eat again.

[00:09:16] Christine: But I mean, it wasn't bad either. I wasn't like, Oh no, this is too much. So yeah, no, it, it, it went well. Um, And then, I know we've talked about this, Taryn, and I'm sure the triathlon audience is familiar with this, but, you know, race dads sometimes struggled with needing to find a port a potty on the run.

[00:09:31] Christine: And so, didn't even need to think about that during this race. So,

[00:09:35] Christine: everything was just right. didn't have to

[00:09:38] Christine: waste 10 minutes pulling a wet dry suit on and off to use the port a potty.

[00:09:42] Taryn: You've got to wear a two piece if that's a problem, but the goal for you is to not need the Not neither, yeah, yeah, yeah, there we go. And it worked, it worked. So, uh, yeah. I'm gonna do the exact same thing for Florida.

[00:09:52] Taryn: Yes, that's really good confidence building heading into, you know, the biggest race of your life so far. So I'm so glad that that worked out. Is there anything that you'd tweak or change in your carb load? Or are you going to Um, no, I'm pretty much gonna follow it to the T. Yeah. I mean, like, ten rolls of Smarties, two boxes of Nerds, like, one, one bottle of Coke, like, yeah, it's all very precisely written down.

[00:10:17] Taryn: Yeah, amazing. I love that we're in carb loading for somebody that loves to eat and you love sweet things, like you're very much a sweet tooth.

[00:10:24] Christine: Oh, yes. 

[00:10:24] Taryn: you know, that's a challenge sometimes in day to day training, but CARD learning, you're like, let her rip, Christine. What is it? Give it to me. We'll do it.

[00:10:32] Christine: Yes.

[00:10:33] Taryn: I love kind of that when you allow people to have it, or even in your own mind, you're like, I'm allowed to have this.

[00:10:39] Taryn: It's not something that I shouldn't have, so I'm going to eat it and then feel guilty for it. You're like, I'm allowed this and it's on the plan. The dietitian approved it.

[00:10:47] Taryn: then off the back of that, you're like, Oh, I actually don't kind of feel like that stuff so much anymore. Give me a big salad. Did you find that happened at all?

[00:10:54] Christine: Yeah, a little bit. And I think especially when you're traveling, you know, even like the day or so before you're in the airport, it's like, you're generally not finding nice, healthy food anyway. And so then by the time you get home, you're like, yeah, I'm ready for something a little better.

[00:11:09] Taryn: Yeah, Nice.

[00:11:10] Taryn: And what about the day? 17. 3 Wisconsin. How did your actual race go? And that's obviously about a preparation race for I'm in. 

[00:11:19] Taryn: testing out all of your race strategies on the bike on the run for that race. Talk to me, how'd that go?

[00:11:24] Taryn: And then what are you going to do for Ironman?

[00:11:26] Christine: Yeah I mean, race went really well. I chose to race in Wisconsin because it was cooler weather than here in Florida because I don't like the heat. So, uh, yeah, race day itself was beautiful. Swim went great. as expected, you know, smooth lake swim.

[00:11:39] Christine: So, pretty easy. I live in Florida and there's no hills here where I'm am in Florida and Wisconsin does have hills. So, that's a little challenging, but um, you know, it that bad hill wise, it was a lot of kind of rolling undulations, but not like Big, long, crazy steep climbs.

[00:11:58] Christine: so it was, again, I just had to also be thinking about nutrition because I'm not good about, I mean, I definitely don't take in nutrition going downhill and I'm not great about doing it going uphill. And so, like we had driven the course beforehand and I was like looking for the flat spots to be like, okay, when I get here, like, I really need to make sure I'm, I'm taking in some gels and some fluids so I don't get behind. But yeah, no bike was good. I knew it wasn't going to be a super fast bike time for me because it was the healthiest bike course I've done, but I was expecting that. So I was fine with it. And then the runs, my least favorite part, but it was actually an awesome run.

[00:12:34] Christine: Like I said, the weather was cooler, so it was, lovely. And yeah, it was my run PR and second fastest half marathon, like, Including stand alone half marathons. So, uh,

[00:12:46] Christine: yeah. felt great. I mean, the energy was there. You know, I was starting to feel a little full about halfway through, but, you know, I knew how to troubleshoot it and figured that out and, yeah.

[00:12:57] Christine: It was great.

[00:12:58] Taryn: And is there anything you can pinpoint that you can attest to not needing to go to the port a potty in your run? Is there anything that you go, that's definitely what the problem was or making this tweak has helped me to avoid that in the run?

[00:13:11] Christine: I don't know if I could be like, there's this one tiny little thing I've changed, but, you know, I think probably the issues were in what I was having the day or two leading up to the race, and,

[00:13:22] Christine: I'm not exactly sure what I got rid of or added that fixed the problem, so, that's why I'm not deviating from the plan now, I, I like the plan, and wherever I race, there need to be a Starbucks nearby, but You know, if I'm in the U.

[00:13:36] Christine: S., that's a pretty safe bet. They're everywhere. 

[00:13:38] Taryn: So all races from here on in need to be in the 

[00:13:41] Taryn: U. S. 

[00:13:41] Taryn: only with a 

[00:13:42] Christine: They're, they're expanding. You 

[00:13:45] Taryn: Yeah, we don't have the same 

[00:13:47] Taryn: level of Starbucks that you guys have, like, you guys are next level Starbucks on roids. 

[00:13:52] Taryn: Yeah. 

[00:13:52] Christine: Okay.

[00:13:53] Taryn: looking at the menus for Christine to work out a carbohydrate loading plan, I was looking at all the different pumps and flavor options and creams and I was just like, oh my god, this is, yeah, Starbucks on roids.

[00:14:05] Taryn: We don't have Yeah, you don't have things like chocolate, cold foam, topping? No, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:15] Taryn: never been to a Starbucks in Australia, but I've looked at a menu online and I don't think we have the different levels of pumps. You can choose the number of pumps of caramel syrup. One, two, three, four, five, like how many do you 

[00:14:25] Christine: Yeah, right, or like 10 different flavors of syrup. Yeah. Any,

[00:14:30] Taryn: Yeah, well awesome confidence booster for your full distance race coming up in a few short weeks. How are you feeling about that? What do you want to do with nutrition in the next few weeks to prepare?

[00:14:40] Christine: I mean, I've got two long bike rides left, so I'm just pretty much, I mean, my bike rides leading up to this. I've been taking in, you know, the amount of nutrition. I thought I would, but Some weeks I would use this product, and some weeks I'd use that product, and still, like, adding up to the same amount of macros, but just playing with different products, and sometimes using up products that I had, or whatever but, like, the next two long bikes will be, like, exactly what I plan to use, the exact products, the exact, timing of taking stuff in and everything.

[00:15:15] Taryn: And are you going to practice your carb load again in the next couple of weeks? One last chance?

[00:15:20] Christine: I don't know, I, I may or may not it's kind of actually a pain to, because I'll be, it'll be like two weekdays and then I'd have to like go drive to Starbucks and go drive to Panera or get it delivered to the office and spend extra money on delivery fees, so I don't know, I may or may not, but I'm feel, I felt pretty confident with it, so, yeah, we'll see.

[00:15:40] Taryn: you've only just done it and for you, I like all my athletes are very well prepared for their races. Not sure if you kind of gathered that from talking to Christine, but we don't kind of wing it with whatever is going on in that week. You're like, Oh shit, what am I going to race with?

[00:15:53] Taryn: Everyone is very well prepared and you've been building to this event for, well, years really.

[00:15:59] Christine: yeah, I mean, this is my first full, so yeah, slowly, getting there.

[00:16:04] Taryn: And do you have any goals? do you Do the Erin Burge? It's like famous, the gold tier system of what you're going to do on the day. Like, what do you think? What are you aiming for? Do you want to talk about it or are you still wigging out? 

[00:16:14] Christine: mean, I guess first goal is just to finish you know, since

[00:16:17] Christine: this is my first Ironman, like, you know, get through the whole race across the finish line. You know, I train with TriDot, so it's got predicted times for my, you know, different splits, and I think I'll hit the bike split, which is like 6.

[00:16:30] Christine: 48 or something like that. I think, I hope I can be faster than that. My run split it has at like 5. 20. If I run a 5. 20 marathon, I'll be fine. incredibly thrilled. I, that seems unlikely. But, uh, you know, we'll see. yeah, I mean, I think all added up, it's like 13 hours something. So, I mean, if I'm, I guess I'll say under 14 hours, I'll be pretty darn happy with that.

[00:16:54] Christine: But yeah, 

[00:16:55] Taryn: the finish line. Yeah,

[00:16:57] Taryn: just finishing the damn thing is huge because a lot of people, well, one can't even find the time to do that training, let alone absorb the training. So just getting to the start line, you're not sick, you're not injured, 

[00:17:08] Christine: Yep. 

[00:17:08] Taryn: broken anything, you 

[00:17:09] Taryn: know, 

[00:17:10] Taryn: you're almost there.

[00:17:12] Taryn: Yeah, I'm so excited for you. I get so nervous when athletes do something big like that. You know, it's your first Ironman, we've been working on nutrition for years now, and I feel like. everything that we've done has led to this one day. So I spend the whole day like, refreshing the tracker, freaking out if it stops or slows down or something, but I'm so excited to see how 

[00:17:33] Christine: Yeah. you should be sleeping while I'm racing, Taryn, because start at, well, 7 a. m. my time. What's that, like 9 p. m. your time? You'll be 

[00:17:41] Taryn: Yeah. That's okay, I can, when I wake up, refresh the tracker, see how you're going. 

[00:17:46] Taryn: Watch you through the last 

[00:17:47] Christine: gosh, that's, slightly demoralizing. Like, wow, you'll have had a whole night's sleep and I'll still be running.

[00:17:52] Taryn: That is Iron Man 101. Well, I'm excited to see how you go because you have been working on nutrition with me through the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program for what, two years? Like pretty much 

[00:18:04] Christine: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A little longer. I think. Technically, I think it was. It was a little longer. Yeah. 

[00:18:10] Taryn: What's next on the cards? Can we talk about that? Are you not there yet? Like, let me get through this one thing first. But what, what's the big plan? Like, do you want to go to Kona? Do you want to do more longer distance stuff? Like, do you like 70. 3 distance better? We don't know yet, 

[00:18:23] Christine: We don't know yet. We We don't know yet. Yeah. I don't think I'm anywhere near fast enough to go to Kona. I mean, if like everyone else drowns on the swim, maybe, but like otherwise, no, I don't think that's happening. So, um, 2025 is, is kind of up in the air. I'm contemplating moving somewhere colder because I hate the heat, so, um,

[00:18:44] Christine: Since I'm thinking about that, it's like, I can't even think about.

[00:18:47] Christine: I'm not, making concrete plans for races because I don't want to be like, Oh, well, I planned a race here and now I've moved and now that's not a convenient race for me. So, uh, 

[00:18:56] Taryn: are we talking like Canada, like cold, cold?

[00:19:00] Christine: Yeah, northeast. Yeah. So, um, not, not quite to Canada. That would mean new doctor licensing and stuff, but uh, close. Because, yeah, yeah, I mean, the heat and I don't get along very well. 

[00:19:13] Taryn: Well, you could add Sunny Coast 17. 3 to your race plan for 2025.

[00:19:17] Christine: You know, it's not that I wouldn't love to do it. It's just the cost and the time of getting there, Taryn. I've been to Australia and it's beautiful. But, you know, it takes like two days to get there.

[00:19:31] Taryn: That's okay. That's okay. Well, we'll see how you go through Iron Man Florida first, but do you have any preference for distance that you like doing at this point? This early in your triathlon career?

[00:19:41] Christine: I would say I actually probably maybe like Olympic distance the best, but I like, like you said, I like to travel for races, I like going new places, and it kind of feels like if you're gonna go through the effort of traveling and flying and packing up the bike and everything, like, you should go do something bigger, like I, I can't imagine, doing all that work for a sprint and then it's done in, under two

[00:20:05] Christine: hours. 

[00:20:05] Taryn: can go sightseeing.

[00:20:06] Christine: Like, well, I guess, but then it's like, well, I could just go sightseeing and not have the hassle of all the triathlon gear.

[00:20:13] Christine: So I kind of

[00:20:14] Christine: feel like 70. 3 is sort of that, sweet spot of it's a big race. It was, you know, it's, it's worth training for and taking the time to travel for we'll see what I think about the full distance.

[00:20:26] Christine: But I mean, definitely the long hours on the weekends are, 

[00:20:29] Taryn: There are a lot. Yeah, 

[00:20:30] Taryn: there are a lot. If you didn't feel like you feel now, then I'd probably say you haven't done enough. You know, you haven't trained enough, you haven't trained hard enough. If you were like, I got this in the bag, I'm ready, it's so easy. You should feel a bit like, oh my gosh, I'm ready for this thing to come now.

[00:20:45] Taryn: We're 

[00:20:46] Taryn: talking to you at that key point where 

[00:20:48] Taryn: a bit over it. 

[00:20:48] Taryn: Yeah. But you still have a smile on your face and you're not asleep even though it's late at night. So it tells me that your nutrition not on a daily basis is, going all right.

[00:20:56] Christine: okay. Yeah. 

[00:20:57] Taryn: What is one of your favorite things you've learned about nutrition or maybe something that's had the biggest impact on your life over the last couple of years?

[00:21:05] Christine: probably the importance of recovery nutrition after workouts and races and the amount of nutrition needed. I mean, like I knew it was important to eat something after you worked out, but the quantity and how soon it needs to be afterward, macros, how much of it, like.

[00:21:27] Christine: I was definitely underdoing that and like, it hadn't been an issue because I wasn't doing bigger training sessions before we started, but I can definitely see that, if you hadn't intervened and I just kept on doing what I was doing for another few years, like it would have been a real struggle, but like, why is this not working after my three hour bike ride?

[00:21:47] Christine: that's big, I think. And day to day nutrition, but I still haven't. I know what to do there. I'm still working on the actual, eating the veggies and not the chocolate chip cookies at work. So, We're getting there. 

[00:22:00] Taryn: We're getting there. 

[00:22:00] Taryn: It's a slow progress. 

[00:22:02] Christine: Yeah.

[00:22:02] Christine: exactly.

[00:22:04] Taryn: It's still progress though.

[00:22:05] Christine: Yeah.

[00:22:06] Taryn: I love that you worked on your nutrition when you did so that you could survive this build to full distance. I think it's probably set you up the best for success. And so you haven't fallen into a hole because like just generally you as an eater, you're somebody that, loves sweet, is super fussy.

[00:22:24] Taryn: No, offense. I know you're offended by that. 

[00:22:26] Christine: true. Yeah.

[00:22:27] Taryn: And is somebody that is very commonly. and so many people do this, kind of striving to drop body fat all the time. So there's some sort of deficit sometimes or trying to be in some sort of calorie restriction. I don't think you would have survived full distance training and racing if you had that way of eating that you had before, or even the mindset around nutrition before, because you would have absolutely fallen into a heap trying to drop, drop some body fat and do full distance training.

[00:22:56] Taryn: I just think it's a recipe for disaster.

[00:22:58] Christine: Yes, no, I, I agree. Absolutely. you know, I'm sure I would have gotten carbs in. Um, They might not have been the best carbs, but, I mean, cookies have carbs, pizza has carbs but, fruits, the veggies, the protein, the, the other stuff that you should also eat, yeah, that definitely uh, would not have been eating all the stuff I should. Yeah, even

[00:23:17] Christine: though I'm a doctor and I, you know, I know what I should eat, but, you know, we eat what we like to eat, not what we should eat.

[00:23:22] Taryn: Yeah, 

[00:23:23] Taryn: it's really hard. Eating is way more than just putting, macros in, and it's, filling a pie hole, or filling a gap, or I'm hungry, or I'm tired, or I'm really busy and I don't have time to eat. Like, food is like this huge big melting pot of stuff. It's not just, in and out. If you're on a desert island, and you could only have one sweet treat, a sweet candy thing, forever.

[00:23:45] Taryn: What would you choose? 

[00:23:47] Christine: well, I mean, if it's a desert island, I'm guessing it's hot, so I'm gonna say

[00:23:54] Christine: ice cream. I'm a very logical person, Taryn, I mean, like, I love a, like, warm chocolate chip cookie, but if it's 100 degrees on the island, I don't, I don't want that cookie anymore, so, uh, half baked by Ben and Jerry's it's a, like, swirl of chocolate chip cookie dough and chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.

[00:24:13] Christine: So, it's got chunks of cookie dough, chunks of brownie, in with the chocolate and vanilla ice cream.

[00:24:19] Taryn: Oh, good. I 

[00:24:20] Taryn: love how committed you were to answering that question. Thank you for that. We're 

[00:24:23] Taryn: asking the hard questions on the TNA podcast.

[00:24:30] Christine: desert island that uh, can keep my ice cream in, otherwise I'll have soup, but uh, yeah, that's what I'll

[00:24:35] Taryn: Yeah, you're going to need a freezer. Oh, well, thank you for talking to us on the TNA podcast, Christine. I know it's late. You probably want to go to bed, but now you're probably thinking about ice cream. So 

[00:24:42] Christine: Yeah, I 

[00:24:43] Taryn: advance for that.

[00:24:44] Christine: I am. There is some in the freezer, but I won't go

[00:24:47] Taryn: Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. away from the freezer. And we're all cheering you on for Ironman Florida and if you, in a few short weeks, maybe we'll get you back on to get your race report for Ironman Florida to see whether you like that distance or not. But yes, I am packing my pants a little bit for you, but also incredibly excited to watch you do your first full distance event.

[00:25:10] Christine: Awesome. Thanks. I'm super excited, too.

[00:25:12] Taryn: Yay. Thanks, Christine. 

[00:25:14] Taryn: Yew! ha ha ha

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. I would love to hear from you. If you have any questions or want to share with me what you've learned, email me at [email protected]. You can also spread the word by leaving me a review and taking a screenshot of you listening to the show. Don't forget to tag me on social media, @dietitian.approved, so I can give you a shout out, too. If you want to learn more about what we do, head to dietitianapproved.com. And if you want to learn more about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program, head to dietitianapproved.com/academy. Thanks for joining me and I look forward to helping you smashed in the fourth leg - nutrition!