Episode 94 - How Liz Blatchford Managed 120g of Carbohydrate Per hour on the Bike in Ironman

How Liz Blatchford Managed 120g of Carbohydrate Per hour on the Bike in Ironman

Liz Blatchford - one of THE MOST successful triathletes of all time. 

She had an 18 year professional racing career from 2000 in both the ITU circuit and full distance events. And to top it all off, was inducted into the Ironman Hall of Fame in 2022.

She is now retired from competing, living her best life with her two little people, but is still heavily involved in the sport through coaching.

I wanted to get Liz on the podcast to chat about her Ironman fuelling strategies. She was the first athlete I ever heard of, many years ago before it was a ‘thing’, that was fuelling at 120g of carbohydrate per hour on the bike. CRAZY for a 60kg athlete!

Tune in to hear how she landed on that fuelling strategy, what products she used and her overall philosophy on nutrition for triathlon as a female athlete.

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Episode Transcription

Episode 94: How Liz Blatchford Managed 120g of Carbohydrate Per hour on the Bike in Ironman

Taryn Richardson  00:00

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.

Taryn Richardson  00:36

Now my guest today needs absolutely no introduction. She is one of the world's most successful triathletes of all time. With an 18 year professional racing career under her belt, both in the ITU circuit and full distance events is Liz Blatchford. Welcome!

Liz Blatchford  01:00

Hi, Taryn. Thank you. Thanks for having me here.

Taryn Richardson  01:02

You're welcome. Can I go through your racing history? Are you going to be cool if you listen to that?

Liz Blatchford  01:06

Oh, yeah, why not, feed my ego.

Taryn Richardson  01:08

As a retired athlete now, I think it's pretty cool to still highlight what you did. You started racing in 2000 in the ITU circuit.

Liz Blatchford  01:16

Oh my goodness, that's a really long time ago.

Taryn Richardson  01:18

Makes you feel old. Makes me feel old thinking back to 2000. And then you transitioned to long course in 2012, where you won your first 70.3 race at Boulder and again in Cozumel that year. And then the next year went on to win Busselton 70.3 and your first Ironman at Cairns. You topped off that success with your first Ironman World Champs in Kona and managed the third place in that which is just amazing and ended up racing Kona four times over the subsequent years. You won Ironman Cairns three years in a row from 2013 to 2015. And now are living up the retirement life. You were inducted into the Ironman Hall of Fame last year in 2022 to top off a pretty epic career.

Liz Blatchford  02:02

Thank you, Taryn. That was a lovely introduction and a nice little look back on some of the highlights of my very long career in the sport.

Taryn Richardson  02:08

A really long and prosperous career which is amazing. One of the things I want to talk to you about today, sorry to kind of dredge you back into triathlon life, but you were one of the first Ironman athletes that I ever heard of that was chewing through a heap of carbohydrate on the bike in an Ironman. You worked with an awesome legend, sports dietitian and my old boss at Triathlon Australia, Greg Cox. And I remember him saying, just like in conversation, that you were feeling hungry on the bike, and you're eating 120 grams of carbs an hour, and he was like, this is just insane.

Liz Blatchford  02:42

It's funny. I know that you mentioned that when we first connected and I was actually like, oh, wow, I didn't realise that was so out there. I definitely did not realise that at the time. Now as I get more into my coaching, I am definitely realising that. But yeah, at the time, as a short course, ITU athlete, intuition is definitely not as big of a role in your racing. And then when I moved to Ironman, I was guided by Coxy. And as you just mentioned, my first Ironman I followed the plan and I can't remember where it was between 100 and 150 kilometres and I'm like, I need more fuel than this and just started grabbing bananas from the aid stations and shoving them in. Gave that feedback to Coxy. And then we dialled up my carb intake for the next Ironman and then dialled it up again I think a couple more times until, yes, we landed at that 2 grams of carbs per kilogram, per hour on the bike which yes, I am now knowing that I'm coaching other people that it was way up there. But at the time, it was just kind of what I needed.

Taryn Richardson  03:39

Yeah. and amazing. Did you ever do any metabolic testing actually to know what your carbohydrate oxidation rates were? Fat oxidation rates were? When you were exercising at all?

Liz Blatchford  03:48

Short answer, no. But I guess just from those everyday comparisons, I knew I always consumed a lot of food. And like I know, a lot of athletes do. And you know, we all train a lot, we all need to consume a lot. But just comparing like for like with my training partners, my female training partners on similar training plans, I did generally consume a fair bit more than the next person.

Taryn Richardson  04:09

Yeah, and that's not a bad thing. Got to fuel for performance, right? Food is fuel.

Liz Blatchford  04:13

Yeah, absolutely.

Taryn Richardson  04:14

So, do you remember what you started with as your fuelling strategy with Coxy? And then how that built up over that time?

Liz Blatchford  04:21

Oh I should have looked that up, shouldn't I, before this? I'd say he started probably between the 1.2 and 1.5 grams per kilogram. So I think that would have had me around 80 to 90 grams per hour. But yeah, that's at that level that I ended up hungry and grabbing bananas. So yeah, we probably put it up 10 to 15 grams each race until we ended up at that 120 from memory. It is a while ago now. I think 2013 to 2014, that was a period we were playing with that and increasing it.

Taryn Richardson  04:34

Yeah, amazing. And how did you do that? How did you consume 120 grams of carbs an hour in an Ironman event? Like something like Kona? How do you do that physically? What sort of products are you using and what did you like at that time?

Liz Blatchford  05:03

Predominantly gels. I had a few different sponsors over the time and would use their different gels. Like they were all fairly standard type gels. So I guess another good thing about myself was, I didn't feel like I had many negative impacts from changing fuels, whereas a lot of people would hate to use what's on course, and that's something I kind of just grab anything and shove it in, and not really having any issues with it. So I was quite lucky in that aspect. So definitely gels and I do remember before each Ironman laying out how many gels and I think it was upwards of 20 that I would consume in any given Ironman. But there was also ... Coxy got this formula for adding, is it maltodextrin? Just like basically pure sugar to my electrolyte drink. You know, your electrolyte drinks - your Gatorade or whatever it is. Normally tastes pretty sweet and then we'd be like, shoving scoops of this pure sugar into my bottles as well. And they would be a little bit sickly sweet, but I'd sip on those and then sip on water between and then the gels every 20 to 30 minutes as well.

Taryn Richardson  06:02

Coxy is a pretty good "make concoctions for whatever you need with random powders and things like that". All evidence based, of course. But it might have been fructose powder, depending on what gels you were using to bump you up to that level of fuelling. Do you remember?

Liz Blatchford  06:17

And he just used to call it Dex.

Taryn Richardson  06:18

Okay, could be maltodextrin?

Liz Blatchford  06:20

Maltodextrin. And the funny thing was when he told me “Go get maltodextrin”. I'm like, where do I get this from? He told me to go to a brewer, like a..

Taryn Richardson  06:29

Beer brewer?

Liz Blatchford  06:30

A beer brewer? No? Like, a supply company? And I walked into this tiny brewery supply shop in Palm Beach somewhere and had to ask for maltodextrin I think it was - that's what we're determining. And they're like, oh, what are you buying this for? And I'm like, not making beer. That was part of my nutrition plan to bump up that carb intake.

Taryn Richardson  06:47

It's so good. And so you were doing that before that was cool, before that was like trending, before we had research papers in elite mountain marathon runners that are fuelling that aggressively. You know, this is one of the reasons why I wanted to chat to you, pick your brain because you were way ahead of that curve. And amazing for a more petite female to be able to just digest and absorb that amount of carbohydrate while racing in a really hot environment at high intensity.

Liz Blatchford  07:15

Yeah, look, I think the first thing I would say in response to that is that, I don't know, I just kept things really simple and relied on the people around me. So I used people like Coxy because they were the best in their field. And I probably didn't follow the trends or know what was what, and I just trusted those professionals. And if it worked, it worked. So I wasn't really aware that that was a trend or now sort of in later years. Now I'm getting into my coaching and I definitely, obviously I'm advising other people more, I'm doing more reading myself. And yeah, aware of that research that, you know, is saying that these best performances are going to come from people that can handle these huge amounts of carb intake. So yeah, I guess I put two and two together, but not necessarily straightaway.

Taryn Richardson  07:57

Would you have said you had a fairly high carbohydrate diet outside of training?

Liz Blatchford  08:02

Yeah, I think I mentioned to you I did have a high carbohydrate diet. I never really restricted my diet. Maybe that was partly what we're talking about. Like I had a high metabolism, never had the need to strip weight. So I just felt like I had this need to take on a lot of carbohydrate and I always did. And then when it came to long course racing, I had some, I think it was good advice early on, from my coach, Matt Steinmetz, and he was all about training my gut. So in training, very rarely would we do calorie restricted training. But very often, what we would do is race fuel, and he called it training my gut. So getting used to taking on that large amount of carbohydrate and getting the stomach comfortable. And even just feeling comfortable having that sort of level of fullness and be able to push hard with that level of fullness. And you can probably talk a lot more about this, Taryn. But yeah, I sort of felt like the more I did that, the more I could take.

Taryn Richardson  08:55

Yeah, absolutely. And again, gut training ahead of the curve in a way. Literature always takes 5-10 years to catch up from what athletes are doing in practice, I find. And I think it's really important to just explore things and test things and tweak and evolve it for yourself over time. But it is really individual. And yeah, like coaching athletes yourself and me working with age group athletes, there's not many people I'd give 120 grams of carbs an hour. But you're like a well oiled machine, you're this high performance engine, and it's like stoking the fire in the way. Sometimes the more fuel we throw at training, the more fuel we throw at racing, the better we are at digesting and absorbing and then using that as a fuel source. So it's really nice and refreshing to hear a female say that when we kind of have this very carb restrictive, carbs are evil, ‘carbs are bad’ type mindset in the sport at the moment. Did you do anything weird and wonderful for gut training? Like I know athletes back in the 80s and 90s used to do things like eat hot dogs and go and run hard. Did you do anything weird or considered weird or just lots and lots of gels and sports products during training?

Liz Blatchford  10:00

Sometimes the gels and sports products, but if I'm honest, I (after an Ironman) would not want to see a gel or a sports drink for a long time and feel like my teeth were rotting out in my head but could take a lot of carbs in other ways. So I did probably have iron guts, of the sort.  I would stop and drink like a 600ml iced coffee and eat a carrot cake and then keep riding and that would sit fine in my stomach. So, but yeah, there would be sessions like probably two or three leading into an Ironman where I do specific race fuel. But I think a bit like everything else, I didn't want to make myself too sick of those gels and whatnot so that, yeah, I didn't mind them on race day.

Taryn Richardson  10:39

Particularly if you're lining up sort of 20-25 gels for your race for one day. You don't want to overdose on them before you actually get there.

Liz Blatchford  10:47

Yeah, absolutely. Thank goodness, so many of the gel companies are coming up with all the different flavours. There was one that I really liked, which reminded me of, you know, like the caramel sauce on a sundae at McDonalds. There was one gel that I definitely had a lot of in my Ironmans and it was like a salted caramel. So - quite enjoyed that one.

Taryn Richardson  11:04

GU do a salted caramel flavour, is that the one you're talking about?

Liz Blatchford  11:08

Yep, I definitely had their salted caramel. Yep.

Taryn Richardson  11:11

Did you always stick with what you were sponsored with in your races? Did you have to do that as a contract thing or could you use whatever?

Liz Blatchford  11:17

Yeah, officially you're meant to. In most of the sponsors that I had and as I said, I was able to handle most things. I wasn't super sensitive to changing products. So yeah, I would definitely use some of the different companies I was sponsored by. For a lot of my long course racing, I was with the BMC team. And we did change nutrition companies a couple of times. But yeah, I was able to use their gels. But then sometimes, like I said, just for the different flavours. I used the flasks, the gel flasks, so yeah, it wasn't always noticeable what was in which brand - and what products you've got in there. So yeah, I did sometimes mix it up and put those salted caramel or something like that, something to look forward to or just a change on the palette halfway through consuming 20 gels.

Taryn Richardson  11:57

So that's on the bike. Do you know what you did on the run?

Liz Blatchford  12:02

I don't think it was quite as many grams per hour. But I did consume a lot of my calories from Coca Cola, from flat Coca Cola. So that worked for that caffeine aspect as well. And I don't like Coca Cola outside of racing, but I've had positive experiences with consuming it. And I did enjoy it while I was running in my Ironman's - would look forward to it. So, definitely would have that at almost every aid station. I couldn't give you a number of how many grams of carbs I was consuming because, as you know, plenty of it lands all over you. And occasionally when you get mixed up with water it'll land in your eye. But...

Taryn Richardson  12:06

Coke over the head?

Liz Blatchford  12:18

Yeah, so it was mostly gels and coke. Yeah, and some salt tablets on the run.

Taryn Richardson  12:40

It's amazing how good Coke is, at that point in a race. Like yes, it's not a very dietitian approved food outside of endurance exercise, but it's caffeine, it's liquid. it's carbohydrate, it's electrolytes, and it tastes different. So particularly after you've smashed gels on the bike, just that palate cleanser can be super useful.

Liz Blatchford  12:57

Yeah, that's exactly it. That flavour of Cola at that point I really enjoyed, whereas I don't really enjoy Cola outside of racing. But even now, I have a sip of Cola, it's taken me straight back to the middle of a run in an Ironman.

Taryn Richardson  13:09

Oh, no. Good or bad?

Liz Blatchford  13:11

Oh, mixed bag, you know. You do that many Ironmans and they're not all going to be good.

Taryn Richardson  13:15

Yeah, totally. Did you ever do any solid foods in an Ironman event?

Liz Blatchford  13:21

Not as part of a strict part of my plan. But I did - after I consumed bananas in those early ones because I was hungry. And then sometimes I would have this feeling of not ’low in calories’, but just empty in the stomach. And you know, as I said in training, I would eat carrot cake or whatever and I knew that a banana would be fine to sit in my stomach. If I had that sort of empty feeling, I would grab half a banana and shove it in. But it wasn't ...it was never an essential part. I don't think half a banana would really register in the equation of 20 gels.

Taryn Richardson  13:51

No - doesn't touch the sides.

Liz Blatchford  13:54

Yeah, but just for that right feeling, I did occasionally grab one.

Taryn Richardson  13:57

Did you do any Vegemite sandwiches or anything like that? Very Australian. High sodium.

Liz Blatchford  14:02

No.  I did Vegemite toast before racing - the morning of racing but no - no sandwiches whilst racing.

Taryn Richardson  14:09

Yeah, cool. And what are you doing with yourself now, Liz?

Liz Blatchford  14:12

So, I'm coaching athletes now and I'm really enjoying that. I've built that up over the last year. Over 10 years now I've coached people but whilst I was racing myself, it was a couple of friends and sponsors and things like that, that I did on the side. Then after retiring, continued at that level, it was sort of four to five athletes. And I took up high school teaching but then about a year ago, I was enjoying the five athletes I did have a lot and just sort of had that thought process that I'm three years retired, have a lot of knowledge and I enjoyed the coaching. So ended up linking up with Tim Reid and coming under his RPG coaching.

Liz Blatchford  14:54

So yeah, over the last year I built that coaching business up, stepped away from teaching for now. And it all works really well with my life at the moment. My kids are school age and preschool. So as you know, Taryn, they're short days. But yes, I'm coaching at the moment. That's my main gig as well as parenting obviously. And I'm really enjoying the coaching. Enjoying being back. More and more involved in triathlon, probably two years after I retired - of being super involved. COVID obviously hit as well and there wasn't a lot of races on anyway. So that timing worked well and as races are picking back up, I'm also finding that fire again to be excited about triathlon - but via my athletes. Yeah.

Taryn Richardson  15:32

I do feel a little bad talking to you about triathlon now, like, after so many years out of the sport. I wasn't sure whether you'd be, like, I don't want to do this or if you are actually like, ready to talk about triathlon again?

Liz Blatchford  15:45

No, absolutely. Yeah, as I said, I'm throwing myself more back into it, and coaching a few pros now as well. And some new pros. So yeah, I'm excited by it again. My ... age groupers excite me too actually. They're also lovely, and so grateful, and, yeah some that are definitely pushing that pointy end of the age group too. So they all excite me for different reasons. And yeah, I'm really enjoying it and enjoying being back in the sport, heading to more races. And yeah, I'm happy to be here.

Taryn Richardson  16:10

That's good. That's good. Is there anything that you would have done differently? Like looking back on your amazing 18 year career of racing as a professional athlete, is there anything that you would have changed?

Liz Blatchford  16:22

Oh, it's funny you ask that. This came up in conversation with my husband, Glen, literally an hour before this podcast. He works from home as well and we were just having a quick lunch together. And I don't entirely remember how we got to it but I was reflecting on things and obviously, coaching now is very data driven. And I definitely had a bit of data in my program. But I turned professional in 2001 and nothing was very technical. There wasn't data driven processes. And then, you know, you go on through your sport, and you're like, "Oh, it's working. Do I really need to incorporate data?". And I did more so throughout my Ironman career, but compared to what a lot of my athletes do these days, it wasn't even that much. So yeah, we were just reflecting on that, and wonder how that would have changed things. But yeah, whether or not that technology was around at that time, too. I know, some of it was, but I was also knowing I was nearing the end of my career, and probably a little too lazy to indulge in it and spend the time getting to know it.

Taryn Richardson  17:19

Sometimes data is power and sometimes data is debilitating. Like, obviously, you had an amazing career without it. And if ... it sounds like you understand your body really well, and you were in tune with that too. So you probably were really good at communicating that feedback back to your coach to still have the same effect. I find age groupers, no offence guys, are so data hungry, and they just get blinded by things and it completely drives everything they do on a day to day basis. And they're probably not that in tune with their actual body and how they're feeling.

Liz Blatchford  17:19

Yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head there. And I do try and encourage some of my athletes, especially the ones that are pushing to go pro, is to not entirely rely on those devices and those numbers all the time and just get to know your body. So, for whatever given reason, and I think being females as well sometimes our hormones have a role, that things aren't exactly as they were prescribed or as you expected. And you need to sort of have that self awareness to adapt on the run. Obviously, having an 18 year career, I got to know my body really well. And knew that but as you say, many age groupers aren't in it anywhere near that long. Or many athletes in general aren't in it that long. So yeah, there can be this huge dependence on data and devices.

Liz Blatchford  17:51

You actually brought up a question - I wasn't going to ask you this but I know that you raced an Ironman on day one of your period once, don't know how I know that. But what was that like? And do you have any advice for the females out there where that might happen to them as well.

Liz Blatchford  18:50

So for most of my training and racing career, I didn't menstruate, and would only really menstruate when I rested each year when I would have my break. So it wasn't really in tune with my cycle and how it would affect my racing or even kind of aware of like day one blues. And you know how on day one, you generally don't want to do anything. You don't want to talk to anyone and let alone go race an Ironman. And so the Ironman that you refer to - is racing on day one - was my very last race in my professional career. And it was Hawaii, it was Kona in 2018. And it was the end of this 18 year career.

Liz Blatchford  19:25

And yeah, I tapered enough that my body brought my period back and it came on race morning and as a professional, or as anyone, you just, like, I've done all the work and I'm not going to dwell on this. I just need to get on with things. And I didn't race particularly well that day. But it didn't consume me worrying about it either. And I think part of that was a blessing that I wasn't really in tune with knowing that day one isn't a great day to do an Ironman. Anyway, there's so many different factors that go into any given day of racing, but I'm definitely more in tune with what the cycle can do to your body and to training and racing now, four years after retiring, than I was at the time, because I'm back to regular cycles and understand it more.

Taryn Richardson  20:06

Did anyone ever talk to you about that at that time? Like not having a cycle and fixing the situation or anything like that? Was that talked about?

Liz Blatchford  20:14

Yeah, for sure. So for me that started, like, early in my teens when I got into heavy training. And yeah, my mum and some of my coaches back then, well (gosh, you're making me think a really long way back). But yeah, we definitely looked into things. We tested a few things that were important, had dietitians check my diet and check that that wasn't an aspect. So we definitely looked into it. And then I think, ultimately, one sports doctor, she was a female sports doctor, and she was pretty experienced. She just told me ... I was probably 26 ... I hadn't been menstruating properly for 10 years. And she's like, "Look, they come back whenever you rest at the end of each season. Your bone density is going alright and just try not to worry about it". And I think she was right, for the most part. Because yeah, when I did retire from racing, I went back to normal cycles, was able to have children, whatnot. But yeah, it was definitely something as a young woman that concerned me. And part of it was that, you know, worry - would that affect being able to have children later.

Taryn Richardson  21:12

You obviously have really high energy needs, right? Like having a really high carbohydrate day to day diet. Sounds like you've got iron guts and you can chew through heaps of food. You just might have had huge energy requirements that were really hard to meet with your nutrition on a day to day basis.

Liz Blatchford  21:29

Yeah, sounds like it. And the way she described it was that basically the energy I was consuming was just going into repairing the damage I was doing from training and putting on hold non essential functions. And at that point, reproduction was not essential.

Taryn Richardson  21:43

Yeah, that's exactly right. And like kangaroos do the same - if they don't have enough food around and they've got a joey in their pouch, they'll actually pause developing that joey. So our bodies are the same. If we don't have enough energy to support ourselves, then there's no way we have enough energy to support growing another human. So it down regulates all those hormones and things, doesn't produce a lining so that's not viable. All those sorts of things happen. The body's super smart, but really interesting to hear how much food/fuel/carbohydrate, you know, nutrition during training you consume, and still don't have enough energy for that. It's amazing.

Taryn Richardson  22:19

I think females are so afraid of eating, and so afraid that they'll get fat or go too slow, and everyone's trying to lean up. But sometimes you need more fuel to stoke the fire in a way and more fuel is often the answer to fixing people's body compositions in an age group in a sense sometimes. And particularly for the elites too, the goal is to build muscle mass. We want strong athletes, we want resilient athletes, we don't want skinny weak ones, particularly for something like an Ironman at Kona.

Liz Blatchford  22:46

Yeah, that's a really good point. Like I had this unofficial backed by science theory. But I did see a lot of women with eating disorders throughout my 18 years. And it was quite often those women that had had past eating disorders that then later in life struggled with their weight. I would reflect on myself thinking that I hadn't dieted, hadn't calorie restricted, and did have this quite strong metabolism. And I felt like there was a link there. And obviously, I'm a sample size of one. But I did feel like there was a bit of a pattern of those women that had had that then did like to struggle with their metabolism. Is there any evidence in that, Taryn?

Taryn Richardson  23:22

I'm sure there is. I don't have any in the top of my brain, but particularly restriction kind of slows everything down. Things don't work particularly well, like low energy availability affects our entire body system. It's not just the menstrual cycle. And it does take a little while to pull yourself out of that in a way. And then as a result, we have this mismatch between what we eat versus what we're burning until it equilibrates again. And like your metabolism does rise as you come out of low energy availability. But sometimes there's a little bit of a grey area in the middle while that fixes itself.

Liz Blatchford  23:56

Really interesting field and I think so many athletes just quite often get on the wrong side of things.

Taryn Richardson  24:01

Yeah. And it's not an aesthetic sport by any means. But we are in our togs, or swimmers or Speedos, whatever you want to call them for a lot, so like on the pool deck. And historically, body composition for triathlon has been as light as possible. But now thankfully, we're seeing this really big shift of building some muscle tissue - being strong, being resilient, particularly for the draft legal events. But even age groupers, too, like there's no point being really weak and too lean to the point where you are in low energy availability or running the risk of breaking.

Liz Blatchford  24:33

Yeah, 100%. I think you're right, there's comparison to others. And then maybe even that sometimes when you do drop weight, that kind of almost instant, running faster. So that can give you this sort of feedback of like, oh I'm faster but doesn't necessarily apply to swim and bike and it's not always sustainable.

Taryn Richardson  24:50

So my final question for you, let's not go so deep. Let's get out of the deep. If your kids wanted to do triathlon, would you let them?

Liz Blatchford  24:57

Of course I would let them, yeah. I would encourage them. There would be a point where I'd be like, do you really want to do Ironman? But no, I think the positives that the sport has given me I would lean into that and help in any way that I could and hopefully I would be able to give some great help. To be honest, we live in a region that doesn't really embrace elite sport. I'm in Byron Shire, and we're a lot more arts based and we have horrible facilities for sports. So I think if my children want to, then it could be tricky in this area.

Taryn Richardson  25:29

Particularly with the potholes all over Byron streets and things like that. It's not conducive to road riding, that's for sure.

Liz Blatchford  25:34

That's absolutely right. You know it.

Taryn Richardson  25:36

I've done that race many a times. Well, thank you so much for spending your afternoon chatting all things triathlon nutrition with me Liz. I know that you probably didn't really want to spend your afternoon doing that. But we both have to hightail it to kindy pick up, as you said.

Liz Blatchford  25:50

Thank you, Taryn.

Taryn Richardson  25:51

You're welcome. Thank you so much for joining me.

Liz Blatchford  25:53

Thanks for having me.

Taryn Richardson  25:56

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!