Episode 151 - 20 must read books for triathletes

20 Must Read Books For Every Triathlete

When you’re lacking motivation through a hard triathlon training period, where do you turn for encouragement?

You could binge-listen to a podcast, watch an inspiring movie or check out your favourite athlete’s socials, but I personally feel that one of the best places to start is a good ol’ fashioned book. 

Today, I teamed up with some of the members inside the Triathlon Nutrition Academy community to bring you a curated list of 20 must-read books for triathletes, from insightful how-tos to inspiring autobiographies and helpful self-improvement books. 

You’ll find a detailed list that could transform your approach to training, racing, and overall mindset.

Whether you’re a seasoned athlete or just starting, these books offer a wealth of knowledge and insights that can help you achieve your best performance.

If you want a handy list of all these book recommendations, click here for a free downloadable.

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 151: 20 Must Read Books For Every Triathlete

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: Today's episode is all about 20 of the best must read books for triathletes. And because I am one person, I decided to ask our Triathlon Nutrition Academy community to help me tell you about some of the top books that you should read as a triathlete. So we have 10 of us on our recording today, and we are going to try and not break the internet to do this. 

[00:00:43] So we're going to dive straight in the deep end. Whether you're looking for inspiration, motivation, or some information, we've got some really good recommendations for you. And if you're out on the wind trainer or going for a long run or something while you're listening to this right now, don't worry about getting out a pen and paper. 

[00:00:58] I'm going to compile the list for you into a free download. If you go to dietitianapproved.com/books, you'll be able to get that for free. So you may have heard me talk about our first recommended book today. It's called Up to Speed by Christine Yu. And she was actually on the podcast quite a few episodes back. If you go back to episode 130, she's actually a sports journalist with an interest in health. And science, which, you know, love, woman after my own heart, but she has a particular interest in the female athlete. 

[00:01:32] And she has done an excellent job of compiling the research to date on all things female athlete. So she talks about not only nutrition and training, but also through our lifespan, through pregnancy, postpartum and the joys of perimenopause and menopause. She talks about training. She talks about. sports bras and the evolution of those. 

[00:01:54] And, you know, as a female that really need sports bras, there has been a huge evolution in those in my training [00:02:00] history. So it's definitely a must read for any female athlete, but I also think for coaches, whether you're male or female, and you have female athletes, I think it would be a great recommended book for you to add to your list as well. 

[00:02:12] And Hey, if you're a male listening, It's also a great read for you because chances are you may have a female in your life somewhere doing something that is active. So not only for the female athlete, but definitely grab that one. I'll pop the link in the show notes to have a read. I thought from, you know, an evidence based perspective and my perspective, she did an excellent job on the nutrition chapter in particular, when there's some very noisy voices in the nutrition space for female athletes at the moment, and she did a great job of. 

[00:02:45] Sort of being impartial to the big ends of the spectrum. So that is number one, moving on to our second, I'm going to ask Mrs. Pastor to do number two.  

[00:02:57] Becky: Certainly. All right. Number two, How Bad Do You Want It. Mastering the psychology of mind over muscle. 

[00:03:04] by Matt Fitzgerald. This is a book I probably discovered 5 or 6 years ago and honestly I read it every season and I've started assigning homework to my athletes to read it as they approach and enter race season. There's about a dozen chapters in here and each chapter is about a different athlete who um, struggles in some way in the mental and physical techniques that they use to break down barriers, reach the next level, and achieve great things. 

[00:03:35] There's a chapter on Cadel Evans. There's a chapter on Thomas Vöckler, if any of you are Tour de France fans. There's a chapter on Siri Lindley, who was ITU triathlon world champion. So there's a chapter for everyone and it's going to help you. Take it to the next level and figure out what you can do, what's holding you back and how you can push through. 

[00:03:58] And I did have a second book to [00:04:00] recommend. Um, this one is Let Your Mind Run by Dena Kastor. She is a United States marathon runner. she started running cross country in college. She became a professional runner after college in various distances, but ran, I took a medal in the Athens Olympics at the marathon. 

[00:04:20] And it just goes through her story and how she discovered that training is a huge component in what we do, but how we talk to ourself, how we talk about ourselves and the power of positivity. In life and in training and that how that helped her break barriers how it's going to help you break barriers. 

[00:04:40] one of my favourite passages, because she's always talking about how positive she needs to be is she was out on a training run and I only tell this because it cracks me up every time. She was out on a training run with a friend of hers training for I'm not even sure which Olympics. It was hot, it was humid, they were running hills at altitude. 

[00:04:56] And he just commented, this sucks. He's like, you need to be more positive. And his response was, I'm positive. This sucks. And when I'm doing a hard run, that's what I think about is I'm positive. This sucks. And it cracks me up. It breaks the ice and I can keep going. So anyway, just the mantras and positivity is what this book is all about. 

[00:05:16] Taryn: Yeah, good one. So good mindset sort of one, if you. in a dark hole, which we all get into sometimes. All right. Thank you, Mrs. Pastor. Moving on to our fourth book recommendation. We have Lynn all the way from Adelaide, South Australia. That's one thing that you'll get on this podcast actually is accents from all over the world. 

[00:05:33] So see if you can pick where people are from. Maybe I won't tell you. All right. Over to you, Lynn.  

[00:05:37] Lyn: My book is called Fast Over 50. who doesn't want to be fast over 50, right? So it's based for the endurance, athlete who wants to remain competitive into their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. It's written by Joe Friel. 

[00:05:53] now he's a, a master athlete himself. So he has first hand experience on going through the aging [00:06:00] process. it starts off, what we go through as we age. 

[00:06:05] And everybody's gonna go through the ageing process. the interesting part here is that He has strategies for the athlete to delay this aging process to help us to become competitive and remain in the sport that we love. he talks about a lot of things about modifying training and strength work, and increasing muscle strengths, periodization in your training program all of these things put together. 

[00:06:34] creates a modification that we have to do as we get older.  

[00:06:38] Taryn: Yeah. Good one, Lynn. Fast over 50. Good for anyone 50 plus, but maybe also in those years heading into that age bracket to prepare yourself for the half century. 

[00:06:51] What's to come. Yep. Okay. Awesome. so much, Lynn. All right. Number five is over to you, Tony.  

[00:06:59] Tony: So my book is from the voice of Iron Man, Mike Riley. It's Finding Your Voice. This book is best done in, the audible version. He actually reads the book, so it's his voice. and it's, packed with stories of Iron Man finishers. 

[00:07:19] at all the events that he's done, that's people that have grabbed his attention. and it's their story told by Mike Riley himself. And in the audible version, it is his voice of their story. I guess, there's a lot of people in there. Some of them you heard. He tells the story of why the. 

[00:07:40] You are an Ironman thing came about and talks about that person a lot. And he talks about some, some others that have gone through some hard things in their lives and have gone on to, finish the Ironman world championship. And some of them didn't make it the first time. So there's repeats and stuff like that. 

[00:08:00] So. pretty good book, but yeah, if you're going to get it, I recommend, the audible version.  

[00:08:06] Taryn: I'm sure he's got lots of stories to tell. He would have seen so many finish lines and so many people and you know, there is a wide spectrum of people that do an Ironman. I love, we get to share that with people. 

[00:08:17] So good one for sort of motivation, inspiration, and just to learn some stories about other people doing Ironman and know that you could do it yourself, right? Anyone could do an Ironman. You just need to get your nutrition, right? 

[00:08:28] All right. Moving on to number six, number seven, and number eight. Cause he's a little bit of an overachiever, but handing over to you, Chad.  

[00:08:35] Chad: My number six is, Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. They're both, Navy SEALs, and you might be thinking like, okay, so what do Navy SEALs and triathlon have in common? 

[00:08:50] I'll get to that, but the subtitle is how, U. S. Navy SEALs lead and win. And each chapter is kind of broken into two parts. The first part, they go through Their experiences serving in Iraq and missions they've done and lessons that they've learned, in each of those. And then the second part, they've, started consulting with businesses, companies, individuals, how they've applied those lessons through their consulting to business, to real life. 

[00:09:20] You know, as a triathlete, you can think of it like you've got a mission, you're training for that mission. And there's the training, the preparation, the execution. They talk about mastering your craft and, and the things that you do every day. and then. The lessons that you learn, you know, you have to be prepared, what can you control, what can't you control, and how can you plan for the things when they go wrong, and learn from those things, um, and be prepared for those. 

[00:09:49] So, I love this book, it's a, it's a great read, um, and it, It applies a different perspective to our sport of triathlon and nutrition. so being prepared when things go wrong, like, [00:10:00] one of the things I've learned through this program is to always have a bottle of water on your bike. 

[00:10:08] Taryn: Always be prepared.  

[00:10:10] Chad: Always be prepared. Yes. Number seven, Breathe by James Nestor. the new science of a lost art. I love this book. It's a little more scientific, but, the inside cover reads, it doesn't matter how much you exercise or how you eat. If you're not breathing properly, It doesn't matter. 

[00:10:33] And he goes through, um, some of the history of how breathing, like, has evolved and how it's affected our, like, our physiological development. but the, like, kind of the, the meat in the middle is an experiment that he participated in where they obstruct the nose, and they have to breathe through their mouth for the whole first half of the experiment. 

[00:10:57] And they measure physiologically what happens to them, their health, through all these different markers, like their blood gases, like blood pressure, their hormones, inflammation, bacteria count, all this stuff. And it's, it's fascinating. Fascinating. And their performance, they stay on the same schedule of sleep, eating, and diet, and then they take it off and focus on nose breathing. 

[00:11:19] And the difference is amazing. And applying that to triathlon, like how can you breathe better? How can you harness that? And especially in recovery, like how do you breathe when you sleep? Like that totally affects, your performance and your recovery for those next workouts the next day. And then there's a bunch of, breathing exercises at the end of the book too, that you can actually put into practice. 

[00:11:42] So that's really cool.  

[00:11:44] Taryn: Some people are like, well, I thought I breathed. Okay. Like, why have I got something else I have to work on now? Damn it. and yeah, fascinating. The science. So is the goal to be a nose breather as much as you can.  

[00:11:54] Chad: Yes, and how you breathe, like, are you breathing from your chest, your diaphragm, are you tense, are you shallow breathing, are you taking deep breaths, you know, all that kind of stuff. 

[00:12:03] So it's, it's very cool.  

[00:12:05] Taryn: Yeah. I noticed that everyone just closed their mouths and tried to breathe more so through their nose when you said that. 

[00:12:13] Chad: Yeah. Mouth breathers. So my eighth book is Born To Run by Christopher McDougall, which is a very popular book. totally applies to triathlon and long distance running specifically. many of you may have already read it, but it's such a good read. it's entertaining. It goes to, some of the history of shoe development, but it's really a narrative story. 

[00:12:35] And I loved this when I was doing really long, long training runs. training for Ironman, you know, you're out there two plus hours and this listening to this book on audio as I was running just made things go by quicker and also helped me focus on my running because it's all about running. And the characters in the book are just, they are characters. 

[00:12:55] Long distance runners are characters, so it's, it's a fantastic read, I highly recommend it.  

[00:13:01] Taryn: Do you recommend reading that one while you go for long runs?  

[00:13:04] Chad: Yes. Thanks.  

[00:13:04] Taryn: Make you run faster. Run better.  

[00:13:07] Chad: Yes. But it's also distracts you from the pain.  

[00:13:10] Taryn: All of these books I'm sure could help distract you from the pain. 

[00:13:13] All right. Number nine. We are moving on back to a, well, see if you can pick this accent, but Jared, you're up with number nine.  

[00:13:21] Jarrod: Hey Taryn. my book, I've got Be IronFit by Don Fink. I stumbled upon this probably a couple of years ago, Brandon's into the sport of triathlon and I had a running background, but I had zero experience in the swim, was terrified of it. 

[00:13:37] I hadn't ridden a bike since I was nine years old, didn't know what I was doing. and just sort of stumbled into it. And there was just plans just to give you the foundation to understand what the sport's about and to get your mindset and your foundation built. Um, there was time management plans in there that. 

[00:13:53] You know, I was like, I work 50, 60 hours a week. How am I going to fit in all this extra training? 20 hours a week. Um, I found out I can squeeze in brick runs in the morning before work. I can slip out on my lunch break and go for a swim. in the evenings I can do, the wife watches a Netflix movie. 

[00:14:08] I'll do my two hours on the bike. Um, so you just sort of juggle and navigate all these things that I just. Never understood, never sort of figured I could schedule it in. There's training plans in that I still use today. I've sort of imported into Excel. It's depends on what you want. Do you want to just finish it in the minimum time? 

[00:14:25] Do you want to get a podium? Do you want to be competitive? So having, having a spin with that sort of understanding the background of the sport, better time management skills for me, there was a few little, um, nutrition tips as well, to sort of build the foundation. gets you started, but it doesn't give you the fine tuning like, Miss Taryn does. 

[00:14:43] But, now it really got, got me a, as a brand new beginner into the sport, not knowing where to go, what to do. I found it was a, a great read and sort of put me on the path to, um, better success.  

[00:14:53] Taryn: And do you recommend that one for people just starting in the sport or maybe looking at doing their first Ironman distance? 

[00:14:59] Jarrod: Yeah, look, probably both. I'd probably say it's really good for people brand new into the sport, whether you just want to do super sprints or you want to do Just Olympic distance, whatever's in there, but definitely for 70. 3 or full distance, I found a lot of good information there. I still keep it in my car and sort of dig it out on work trips and read it on the planes. 

[00:15:19] And, always get something new out of it every time I go back to it, Yeah, it's a great read. And he was a, I think he's like 40 something, Ironman competitions that he's done. He's a trainer now. So coming from the experience of somebody that sort of has excelled in that sport, it was really good for me to have some tips and tricks to pick off. 

[00:15:38] Taryn: Alrighty, we are halfway through our book recommendations. If you want to go and grab the free download that has all of them in a list, make sure you go to dietitianapproved.com/books to grab that. To take us through to number 10, we have Steve. Welcome Steve.  

[00:15:53] Steve: So, my book, is called The Alter Ego Effect and it's written by, Todd Herman. 

[00:15:59] [00:16:00] And Todd Herman is a good old Canadian boy, um, as I am, and, he is a high performance coach, and he works with professional athletes, Olympic athletes, business people, to, get them to be their best. And so his entire, strategy, if you will, is using this concept called the alter ego. And, you know, we, we all know that we, everyone's got an alter ego. 

[00:16:25] It was something discovered by this philosopher guy a long time ago. And so, I love this book because, in triathlon, again, being a Canadian, I really admire Lionel Sanders and he puts himself in a bunch of hurt, and he perseveres, he keeps going, he's stubborn, and so the alter ego I think of myself when I'm out there doing my training runs, and I feel like, oh god, this is painful, and I don't want to do this, and I think, you know what, Lionel Sanders is doing this, I can do this too, and so I kind of become Lionel Sanders, and that's what Todd Herman does with his coaching clients. 

[00:17:07] And these are like high level elite athletes who, they develop an alter ego, or some of them have had their own alter ego and he just works with that. so it's all about, you know, creating that alter ego, somebody that's been special. There's a story behind, like Lionel Sanders was a guy who many years ago, he was abusing drugs, you know, he was, he was in a downward so triathlon of course kind of saved him. 

[00:17:36] But I think about his story and I think, wow, going from where he was to where he is today, I mean, that's pretty special. We can all benefit from having an alter ego, you know, who's your hero, you know, who's, who do you want to become? So you can think about Clark Kent and Superman, right? 

[00:17:56] Superman. was the actual person, and Clark Kent was the alter ego, and you can develop that alter ego to help you, reach higher levels of doing what you want to do. 

[00:18:08] So, as I say in triathlon, for me, I think about, as I mentioned, a guy like Lionel Sanders, I look up to him in terms of, you know, what he's done, how he's done it, and every, I mean, who doesn't like Lionel Sanders? Because he's, wears his heart on his sleeve. So I, I'm out there running and biking, and I think, you know, I, I'm, I want to be like Lionel Sanders. 

[00:18:31] I, I want to, you know, I'm, I'll never reach the levels that he has reached, of course. I'm But it just gives me the inspiration and it gets me to keep going when I don't want to keep going, you know, when things suck you know, like running for me has always been difficult. 

[00:18:47] It's been painful. It's never fun. I was running the other day, and honestly, I was thinking, okay, what would Lionel Sanders be doing? so I, you know, I ran my 12K run, and I was doing these intervals, and they were frickin hard, and they hurt. But they didn't hurt as bad as they used to hurt, and it's a big mental thing. 

[00:19:07] So. That's The Alter Ego for me, and I highly recommend the book. I'm going to re read the book. I need to read a book a couple of times to really kind of get the gist of things. But I think that's, I've tried to do my best to describe, what the concept is. 

[00:19:20] Taryn: Yeah, cool. I think it'd be a good one to, you know, switch into race mode in a way, or if, you know, you have to find your inner mongrel to get through some deep, dark holes sometimes out on the race course. So it might be nice to have an alter ego on your shoulder being like, stop being a wuss. Get amongst it. 

[00:19:36] Go and do it.  

[00:19:38] Steve: I think that's exactly what Todd Hermann would say to, to, to an athlete. That's exactly how that would be the best application of that for sure, you know, on race day.  

[00:19:49] Taryn: So number 11, almost didn't let her put this in here, but it's Roar by Stacy Sims. And I know that this book has changed the landscape for female athletes, but I get a [00:20:00] little bit frustrated by the very specific nutrition recommendations inside with no evidence to back it up. 

[00:20:05] But I let her put it in because she's so passionate about it. So Becky, tell us why every athlete, not only just the females, should read Raw.  

[00:20:15] Becky: I'm sorry, Tara. I have to disagree. Man, you know what? If you're a woman, if you're a man, talk to tracking your cycles. I mean, some of her nutrition shit, whatever. But you know what? 

[00:20:25] She, she's a, she was a game changer. She was a trailblazer and any male coach needs to read it to understand that women have Periods and we're not little men and we need to understand and they need to understand we got shit going on that they will never comprehend. Um, and we also have to own our own shit and we have to track cycles and understand that having our period isn't the worst fucking thing in the world when you're racing an Ironman is actually our superpower. 

[00:20:50] So anyway, I, Okay,  

[00:20:54] Taryn: okay, calm down lady. Moving on to number 12 with Chris.  

[00:20:58] Chris: So number 12 is David Goggin's first book, Can't Hurt Me. it's an autobiographical self help book, it's an amazing chronicle actually of, of this guy's life story and mental and physical challenges that he overcame. 

[00:21:12] And it really, I think, is in two parts. parts. The first part is the beginning of his life where he comes from this broken home, the abuse he, he sustains, and then grows to a young, a young person that's just giving up and struggling in life and gets to a point that many of us, particularly the endurance folks, get in their life where they're like, shit, no more. 

[00:21:32] I got to change. And then he just begins to reach for what most would, would consider the unattainable. And it's a story of him Breaking himself to basically unlock his superpowers and become this what he called the hardest man in the world. And there are some themes in this book through his story of becoming a Navy SEAL and then going out for Delta Force and achieving these ultra endurance events, overcoming adversity. 

[00:21:59] becoming accountable. So he creates a thing called the accountability mirror. So this ties into like Jocko Willems, book of extreme ownership. He put on the mirror, the things that he was weak at and he faced every day, had to address it. He looked at it every day, callusing his mind. He believed that just like your, your feet and your hands can get calluses, you can callous the brain to better, endure suffering and pain and 40 percent rule. 

[00:22:24] Lots of, lots of lessons in this. And it's basically learning to unlock your mind so that you can achieve the extraordinary.  

[00:22:32] Taryn: Spoken like a true Navy SEAL, right? Callous the mind and just dig deeper. I have never heard of this guy and I'm going to add these books to my reading list because he just sounds like a weapon. 

[00:22:43] I really want to like understand his mind. Okay. Next. So number 13.  

[00:22:48] Chris: So the second book that he wrote is called, um, Never Finished, Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within. So it's really a continuation on of his journey. he talks about continual self improvement. 

[00:23:00] Next. the importance of suffering, which is a central theme in his life and in his books, and that there's value in that, that embracing pain and hardship is crucial for personal growth. taking ownership again, visualization, power of visualization. He gives lots of examples and this book is set up a little differently where there's, there's interactive components and him speaking, and another author involved. 

[00:23:23] So there's, there's. things to work on and then basically staying hungry. So never being satisfied. You've always got more. And a famous thing that he says is 40 percent rule. When you think you've reached, when your mind is telling you, you can't do any more, you're only 40 percent of your capacity. So it's really touching. 

[00:23:40] It touches something inside of you to keep reaching deeper. Well,  

[00:23:44] Taryn: I love this guy. I feel like we'd be mates.  

[00:23:47] Chris: Yeah.  

[00:23:47] Taryn: Okay. Good one. Two extra books to add to the reading list. They're definitely going to be added to mine. All right. We're going to stick with Chris. Cause he's a little bit of an overachiever as well, but number 14, Chris. 

[00:23:58] Chris: Number 14 is a book that I [00:24:00] think is a great compliment to David Goggins. It's called The Mountain Is You transforming self into self mastery. This is a self help book, but it's really metaphor for overcoming how we sabotage ourselves as we reach for something greater than we are today. 

[00:24:17] And so she gives great examples of what the mental components are, you know, the subconscious, the conscious gut feelings and emotions, how they work against us if we're not aware of what's happening we put brakes on the things that we're trying to achieve. The book goes into embracing the discomfort again and crushing that mountain. 

[00:24:37] That mountain is not an external force, but it's actually things that we stack against ourselves and overcoming ourself to become a better person, a bigger, stronger person, becoming self aware so that you can heal. And she gives techniques of healing and how to stop dragging the shit from your past into your present that's slowing you down. 

[00:24:56] And then transforming your mindset and being compassionate with yourself to transform into what David Goggins is, is telling us we can all be.  

[00:25:05] Taryn: Yeah. Psychology 101. All right, we're up to number 15. We've already got 20 books in this recommended list, but honestly, there are so many books you could read as a triathlete. 

[00:25:16] So perhaps we will jump on another time and do another 20 because this has just been so much fun. But to give us the book to read for number 15, we have Jake. Welcome, Jake.  

[00:25:28] Jake: Thank you. And hi, look, my book that I recommend is Endure, which is, has been written by Alex Hutchinson. And Alex was a, an elite cross country skier, sorry, not skier, runner and, and for, for Canada. 

[00:25:44] I said skier because I'm, because I'm up at Falls Creek, so I've got skiing on the brain. he's also a Cambridge, trained physicist. and so the, the backdrop to this was he was trying to go sub four minutes for the 1500 meters. Um, and he was stuck at kind of a 401 for years and years and years and a timekeeper actually gave him, some wrong splits which were lower than four minutes. 

[00:26:08] And he started to think that he could actually run a sub four minute, 1500 meter. Race. and this kind of triggered his, investigation into kind of the power of the mind. And so, look, the basic premise of the book is that it's, it's the brain that dictates your limits and how far you can push. And I suppose my interest in it is having just completed my third Iron Man. 

[00:26:34] And regardless of how well prepared or unprepared I've been, inevitably at the, at around the 30k mark, the bad monkey turns up telling you that there's no possible way you'll finish, you know, no one cares, you need to stop, And look, his book has really helped me just unlock some of those mental limits, which I think are just really critical in endurance sports. 

[00:26:59] and he does talk about a whole range of, you know, simple tools and they're things like, um, you know, internal self talk, you know, having words and mantras that actually help you work through those very, very difficult moments. So. Um, those things have actually been really, you know, practical tools that I've actually been able to use to help deal with things like getting through Iron Mans. 

[00:27:22] So it's a really well written, well researched book that's had a, you know, really profound impact on me.  

[00:27:29] Taryn: Yeah, cool. And I know a lot of people On this podcast have read that book and it comes highly recommended. So definitely add it to your reading list. Thank you, Jake. All right. Moving on to the real overachiever of the day. 

[00:27:41] Kelly has got four book recommendations for us. And he had a longer list. He had like 10. I was like, dude, you've got to cut it down. You've got to share it out. So number 16, take us away, Kelly.  

[00:27:51] Kelly: Okay. Number 16. The first book is Grit by Angela Duckworth. And of the four books that I'm going to talk about. [00:28:00] I like this book the best because it's well researched and well written, and it gives really good examples of how to develop grit. 

[00:28:07] And I think when you look at the title and you see grit, and you understand that grit's really important to achieve things, you really want to understand, well, how do I get it? You know, how do I improve it? So the book goes on to explain what grit's about and how Angela has done a bunch of testing and things, research over the years to understand how important it is. 

[00:28:27] And one of the things that that Angela points out in the book is that, that talent says nothing about a person's grit. and that was something that I found interesting because our potential is one thing, but what we do with it is something that's really different. And grit is really what helps us progress in life and to achieve things that comes down to the grit that we have. 

[00:28:47] So how do you develop grit as it's outlined in the book? There's some deliberate practice that you can do that, that she explains in the book, and it basically has four areas. It's, you have a clearly defined stretch goal, you have full concentration and effort on that goal, you have immediate and informative feedback, and these are things that if you're a coach, you know, you're a triathlete, or if you have a coach, that you can use to improve your triathletic efforts. 

[00:29:11] in addition to immediate and informative feedback, you can use repetition with reflection and refinement. But one of the things I really noticed in the book that I liked is especially for me as an older Age group athlete, is that increases with age. 

[00:29:25] of course I like graphs, and I have a graph in the book that shows this. And it shows that as you get older, up into my age range, that grit, really starts to increase rapidly compared to younger years. So, it's kind of this encouraging book for someone like me to say, hey, I really ought to spend more time looking at my grit, trying to figure out how to improve it. 

[00:29:43] even though it's probably going to come naturally with age, but, it's pretty important. to help me be successful in all the things I'm working at. Especially in triathlon. And so ultimately, Angela talks about in the book that the grittier a person is, the more likely they're going to enjoy a healthy emotional life. 

[00:29:58] And they have, she has a graph for that [00:30:00] too, which of course I like to just sit and look at.  

[00:30:02] Taryn: All right, number 17, Kelly.  

[00:30:03] Kelly: Yeah, my next one is Do Hard Things by Steve Magnus. 

[00:30:08] Okay, and one of the things for my books, all four of them, I listen to the audiobooks. But what's interesting that I'll point out when I get to Hidden Potential, but I'll just talk about it now, is that when you listen to audiobooks, Compared to reading a book, your retention is significantly different. So if you listen to an audio book, and a few days pass, and somebody comes and quizzes you on it, you have about a 59 percent retention of what you listen to. 

[00:30:36] But if you've read the book, and then you're quizzed a few days later, your retention is 81%. And so, although I've listened to all these audio books, I have hard copies of many, many of them because I go through and I mark them up when I'm listening to them or I read portions of them and stuff, so I thought that was pretty interesting. 

[00:30:54] Taryn: Do you know that the, I don't know what the stats are, but if you read a physical copy while you're listening, your attention is even higher. So if you want to max out, then listen while you're reading on the paper.  

[00:31:06] Kelly: Yeah, so I hadn't read that. That's an interesting number because, you know, I think we all would like to. 

[00:31:12] remember more, you know, knowledge capture this information we get from our books. And so we're always looking for ways to, to retain that information. So I don't have to read it again. And I read a lot of books. I wish I remembered them all.  

[00:31:23] So in the book, Do Hard Things, who's written by Steve Magnus. 

[00:31:27] He's also written a book, The Science of Running, Peak Performance, and The Passion Paradox. So you might be familiar with those books, but in here he talks about how we get, resilience wrong and surprising science behind real toughness. He goes on to explain that toughness is something that we look at how toughness is displayed in boardrooms or in athletics and other places, and the old model. 

[00:31:51] It's typically characterized by something you might see in the military where you have some drill sergeant yelling at you or something where somebody's just hardcore, right? You gotta tough it [00:32:00] out. in the book they go on to explain that that's really not the way to do things. That the new model just moves away from that altogether. 

[00:32:07] and, starts to look at just four pillars of what they call, resilience, which is, you ditch the facade and embrace reality. Listen to your body, respond instead of react, and transcend discomfort. So the book goes on to talk about other examples of good role models. So for example, Pete Carroll from Seattle Seahawks and basketball coach John Wooden from UCLA Bruins and how they did business and how that different approach You can get much better results. 

[00:32:39] And I like that because, you know, I spent a number of years in the military starting out with the Marine Corps, and I really never liked that toughness approach. It just never settled well, even though I stayed in the military for a long time. It just never settled well. So whenever I read Do Hard Things, it became just something I embraced as a meaningful way to try to treat people and do business. 

[00:32:59] It was a lot different than the way I had learned to do it years ago.  

[00:33:03] Taryn: All right, moving on to number 18, Kelly.  

[00:33:05] Kelly: Number 18. What is my number 18 is Hidden Potential by Adam Grant is a book that spends a lot of time talking about how do you understand what your potential is and how do you develop it? 

[00:33:19] it's got a lot of really good illustrations in there and stories about how to pull out your potential. The premise is that it's not where you start, but where or how far you go. with your potential. And so they spend a lot of time in the book talking about, the person that spends a lot of time getting to where they're going, even though they have a lot of ups and downs in life, and they have a lot of troubles that, you know, may delay them getting to the end point. 

[00:33:45] The real potential is for those people that stick in there, kind of like grit, where you just hang in there and keep working at it for a long time, to get to that successful end point that you're after. They point out early in the book that, One of the things that [00:34:00] really helped people be successful later in life is how your kindergarten teacher helped you and how, and basically how, experienced your kindergarten teacher was when you were in kindergarten. 

[00:34:11] What they show is that if you had a more experienced kindergarten teacher, then later in life, you would have higher, earning potential. And they measured that by waiting till the kids later in life got to the fourth and the eighth grade, and they went back and they measured things like how proactive were they, how pro social were they, how disciplined were they, and how determined were they. 

[00:34:33] And they all had improved scores in those areas depending on the experience level of their kindergarten teacher when they were like four or five years old. So it's interesting how they've, they look at this approach and, and use that throughout the book to explain how you can draw out your hidden potential. 

[00:34:51] I really enjoyed the book. Again, I think it recommended for triathletes to understand ways to help improve your own performance. And this is the book that talks about listening to audio books versus reading a hardcover. If you listen to the audio book, you retain about 59 percent of the content. 

[00:35:06] If you read a book, you can retain about 81 percent of the content. And then as Taryn mentioned, if you do both, simultaneously maybe, you retain an even higher amount. The book goes on to explain basically how to build character skills, which is one of the most important aspects of a person, and their ability to bring out their hidden potential. 

[00:35:25] And it talks about, setting up scaffolding to overcome obstacles, building your character skills, build systems for opportunity. And there's a lot of information there that can help you pull out your hidden potential. So I think it's a good book to read.  

[00:35:41] Taryn: So what do you do if you had a shit kindergarten teacher? 

[00:35:45] Kelly: You wouldn't know it. until later in life.  

[00:35:46] Taryn: Yeah. That's such a really long longitudinal study to study from that long in a lifespan also. Really interesting. All right. Bring it home with your last recommendation, Kelly. Number 19.  

[00:35:58] Kelly: Yeah. The last book, Start with Why, is a book from Simon Sinek. 

[00:36:02] It's called How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. When you start with why, it was really interesting, because it's initially kind of oriented towards businesses, and explaining how businesses can be successful if they start with why. And although the book is about business, you can apply it to many things that you do because, later in the book it explains that for the businesses that understand why they're doing what they're doing, the ones that are able to communicate it well, often people align themselves with a business's why and, and so they attract those kinds of people. 

[00:36:37] And so understanding your why as a business owner. it is really helpful for communicating with people to share what your vision is or your product. And so if I take an example as a triathlete of businesses that I think do pretty well with explaining their why, and that I align myself with because I agree with their why, is the triathlon, TriDot Triathlon Training Program. 

[00:36:59] I really think they have a good understanding of their Hawaii and I believe that the training that I do with them is very meaningful because I believe in it. I think they communicate their Hawaii very well know, they talk the talk. I also can say the same thing about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy. 

[00:37:14] I think the Hawaii is well understood. And whenever I joined, Triathlon Nutrition Academy, the why was there and I believed, you know, that I aligned with it well and I wanted to be a part of it. and so reading this book helped kind of just bring a lot more of this to, to light as to why do I feel comfortable being a part of this program and that I like To believe that I'm, you know, part of this. 

[00:37:36] I'm part of TriDot. I'm part of Triathlon Nutrition Academy. and so that's why I recommend start with why. And there is a follow on book that's called Find Your Why that I'm looking at right now. And, we'll see where that takes me. Because, like a lot of people like to try to understand their own personal why. 

[00:37:54] And, although a lot of us do know our why. I was talking with. A [00:38:00] try not coach, that explained that after reading this book, he's changed his mission statement in terms of the correspondence he has with his athletes about why, you know, what he's trying to do in his coaching. 

[00:38:12] Taryn: Yeah. All right. We'll add that as a bonus book. Start With Why and Find Your Why by Simon Sinek. I've read the first one many, many years ago, and yeah, you're right. Like I think as it applies to triathletes, because you do need to understand why on earth you're doing this crazy sport in the first place, because it's not always, you know, rainbows and unicorns and flowers and glitter. 

[00:38:32] There are deep dark holes and certain parts of a race and training and you question like your whole. ethos of why the hell did I sign up for this thing in the first place? So understanding why you do stuff, I think, just in training, but also life is really important.  

[00:38:47] Kelly: Let me tie it back to the book, Grit, because all these books, you can kind of tie things together, but as you've read more of these books, if you would read all these books that we recommended today, look at how they apply to you as a triathlete or as a coach. 

[00:39:01] What it does is it helps you kind of clarify your why, but it also helps you kind of understand certain things that benefit you and certain things that don't. The more you read about these things and you kind of look at it and go, Aha, I understand this, I understand that. That eventually helps solidify the grit that helps you Say, this is why I'm doing certain things. 

[00:39:22] This is what works, this is what doesn't work, and, and it really helps just clarify a lot of your purpose and, and, the details in your day to day training activities.  

[00:39:32] Taryn: Yeah. And it's definitely been some themes today, which I'm loving. 

[00:39:35] And it's also like a master's athlete theme going on. Also, I would, I would think that we unintentionally did, but I'm going to round us out with number 20. And if you do want to read all of these books in the next year, then you want to start with this book first. It's Atomic Habits by James Clear and he has got some great evidence based strategies to actually help you change habits. 

[00:39:58] Whether that's forming [00:40:00] good new ones or getting rid of old, bad ones that you don't want anymore. But he talks about the power of 1 percent and being 1 percent better each day. And I think that's really nice when we are over achieving triathletes. And we want to go from here, like right at the beginning, all the way to the end game overnight. 

[00:40:17] And we need to really just stop for a second and break that down into small, little, bite sized, achievable habits and behaviours that you can achieve. I always apply that habit stuff to nutrition. People have habits and behaviours that you've been set with for your entire life. 

[00:40:34] It would have been shaped when you were a baby, or, you know, early childhood, and all of the things that go with food. Because it's more than just food. Putting something in the pie hole. There are so many habits and behaviours and emotions that go with eating. So I think this is a great book for everyone to read. 

[00:40:51] I would potentially start with this one. If you do want to change or make some change, because it'll show you how to do that in a way that is maintainable and achievable. So you're not just going guns blazing, trying to go from zero to hero overnight. He also talks about the four laws of behavior change and how to actually set yourself up for success, as well as that temptation bundling. 

[00:41:13] So I think if you haven't read that one, put that to the top of your list. It is number 20, but I think you should probably read it first. If you want to do anything with the sport or life, it's some great, great books. strategies to just be better in whatever it is you're trying to achieve. Alrighty. That is 20 with a bonus. 

[00:41:34] So we're sort of 21 book recommendations for triathletes from triathletes. So I wanted to say a massive thank you to our triathlon nutrition Academy athletes for jumping on this podcast episode with me today. It's been fun. you know, you've got some great suggestions there and a huge list that you could really tackle. 

[00:41:52] If you aim for one a month, you'd get through them in the next 20 months or aim to do it in two years. So again, it's, you know, [00:42:00] achievable and maintainable it's reading what five or 10 pages a day to get through a book in a month. So if you want to. Download the list, go and grab it for free at dietitianapproved.com/books, books with an S. and we've got links there to grab them all as well. Or if you're an audio person, go and grab them from audible or the library. And if you do sit on a wind trainer, read a book and listen to a book, please send me a photo, take a photo on socials, tag me in it so that we can see you doing that. 

[00:42:30] And then I want to know how much of that book that you then retain. All right, legends. Thank you so much for joining me and yeah, I look forward to seeing you all in power hour soon. All  

[00:42:40] Chris: right. Yeah, this is great. Bye.  

 

 

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!