Episode 153 - Meredith's long game preparation for Ironman World Championship Nice

Meredith's long game preparation for Ironman World Championship Nice

How does one go from never planning to run to conquering the Ironman World Championship? Join us as Meredith McKenzie shares her incredible journey and the pivotal role of nutrition in her success.

Meredith's passion for triathlon started unexpectedly during a difficult period in her personal life. She joined a biking group for the emotional outlet it provided and found it meditative. Her friends encouraged her to participate in the Lava Man triathlon in Hawaii, an Olympic-length event. Despite initial resistance and never having run before, she eventually gave in to their persuasion, attempting her first triathlon.

From there, it wasn’t long before Meredith was signing up for more events, including 70.3 races and full-distance Ironman competitions.  Despite frequent headaches and low energy levels, Meredith thought she was doing alright with her diet. It wasn’t until she started the academy's program that she realised the importance of a well-structured nutritional plan, not just on race day, but every day.

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Episode Transcription

Episode 153: Meredith's long game preparation for Ironman World Championship Nice

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: Do I have a treat for you today? I am joined on the podcast by one of our athletes, Meredith McKenzie, who comes to us all the way from California, USA. Welcome Meredith.

[00:00:32] Meredith: Thank you.

[00:00:33] Taryn: How's my American accent? It's terrible, isn't it?

[00:00:35] Meredith: It's probably better than my Australian. I'm not even going to try.

[00:00:39] Taryn: Maybe we should do that, one episode where you try and do Aussie and I try and do American the whole time. You'd have to say pepper, instead of saying pepper you'd have to say capsicum and things like that.

[00:00:51] Meredith: Well, now that's going to be impossible. If I also have to change the words, you know, it's going to be hard enough if I just attempt the accent.

[00:00:59] Taryn: So Meredith is a busy lawyer lady, and she manages to fit in training for long course triathlon with all of the work hours that she does. And I wanted her to come and share her story with you because she's an interesting case of eating and fueling for triathlon for somebody that eats generally pretty well, since joining the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program.

[00:01:19] Taryn: And she's learned how to actually fuel her body. for the sport of triathlon and what that has been like. So to get us started, could you please tell me what made you fall in love with the sport of triathlon?

[00:01:31] Meredith: So, it actually started back, , with a biking group that I had just joined. , and it happened to be during a very difficult time in my personal life. And so I was working out with this group biking, , ended up being very, , meditative and, . Was helping deal with some of these emotional things that I was going through and my friends love to do this triathlon called lava man in Hawaii And so they were trying to talk me into doing lava man, which is an Olympic length triathlon and I told him now, I can't do that.

[00:02:09] Meredith: I got to stick with biking because I don't run. I had never run before, and I really never planned to run. And so I wasn't going to do the, , even Olympic length triathlon, , eventually with enough badgering. They talked me into it.

[00:02:23] Taryn: Triathletes are so good at that.

[00:02:26] Meredith: Pretty much, , and they did that by just telling me that I could walk the run if I had to, and I'm like, okay, I can, I can walk 10k, right? That should be fine. , and so I ended up , A little bit late, , signing up for this, triathlon with this group, , but unfortunately, I actually couldn't go to Hawaii because I had a conflict.

[00:02:47] Meredith: So another friend and I, we signed up for 1 in Napa. So you would think, okay, Napa, that's almost as good as Hawaii. Other than it happened to be the same weekend as Hawaii. They're all posting the beautiful, sunny Hawaii. It was raining in Napa. The water was so cold. They almost canceled the swim.

[00:03:08] Meredith: So it was a miserable event that I managed to finish. And somehow that hooked me to continue, which really makes no sense. but I had decided that I was going to go to Hawaii next year and do it where it was nice and warm. So I did one more, , and just kind of stuck with it with the intention really of only doing the Olympic length.

[00:03:30] Taryn: And then suddenly you have signed up for 70. 3s and you've done full distance events, like it just sucks you in, doesn't it? And triathletes are very good at getting people to join the cult.

[00:03:42] Meredith: Absolutely. , because even with the 70. 3, I wasn't going to do that either. , until another friend wanted to do it before her 50th birthday. And so, , I said, sure, okay, I'll do that. so we went and did Indian Wells in Southern California. Yeah. also pretty miserable swim very, cold, but nice bike and, , run.

[00:04:02] Meredith: I had only done one half marathon prior to that. , so this was my second half marathon ever. , cause remember I wasn't ever going to run. from there thought I would never do another one, but you know, I need to stop saying never because. That's how I end up, doing a few more. And as you mentioned, eventually a full last year.

[00:04:22] Taryn: 3s and full distance events have you done to date?

[00:04:26] Meredith: Let's see. 70. 3s. I think it's just three of them. I've done Oregon twice and Indian Wells that first year. And the full distance was Ironman California last year. So just the one.

[00:04:40] Taryn: so in a couple of weeks time, you are going to tow the start line for Ironman world championships in Nice,

[00:04:46] Taryn: which is so exciting. Are you ready?

[00:04:48] Meredith: uh, I don't know if you're ever ready and I certainly don't feel particularly ready, but I will go out there and do the best that I can.

[00:04:56] Taryn: That's all you can do. You never feel like you've done enough. , there's always that, you know, one session that maybe you miss cause you were sick and you start stressing that, you know, you haven't done enough, but you have done enough. You just got to trust your training, trust your nutrition plan and go out and have a great time.

[00:05:10] Meredith: think that's what you said. That's exactly it is like, there's not just one session I missed, but , , more than I would like. , you also mentioned, you know, we're all busy, so we probably can't do everything we want to do. So we just try to get done what we can.

[00:05:23] Taryn: Yeah. Us overachievers, we feel like we've got to tick every single box, but, you know, you're doing a lot more exercise and fitting a lot more into life than 99 percent of the population. So you're doing all right.

[00:05:33] Meredith: Yes, I'm hanging in there.

[00:05:36] Taryn: You're thriving. So what made you want to commit to working on your nutrition?

[00:05:42] Meredith: So, As I said, I was doing Olympic length. , and as you know, you can probably get away with a fair amount with the Olympic length. However, I did pretty much always have headaches, , in the run. And then even my 1st, 70. 3. I kind of made it through, , but when I was getting ready to do my first full distance Ironman, I knew that I needed to do something different. I effectively had just been winging it before. I can't really say I had much of a plan. I ate, I drank, but there really was not a plan in place and everyone had told me going from a half to a full, it's a significant jump.

[00:06:24] Meredith: It's not just. doing double. There's a lot more to it. And so I knew I needed to get some help. I don't think I realized how much help I needed until I actually started doing things a little differently.

[00:06:38] Taryn: What sort of things did you notice straight away?

[00:06:41] Meredith: Well, for me, I actually found that the fuel for my training was probably, far worse than even my fuel during an event at least up through the 70. 3 is my event. Fueling was probably okay. Not great, but probably okay. But I was not even coming close to fueling my body for all the training that I was doing.

[00:07:05] Meredith: So. I would say if I look back at, my intake, I was probably in taking about the same amount of food that I do when I'm not training. And it felt okay. Like, meaning I didn't feel hungry and I just sort of assumed. If I needed more fuel, I would feel hungry, but I never did. And so, I think in the first few classes where you're telling us what we have to eat before and after I'm going to venture to say, you'll probably be nice about this, but I probably complained a lot about that because

[00:07:38] Meredith: just didn't know how I could eat that much food And so that was such a complete change in what I was eating every day, not just for the event where I had been thinking of the nutrition portion of triathlon as the nutrition on event day. Well, I met a practice once in practice, but that still wouldn't have been the same.

[00:08:07] Taryn: Not a block, but you know, like some head butting me being like, I can't do this, Taryn, I can't eat this, I could just, I'm not hungry, I'm like, we can do it, Meredith, we just got to be a bit more strategic around the types of foods that you're having and how you're getting it in, because there are so many easier ways to still fuel yourself without having to sit down to a gigantic plate of food, but it's just change, right?

[00:08:32] Taryn: Change is hard for anyone. And once you understand what you need to be doing, then you don't have to do it straight away. It's not day one. All right. This is what you're doing now. It's a slow burn process, right? That you've worked on over the last 12 months or more really to get to where you are today.

[00:08:48] Meredith: Absolutely. And I know there's still more to do. I'm just kind of chipping away at it. So for me, the big focus really was. Making sure that I ate something before working out as well as after working out. And as you mentioned in my, in my case, like I focus a lot on smoothies because those are easy for me to eat.

[00:09:11] Meredith: And I can put a lot into it without feeling like I'm eating an enormous meal. So I now have at least 1 smoothie every day.

[00:09:20] Taryn: And so for you eating more, it's maybe more sometimes and maybe not more sometimes. Your body composition hasn't shifted at all, has it really? Like, you haven't put on body fat, you haven't blown out, you've stayed relatively stable over the last 12 months.

[00:09:36] Meredith: Absolutely. Yeah. despite the fact that I'm consuming a lot more, I'm pretty much the same size I was before. within like a pound, maybe two, 

[00:09:46] Taryn: And how are you feeling though? Like, how are your energy levels? How's your sleep? How's your recovery? Has any of that changed?

[00:09:53] Meredith: Oh, that has drastically changed for sure. So I would say it was pretty routine on weekends that I would take long naps, like, not like a 20 minute nap, but I would need like an hour and a half, two hour nap on the weekends and probably both days on the weekends where I can't say I never nap anymore, but now it's more just because I enjoy an occasional as opposed to meeting that nap.

[00:10:18] Taryn: Yeah.

[00:10:19] Meredith: And so that is very different. I guess it is more energy. I don't think I realized I was low energy before. I mean, I thought I was fine, but. Clearly, I have more energy now than I did then.

[00:10:33] Taryn: Yeah. You're gearing up to do your second full distance race for somebody that was like, I'm never running. Now you're like, I'm just going to do a marathon off the back of swimming and writing.

[00:10:42] Meredith: That's my only marathon so far.

[00:10:45] Taryn: But you just told me off air that you want to do just running from here on in. So you've changed Meredith, you've changed.

[00:10:51] Meredith: I said I'm contemplating doing maybe some run only events which does still surprise me. I will admit that. But yes, I am thinking next year, focus a little bit on the running and maybe do run more. Some run only as well as, I guess I can't really call it short course if it's a 70.

[00:11:08] Meredith: 3, but maybe not quite another full.

[00:11:12] Taryn: Fair call. Fair call. I think, you know, a few weeks heading into. world champs, nobody's in the mindset to be like, yeah, let's do this again. You're like, Oh, I'm so done. You've peaked. You're ready for tape a week. You want this thing to be done and over.

[00:11:28] Meredith: Oh, yes, I have been ready for taper week for at least a few weeks, but I've been counting down literally counting down how many. Long runs and long bikes I have left. And in case you're counting, I have one long bike left and one medium length run. Yeah. So it's not my, I've already had my longest run.

[00:11:47] Meredith: So I'm very happy about that.

[00:11:49] Taryn: Yes, so you should never make any big life decisions at this phase of the game. That's my hot tip.

[00:11:55] Meredith: You're exactly right. So I, I'm not going to make any commitments to what I will or will not do next year. We'll have to wait until afterwards.

[00:12:03] Taryn: Do it when you've got that post race euphoria high. That's why they always open the events at that time when you're like in the post week and you're like, yeah, that was awesome. We're going to do it again.

[00:12:12] Meredith: It always seems like a good idea to sign up for another one that day.

[00:12:15] Taryn: They know exactly the psychology of, of that and that's why they open them up at that timeframe. As you've been going through understanding about nutrition better for triathlon, has there been a slow burn of learning everything, you know, little bits and pieces over time or did you have any one big light bulb moment where you're like, it clicked and everything just started working all of a sudden?

[00:12:38] Meredith: in some ways, a little bit of both. I do still have things that I'm working on and want to go back and focus on some of the areas that, that I've forgotten about. But there was a few things that, for me really resonated. So as I mentioned before, I think focusing on Nutrition, both right before a workout or before workouts, having some sort of fueling and then immediately after having that recovery that has been incredibly important for me.

[00:13:10] Meredith: And it's the area that I continue to make sure no matter what I always hit probably the other, I don't know if there's a light bulb moment, but it was certainly a surprise would be maybe how wrong many of us are with, like, our views of what carb loading is as well as how hard carb loading is and I think I even, like, discuss this with you.

[00:13:31] Meredith: I'm like, oh, this will be easy. And the 1st time I practiced the carb loading. I think I didn't even hit half of what my goal was for the day. So that was shockingly hard and it's not something you will, if you think you're just doing it, you're not. Because you actually have to work at it. Like you wouldn't think you would, but you actually have to work at it in order to sufficiently carb load before an event.

[00:13:58] Taryn: I loved watching you carb load because it taught you that you're fueling on, you know, heavier, harder, longer training days was nowhere near what it needed to be. So you kind of had a two pronged light bulb there, like, Oh God, this is how you actually carb load properly. But then you got that kind of disparity of, okay, my need to really step up my hard training days now as well.

[00:14:18] Meredith: Absolutely. And I would say that's something I still need to focus on at times in those hard training days. Because even yesterday I did a six hour ride yesterday fueled well during the bike. And then I ate like a half a sandwich after and I'm like, Oh, I'm not really hungry anymore. So I did not eat much more.

[00:14:40] Meredith: And had to force myself later because I realized I still was way under fueled for the day and I would venture to say, you would still say, I didn't eat enough later in the day because I just don't feel hungry. In those situations.

[00:14:56] Taryn: There's a lot of people like you that are probably listening going, yeah, I have no appetite as well. And it gets worse the more training you do. So you're, you're in the peak of this build for Ironman World Champs where your appetite is probably pretty low. really low and it doesn't equate to the amount of energy that you're burning each day and the amount of energy that you need to put back in the fuel tank to survive this big training load.

[00:15:18] Taryn: So I always like to teach my athletes that you can't rely on your appetite to drive what you need to do. You have to, I know it sounds weird. It's, it's not intuitive. It's not my advice normally, but for some people, you just have to override that and take the thought out of. You know, I'll eat what I feel like.

[00:15:35] Taryn: Sometimes you just have to go, no, this is what my recovery is. This is what my next meal is. This is what I'm doing for this day to meet my needs, which is hard. And it's a steep learning curve. If you've not done that for your entire life, it would serve you well outside of triathlon, but then you've, you lay a triathlon in and you're like, Oh man, now I've got to eat like a triathlete.

[00:15:53] Taryn: Yeah.

[00:15:57] Meredith: or their workout and then they're really hungry afterwards and they want all this food. 1 of the things that they like is that they can eat all of this stuff.

[00:16:08] Meredith: And I just never really felt it. I mean, occasionally, I mean, obviously I feel hungry, but I never felt it in the same way where I didn't feel like all of a sudden I was eating or needed to eat twice as much food. And it really went against mentally what I thought you should do to, like, almost force myself to eat.

[00:16:29] Meredith: It's really, as you mentioned, it's counterintuitive. So, that was certainly a struggle.

[00:16:35] Taryn: And do you feel like you're getting better on a day to day basis with appetite increasing, or is it still just, through the floor when your training volume and intensity goes up? Has there been any changes in that?

[00:16:45] Meredith: So, I don't really notice a significant increase in appetite, but what I do notice is. It's not as difficult to eat the volume that I'm trying to eat, where I think in the past, it almost felt like torture, to try to eat that smoothie just seemed like, how can I get through this?

[00:17:06] Meredith: This, in where now it does not feel torturous. It’s fine, but probably because I am fueling at the proper level. I can't say I particularly feel hungry. 

[00:17:18] Taryn: from where I do remember clearly you getting angry at me about that smoothie and just being like, Taryn, I can't do it. And you know, getting halfway through it in first time, I'm like, it's okay, Meredith. You don't have to go like all to nothing. We kind of go guns blazing. But you know, now you're doing it and it's easy because you've practiced it and it's become more comfortable, which is good.

[00:17:40] Taryn: You know, nutrition is not something that you can change overnight. It is a long process. So I've got such a long program because, all of our alumni say that they want to go back and refocus on something else and pick up something else and perfect something. Because as a triathlete, we are high achievers.

[00:17:56] Taryn: and we want to do everything to the best of our ability. And there's so many different components that you can tweak and fiddle with as you're going, particularly, carb loading is a big one. We've got some pretty sexy spreadsheets to help you do that in the easiest way possible now. So on that, have you been practicing your carb loading for nice?

[00:18:13] Taryn: You've got your race nutrition sort of dialed in and you're feeling comfortable and confident with what you're going to achieve out there.

[00:18:19] Meredith: So I have been practicing I still have a little work to do on my race plan, nutrition. As I have found something has changed from last year. So last year I was doing Ironman California and I don't know if it's because it's a flat course versus Nice, which is a hilly course, but I'm finding the things that I'm finding I liked last year and fuel wise, like, I like to do, your sandwich stacks.

[00:18:47] Meredith: I do peanut butter and jelly version.

[00:18:49] Taryn: Shhh!

[00:18:51] Meredith: Yeah, 

[00:18:52] Taryn: don’t give away our secrets.

[00:18:53] Meredith: all the secrets. Yeah. so the things that I liked last year, I'm finding difficulty eating on the hills. So I've had to move more, or I've been experimenting the last few weeks with moving more towards gels which also anyone who knew me prior to a year ago, I don't think I had ever even eaten a gel before a year ago.

[00:19:16] Meredith: So. That sort of anti what I wanted to ever eat on a bike because I was very much real food focused, but I'm finding that particularly, I think, with the effort on the hills and how. It feels riding up a long Hill versus a flat. I have to like, shift my plan. So I'm still modifying it a little bit, but moving much closer to gels and chews and almost no real food for this particular event.

[00:19:50] Meredith: But it also goes to show that Every event, it's not like you have one race plan and then it's going to stay the same forever.

[00:19:57] Taryn: Yes, that is an excellent point. And I was going to say that, which you beat me to it because a lot of people do have this one, say Ironman distance race plan and they rinse and repeat it each time and wonder why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And you need to look at the course, the environmental conditions, your fitness levels, like what training you've done leading into it, how long you've been doing the sport for.

[00:20:19] Taryn: So a race nutrition plan is not set and forget, which is why I moved away from writing them for people because. That was what was happening. And it was like against my ethos to have just one plan forever. You have to be better than that. You have to think more deeply around the course and everything that goes into that particular race and have a race nutrition plan for that.

[00:20:38] Taryn: So, you know, Ironman, California race nutrition plan, learn from that, tweak and evolve. Do better, be better, but then Ironman Nice World Champs, that has its own specific race plan as well. Because you're right, on the bike, if it's super hilly, your tolerance for all the extra stuff that you might be able to munch through on that rolling buffet is a little bit different.

[00:20:59] Meredith: Yeah, I think I'm actually surprised how different it has been in my practices where, I kept trying to force myself to consume the things that I consumed last year and I liked. And then I had several just bike days where I felt horrible, like, or, I didn't want to finish the day. I, barely made it through and I knew I was under fueled but I was under fueled the whole time.

[00:21:25] Meredith: Also, because I wasn't listening to my body say it wanted something different, and for me, it wanted gels, which, I guess I have to accept that those are easier to digest than actual food.

[00:21:38] Taryn: Yeah, sometimes, you know, they're a necessary evil sometimes, you know, use them to your advantage when you need to, and then you can go back to doing your happy little medium otherwise. Yeah, I love it. I love it. That is a benefit, I guess, of our alumni program is that you still have access to me and we can go through and troubleshoot all those things forever more if you want to hang around forever more.

[00:21:59] Meredith: Well, and I do actually like to go back to the old sessions for me and listen to him again. And I actually have my notes, you know, I have the same notebook, but I have my notes from when I listened to it the 1st time. Either I'll catch different things or sometimes it's just, I've forgotten because I've been focusing, you know, so for me, the big area to focus, had been more on, training nutrition or certain aspects of it.

[00:22:24] Meredith: Because you can't do everything, or at least I can't do everything all at once. And so I go back and then I can maybe pick up something that I just haven't had the ability to also do At this time,

[00:22:37] Taryn: Yeah, I love that. I love that we're constantly learning because you're right, you go through something a second pass and you, once you've got the foundational knowledge and understanding and you've practiced and dabbled with a lot of things, you go through something again, just something simple like recovery nutrition, which we cover first and you're like, Oh my God, I didn't hear that the first time, or I had no capacity to absorb it the first time.

[00:22:57] Taryn: And now I can layer that into my nutrition so that we're always, tweaking and evolving and get getting better, which is so cool. So cool.

[00:23:06] Meredith: well, in the first phase, there's so much information and so quickly that I'm amazed I retained even a fraction of it because there's a lot that came at me at that time and too many things for, for me to figure out how to do everything. I mean, you try, but you can only continue focusing on so much at a time.

[00:23:31] Taryn: And that first phase where we cover your day to day nutrition is what people want to skip. I have get so many requests to skip that and move on to phase three. And I'm like, no, hang on a minute. You have to do this work because you need to build your solid nutrition foundation from the base up. And I think it's really good for people to hear that, that there's a lot.

[00:23:50] Taryn: That goes into that even though people think it's boring and it's not so sexy but it's those small little things compounded over time that will have the biggest impact on your performance long term.

[00:24:00] Meredith: Well, I guess I hadn't really thought about people wanting to skip that portion, but as I sit here, my focus had been on just race day. So I probably would have been fine. Had I not known just meeting, with you and getting a race day plan and thinking that that was all I needed and it was only after, we started talking about the, you know, other aspects that I realized how much more work I actually needed on that, as opposed to the race day plan itself.

[00:24:29] Taryn: Yeah, I know. All triathletes build their pyramid from the tip backwards. We're gonna flip it on its head. We're baking our cake the right Okay.

[00:24:39] Meredith: being the 4th discipline, but you're thinking of the day, the day of, and I think Many people, or at least myself, did not think about nutrition like day in, day out other than I probably thought about trying to eat healthy, eat balanced diet, that type of nutrition, but I wasn't really fueling for training.

[00:25:03] Taryn: Yep. And there's a lot of people in that boat. You're not alone. Don't feel bad. It's okay. Majority of triathletes are in that same boat. And it is, you know, buy a 20, 000 bike and get all the carbon fiber things that you can for the race to go as fast as possible, but then have no idea how to eat for the training to survive that lead in for that race.

[00:25:24] Taryn: Yep, I'm glad that, you know, you have salads for lunch some days and you really enjoy those and they're massive big ass salads. And then other days, you know how to feel yourself for the work required to, you know, survive a six hour bike and then back up and do a long run the next day. You've come a long way.

[00:25:38] Taryn: I'm so proud of you.

[00:25:40] Meredith: Well, thank you.

[00:25:43] Taryn: So the program is an investment and you've come all the way out the other side now and are actually in our alumni program. Is there any advice you would give for somebody that's struggling with the investment in time and also financially to work on their nutrition, to stop and actually do the work for nine months with us.

[00:26:00] Meredith: Well, I will say I struggled with it myself. And I kept thinking In advance, you know, is it really worth it? So I did actually talk to a couple of people also who had been through the program and. you know, you mentioned it being a year long. It needs to be a year long because there is a lot to it.

[00:26:16] Meredith: And it's not just a race day plan. It's not just thinking about that 1 day, but all the training that goes into it. And for me, I think my only regret is that I didn't do it earlier because I had been thinking that all I really needed was, fuel on race day. And so, you know, you read about how to fuel race day, you might read articles and there's information related to that, but there's not really a other place that I've found good, comprehensive, overarching, like, day in, day out.

[00:26:56] Meredith: And. The other thing that was helpful for me was that you also learn what you need to do and kind of why. So it helps you make better choices. Day in day out, and almost figure out how to troubleshoot sometimes what you need to do rather than just saying, okay, this day. I need to eat this, but you could sort of figure it out yourself with the information that you kind of provide over the year long period.

[00:27:26] Taryn: I love the expression, give a man a fishy, he eats for a day, but teach a man to fish and he eats for life. And that's my philosophy with the program. It's 16 years of practice and education bundled up into a neat little nine month package teach you everything that I know so that you can troubleshoot.

[00:27:43] Taryn: We just talked to Chris on his Ironman Kalmar race debrief in our alumni power hour session, and he knew and had the ability to troubleshoot his Ironman race plan on the day. Like that is so much more valuable than people give. that credit for, because if I write somebody a plan or you pull a plan off the internet, you follow it and you have no idea if it's going to be right or if it's going to work for you or how to know if it's working for you.

[00:28:09] Taryn: And that's one of the, I think the values in understanding how to do things for yourself is that you can go, Oh, hang on a minute. This doesn't feel good. I know how to fix this though. I can troubleshoot and I can get out of this hole. Ha

[00:28:21] Meredith: thing that you have changed on how I have my bike set up is I do always have a bottle of plain water 

[00:28:28] Taryn: shhh, ha ha ha ha

[00:28:32] Meredith: I never did that before. And despite the fact that I did have some races where I did not want my, Gatorade drink, but that's all I had. It just never occurred to me to do anything different differently than I was doing it.

[00:28:46] Taryn: I know it's crazy. It's because there's also some companies out there saying our product is the only thing you need. And that's also quite confusing for people. So you need to educate yourself so that you can understand what you actually need and how you're going to build that. Because there's no, one right product for everyone.

[00:29:01] Taryn: Meredith uses Gatorade. I'm actually going to do an episode with a bunch of our athletes on the products that they use to show you that I'm not saying you have to use this product, it's about figuring out what product you like and what works best for you as well rather than just everyone use the same shit because we're all different people.

[00:29:18] Taryn: We have different preferences, we have different tastes, we have different needs. So you need to, yeah, understand what you need and figure out those sorts of things that work best for you too. All 

[00:29:28] Meredith: then I know for myself, I can also get sick of something after a while, but I need to change.

[00:29:34] Taryn: Yes. The number of people that tell me they've done an Ironman and they can't have this one thing anymore because they overdosed on it in training and then they're like, I'm done, I'm never eating this again.

[00:29:43] Taryn: I'm like, yep. That is real. That's a real problem.

[00:29:47] Meredith: Absolutely.

[00:29:48] Taryn: All right, Meredith, thank you so much for joining me and sharing your story. I wanted you to come on and just explain how your triathlon nutrition journey, because there are a lot of people that are in the same camp as you, you know, healthy eaters and no appetite and understanding how to eat for triathlon is a completely different beast, which is great.

[00:30:10] Taryn: It's always a work in progress. But yeah, I'm really excited to see how you go at Ironman World Champs in Nice, coming up shortly. And then hopefully we'll see you at Sunny Coast 70. 3 next year. 

[00:30:23] Meredith: Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:30:25] Taryn: is that commitment? Was that a commitment just now? 

[00:30:28] Meredith: think it is.

[00:30:29] Taryn: Hey! Everyone's going to have major FOMO, I think, and we're going to have the biggest cohort come and join us down under.

[00:30:37] Meredith: Kelly had been talking to me about this year and I had been contemplating it until the world championship came up. And then I told him, well, I kind of, I had other plans. I couldn't, I 

[00:30:46] Taryn: yeah. yeah. Sunny Coast, Ironman World Champs. I don't know which one's better.

[00:30:52] Meredith: But if there's a year two, well then, it seems like we have to make it.

[00:30:57] Taryn: It's definitely a year two. So, add that to your race plan for 2025.

[00:31:03] Meredith: Sounds good. It's on there.

[00:31:04] Taryn: All right. You heard it here first, people. Meredith is coming. Woo! 

 

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!