TriDot Podcast .143

LegalGains: Charging Up With Caffeine

Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and geneticprofile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence tooptimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewerinjuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talkall things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join theconversation and let’s improve together.

 

AndrewHarley: Hey folks! Welcome to the show. If you are oneof our faithful listeners and you have never done so, we would love to have youleave us a rating and review on the Apple Podcast App. Why Apple? A largemajority of podcast listeners use that platform to consume their podcasts andfresh ratings and reviews help our show find the ears of new listeners. Thanksyou guys. Love you all. Very cool show today. We’re talking about caffeine.It’s pretty widely known that caffeine can give us a mental and physicalperformance boost, but what’s less widely known are the best practices forgetting the most out of our caffeine intake. So today, that’s what we’ll belearning about from our experts. Here to enlighten us on all things caffeine isAndy Blow from Precision Fuel and Hydration. Andy is a sports scientist with adegree in sports and exercise science from the University of Bath. An expert insweat, dehydration and cramping, Andy has worked with multiple Formula 1Racing, NBA, NBL, MLB and Premier League sports teams, as well as manyprofessional triathletes. An elite level triathlete in his younger days, Andyhas finished in the top ten of Ironman events, as well as winning an XterraWorld title. Andy, are you ready to talk about caffeine today?

 

AndyBlow: 100% ready and caffeinated.

 

Andrew:Yes sir. It is morning in Dallas. It is afternoon inthe UK. We are both drinking coffee right now. Andy, tell the people what yourcoffee mug says.

 

Andy: It says “Coffee should be dope.”

 

Andrew:And yes it shall. Yes, it shall be dope. Also joiningus is TriDot’s VP of Marketing, Matt Bach. Matt is an accomplished athlete withan Ironman Maryland victory, and 77nd overall finish in Kona on his résumé. Heworked on Wall Street as a trader and portfolio manager for nine years, earnedhis MBA from Temple University, worked in marketing at UCAN for two and a halfyears before coming on board to lead TriDot’s marketing efforts. Matt, welcomeback to the show for the caffeine episode.

 

MattBach: Hey thanks! I’m excited. I’m passionate aboutcaffeine and this is my first episode recording with Andy so I’m excited aboutthat and I’ll definitely be leaning on Andy and his expertise as the residentsports scientist here for all of your knowledge of the research and theliterature and the science on caffeine. I’ll provide some anecdotal evidence.

 

Andrew:Yes you will. I'm Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voiceof the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always we'll rollthrough our warm up question, settle in for our caffeinated main set topic, andthen wind things down with our cool down.

 

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Warm uptheme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.

 

Andrew:Between the spectators cheering folks on, coachesgiving realtime inside, the emcee hyping everyone up, and the athletesresponding to all of the above there is no shortage of loud, vocalcommunication happening on the multisport race course. The more time you spendat the races, the more opportunity you have to hear some wild stuff shouted outthere on course. So Matt, Andy, for today’s warm up question, what is oneunconventional thing that you’ve overheard, said, or shouted during amultisport event? I’m going to kick this question over your way Andy firstthing. What have you got?

 

Andy: Well, I can’t exactly say what it was because it would probably bequite offensive to the ears…

 

Andrew:Alright.

 

Matt: Family show.

 

Andy: …yeah, it is a family show. But we saw a fantastic sign in St. George bythe roadside which I’m not going to say exactly what it said, but the basicpremise of it was like don’t be a — something or another— and get it done, andget the job done. But the phrasing of it was very direct, very offensive…

 

Andrew:Okay.

 

Andy: …but obviously resonated with someone who was doing that event. We tooka picture of it so I’ll dig out the picture and send it to you guys, becausethe guy— the thing that made it hilarious was, as you know because you werearound, we gave out a lot of Precision Fuel and Hydration hats in St. George.

 

Matt: Yeah.

 

Andy: And the thing that made this particularly resonate was the personholding this incredibly offensive sign was wearing one of our hats.

 

Andrew:Of course they were.

 

Andy: So it was one of the few times we’ve regretted giving out somemerchandise for marketing.

 

Andrew: I did see thosehats everywhere. At the time we are recording and releasing this podcast, weare just about a month or so removed from the Ironman World Championships inSt. George. The 2021 Ironman World Championships in May of 2022 in St. Georgeand for the first time the TriDot team and the Precision Fuel and Hydrationteam got to meet in person face to face. Just publicly, Andy, thanks so much toyour team for coming over. We had, our ambassadors know this, our publicaudience might now, we had an ambassador camp that week so we actually hadabout 70 athletes in St. George just training and hanging out and having a goodtime, spectating the Ironman World Championships and Andy and his team cameover and gave pretty much everyone who wanted one a sweat test and kind of gaveus some more insight and knowledge on how to properly hydrate for our trainingand racing. So valuable time in Utah with the team from Precision and yeah, Iguess you saw a pretty fun sign along the way.

 

Andy: Yeah, so sorry. I realized after I said it that technically that’s notpeople vocalizing out on the course, but it’s just one that came to mind interms of on course communication.

 

Andrew:Yeah, yep.

 

Matt: Just a technicality. It’s all good.

 

Andrew:Yeah, we’ll allow it. We’re real loosey goosey withour warm-up question answer rules here on the TriDot podcast. So good stuffAndy. Can’t wait to see that picture to see exactly what that sign said. MattBach, what do you have for us here?

 

Matt: Yeah, I’ve got a few quick categories and specific examples, one alongthe lines sort of with what Andy just mentioned, on the tough love vein. Youknow, “suck it up buttercup!” People just yelling out things in the tough lovecategory. Another one, threats. So one time I heard, “You finish this time oryou can consider this marriage over.” I’m like wow. Okay.

 

Andrew:There’s a lot going on at home there in thatrelationship. A lot going on.

 

Matt: Yeah, many many questions. And then a funny one. There was a kid on thecourse maybe 5 or 6 years old and he was shouting “Daddy you’re losing! Why arethere so many people beating you?” And the kid is like crying, on the verge oftears. Apparently that kid had a very overly inflated view of how fast theirdad was.

 

Andrew:My story is actually is going to come from St. Georgeas well. So same venue, different race. When I was at St. George for the 70.3World Championship in September of 2021, I was not racing, I was justspectating, cheering on TriDot athletes. We had a lot of TriDotters racing thatparticular event. A lot of TriDot kits out there on course. It was awesome tosee. So kind of late in the day I’m out on the run course just taking picturesof TriDot athletes as I see them going by and there was a coach just screamingat all the athletes running by and she was screaming “Get the tits up! Keepthose tits up! Come on ladies keep your tits up!” And it struck me. I’ve neverheard a coach yelling that. I wasn’t particularly offended by the word “tits”being thrown around, but I was like, “Man, what an odd thing to be verballysaying out loud on course.” But then I realized, I started looking around andthe way Ironman scheduled the swim start that day, all of the men’s age groupswent first and all the female age groups went later in the day. So at this timethat she is screaming this, it was probably you know, 90% of the athletes stillon course were the ladies just because they started later and you know what.Really it was a reminder to those athletes to kind of “I know it’s late in therace, I know it’s hot, but as you’re slogging away keep good posture. Keep theoxygen flowing into your lungs. Keep your chest up and open in your runningstance.” So she was giving good coaching and guess what? Since then on more thanone occasion when I’ve been out running in the heat of the Dallas area and I’mstarting to get tired, I’ve told myself “Harley, get those tits up. Keep thosetits up. Keep the oxygen flowing.” It’s good advice no matter what gender youare. So that’s my story here. I’m curious to hear. I know a lot of ourlisteners, you’ve spent a lot of time on course either as an athlete yourselfor Sherpaing for another tri buddy or just cheering. So I’m curious to hearyour stories. You know, what is something random— maybe it was a sign that yousaw like Andy. Maybe it was something you heard a little kid screaming likeMatt. Maybe it was just something you overheard yourself, but go to the I AMTriDot Facebook group, find our post asking this question, “What is the mostkind of random, miscellaneous thing you’ve heard shouted on the race course”and let us know what your answers are.

 

Mainset theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…

 

PRECISIONHYDRATION: Thrilled to have Andy from Precision Fueland Hydration joining us today. Precision Fuel and Hydration has a range oftools and products to help you personalize your fueling and hydration strategyso that you can perform at your very best. Longtime listeners of the show willknow them as Precision Hydration, but they’ve changed their name to reflect thefact that they have been helping athletes nail both aspects of theirperformance for a long time now. Everyone sweats differently and the amount offuel we require varies depending on factors like the duration and the intensityof our activity. So a one-size-fits-all approach to fuel and hydration justdoes not cut it. Head to PrecisionFuelandHydration.com and use their freeonline sweat test and quick carb calculator to understand your own fluid,electrolyte, and carbohydrate needs during training and racing. From there youcan book a free one-on-one video consultation with their team to just furtherrefine your hydration and fueling strategy for your next race. As a listener ofthe show you can get 10% off your very first order of fueling and hydrationproducts by using the code TRIDOT10 when checking out atPrecisionFuelandHydration.com.

 

Andrew:Move over ice cream! After today’s episode we’ll allbe singing “I scream, you scream, we all scream for caffeine!” Whether it’sthrough consuming soda, tea, coffee, or energy drinks most of us are likelyfamiliar with the stimulating effects of caffeine. Although most famous for itsusage as an early morning pick me up, caffeine can certainly be an addition toyour multi sport fueling strategy as well and here to help us use the rightamounts in the right ways at the right times are Matt and Andy. So Andy, frompurely a biological standpoint, talk us through what caffeine does to oursystem.

 

Andy: Yeah, caffeine is a stimulant.So what it does is it acts upon the brain and the central nervous system and ithas an effect on your focus, your cognitive abilities, potentially sort of yourmotivation and/or anxiety levels and also can have a physiological effect onmuscle recruitment and fatigue in the way it works on the nervous system. Soit, as you say, it’s often thought of as a pick me up and in very broad termsthat is what it does, but it’s specifically in the actions on the nervoussystem and the brain that are of most interest to athletes. With regard toresisting fatigue, people often use caffeine when they’re trying to resistsleep as well. Not quite as commonly with triathlon because I’ve seen mosttriathlon events are done just in a day. But when we get into the realms ofsleep deprivation either through lifestyle or through athletic events that goon for hours and hours then there’s also an effective use for caffeine forstopping you feeling as fatigued when you should be asleep. Because caffeineessentially in that regard binds with the same receptors as adenosine does inthe brain which can cause you to feel sleepy. So it kind of blocks the actionof the compounds that make you feel sleepy. So that’s probably a quick summaryof the parts of the body it affects.

 

Matt: I learned a couple things there, but one extra thing that I want totoss in there is that a lot of people think that caffeine gives you energy, butit’s a nuance there. It actually doesn’t give you energy. It’s not amacronutrient like your fats, proteins, or carbohydrates, but it does sort ofmake you feel like you have energy because it does delay or stop that fatiguefrom coming on in.

 

Andy: Yes, and that’s a reallyimportant point, Matt, because…

 

Andrew:Well done Matt.

 

Andy: No, that is a really good fact because energy drinks are oftendescribed as such when they have caffeine in as opposed to sports drinkscontaining carbohydrate for example. And you’re right, the energy you getthrough energy shots that you can usually buy at the counter in a gas station,they actually don’t contain very many or any calories at all. So technicallythe use of the word energy there is false. They give you the perception ofenergy because what the caffeine does is it either masks fatigue or creates thestimulus that causes you to feel like you’ve got more energy. Because in thebody we know that fatigue is multifactorial and you can actually have localfatigue in muscles say, but you can also have central fatigue and the wholecentral governor theory of fatigue is based around the idea that the brain putsthe brakes on and causes you to feel tired and slows you down in order toprotect itself and potentially one of the uses of caffeine is in the ability tooverride that central governor so it gives you energy when actually in normalcircumstances your brain might be putting the brakes on and reducing the energyto protect itself.

 

Matt: It’s like magic.

 

Andy: Yeah, exactly. It’s tricking you, but not necessarily in a wholly badway if you use it correctly.

 

Andrew:I’m having flashbacks to our podcast episode and Idon’t have the sheet in front of me right here to tell you exactly what episodeit was, but it was the episode called “The Endurance Stamina Misnomer” where weunpacked the fact that for the most part we refer to our community as theendurance sport community. We’re really not endurance athletes, most of us arestamina athletes just by definition of endurance and stamina. I found out onthat episode that the way we’re using endurance to refer to ourselves asendurance athletes is totally a sham and totally wrong and totally backwards adnow on this episode I’m finding out that the entire energy drink sector is amisnomer and they’ve mislabeled our products and I’m up in arms. I’m just goingto start like tipping over Monster energy drink displays in grocery stores now.This is all a lie! This isn’t giving you energy! Anyway, so between coffee,soda, tea, caffeine, energy drinks that are labeled as energy drinks, caffeineseems to be a pretty universal language. How much of the world uses caffeine insome capacity?

 

Andy: From what I looked into on this, and there’s a really good book whichI would say if anyone is interested— clearly if people are listening to thisand they’ve gotten this far they’re pretty interested in the subject ofcaffeine— then Michael Pollen has done a really good book all about caffeineand how it’s used and I believe that the statistic that’s often thrown aroundis in excess of 90% of adults in the world probably use caffeine in some way oranother. So whatever that number is though, it’s a really really high amount.You know that if you’ve ever been to an airport at 5:30 a.m.

 

Andrew:Yeah.

 

Andy: There’s like a line up for…

 

Andrew:At the coffee shop. Yeah.

 

Andy: …it’s like literally like around the entire airport terminal. No one iscuing for anything else. But yeah 90% of the adults in there are cuing up fortheir morning fix because these are people who wouldn’t  normally stand in line that long, but at thattime in the morning to get their caffeine, they’re going to stand in that line.

 

Matt: A lot of the coffee shops open up before Ironman at like 3 in themorning so that everyone can get their fix; athletes and spectators alike.

 

Andy: Exactly. Yeah.

 

Matt: In line with what you mentioned, the US Food and Drug Administration,the FDA, roughly says roughly 80% of US adults consume caffeine everyday insome form or another whether it be coffee which is I think the majority there,or chocolate, soda. Neither my wife or I drink coffee actually and so it’s nowonder, we feel like oddballs. Looking at that stat, I mean, we are.

 

Andrew:What a weirdo!

 

Matt: We are oddballs. We are a minority.

 

Andy: Definitely in the minority with that I would say. Although we’ve got 2people in our office of about 20 that don’t, but then we’ve got 18 that handilymake up for it by drinking their share as well.

 

Matt: I’ve got a fun fact for you. Guess which country in the world has thehighest per capita consumption of coffee?

 

Andrew:My guess would be somewhere in Europe. I know it’s notthe states.

 

Andy: I would go with Sweden.

 

Matt: Good guess. It’s somewhere over there in Scandinavia. Finland holds thehighest per capita. It’s by a long shot actually, but the runner up also inScandinavia is Norway.

 

Andy: Yeah.

 

Matt: I think Sweden is also in the top ten. The US isn’t even in the topten.

 

Andy: I’ve noticed that on my trips to Sweden for the Otillo Swim Run WorldCchampionship that the coffee flows all day. All day, all evening. Nothingstops them. They just drink that stuff all day and it’s strong as well.

 

Andrew:Andy, it’s funny talking about 90% of adults largely,somewhere around that number, a very high number, drink coffee in somecapacity, drink caffeine, consume caffeine in some capacity. I think to everyso often on social media I’ll get like ads for companies that are promising toreplace your morning cup of coffee with something that is better and morenutritious and I’m like, I think you’re missing the point and they’re like “Oh,break your caffeine addiction.” I think you’re missing the point of why I likemy morning coffee. I’m not worried about my caffeine addiction. I just like mymorning cup of coffee. I like a warm beverage in the morning and I always kindof get those ads and just shake my head and they’re marketing to the wrongperson because I’m going to keep drinking my caffeine first thing in themorning that’s for sure.

 

Andy: Oh yeah. I saw one parritive recently where it basically said if youreplace your morning coffee with like a glass of hot water with a lemon in ityou can actually reduce the enjoyment of the one thing that probably gives youa little bit of hope in your entire life and I thought that sounds about right.

 

Andrew:So Andy, Matt, for multisport athletes in particular,this is getting into the why should we take caffeine? What does it do for us inour performance? What are the benefits of caffeine specifically for athleticperformance?

 

Andy: When you look at the studies around caffeine that have been done bothin the lab and in the field, they indicate that if it’s dosed correctly and itits used at the right times then there are measurable, small but measurable,performance benefits that endurance athletes in particular or stamina athletesif you want to call them that…

 

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah

 

Andy: …can benefit from in terms of increasing capacity to go harder forlonger. It’s also quite widely shown and quite widely used in team sports andin anaerobic sports as well. So there’s kind of not many athletic instanceswhere– On average, people seem to benefit from the fatigue resisting effects ofthe stimulating effects of caffeine. So it’s one of the few supplements,because there are so many supplements that are marketed to athletes, but so fewthat have any sort of evidence based behind them and caffeine is often quotedas being one of those few that is genuinely ergogenic. We can probably get intothe weeds on that a bit more later on, but the only thing that I would sayabout that is although it’s often quoted to be a proven performance enhancer,it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the same for everybody. There is a definitespectrum or continuum of people that really benefit from caffeine massivelythrough to people who really actually find it a detriment to taking it.Although the majority and the average person would probably find some kind ofsmall benefit rather than a drawback.

 

Matt: Yeah, I’ve seen a noticeable improvement in focus and decrease inperceived effort. As you mentioned with sports, it’s hard to think of a sportthat doesn’t benefit from it because of the fact that sports generally requireyou to be strong with stamina or endurance, anaerobic, focus, cognitiveability. All those things they basically are a common thread among any sportyou can possibly imagine.

 

Andrew:Yeah. True.

 

Matt: It’s amazing the fact that caffeine is out there and can be used as alegal performance enhancing drug. It’s one of those only ones that’s out therethat has been found through the research to be performance enhancing and yet itis legal and it hasn’t always been that way. I think WADA had banned excessivequantities of caffeine for a time there, but it’s one of the only things outthere that’s proven to work, that’s a supplement like that, but is also legal.So I always encourage any of the athletes that I speak with to at leastexperiment with it and try it in their race rehearsals or in a B or a C race tosee if it will benefit them. When I used it for the very first time, it was in2015 which to me is actually kind of surprising and kind of a bummer because Istarted racing back when I was in high school and everything and college thendid some marathons in 2008. So like a long time I had already been competing.Then in triathlon I had been competing at a pretty high level for several yearsalready at that point. I started in 2010 with triathlon and in 2015 was thefirst time I ever used it during a half marathon and I remember I had 200milligrams beforehand. It was a NoDoz brand caffeine tablet that I had beforethe race and even just that, I mean I was very sensitive to that, as Imentioned I don’t drink coffee or have caffeine at all and I think justgenetically I’m sort of sensitive to caffeine. Even just that 200 milligramsbefore the race I was so focused and in tune, perceived effort was lower. I hadthis experience where I ran, I think I was in fourth place overall, and the guyin third, we were shoulder to shoulder. Then he started pulling away from me atmile six or seven and about mile nine or ten he got about 100 yards on me or100 meters on me. And usually when you’re that far behind, I mean once theykind of get any edge on you it’s just kind of over, but right around mile nineor ten I started clawing him back in and was able to catch up to him and goshoulder to shoulder and it wasn’t necessarily because he was slowing down.It’s just I was, something about the caffeine, the focus, the motivation andthe perceived effort was lower than it should have been. I had clawed my way upto him and then in the last quarter mile ended up charging up a hill, rocketingmy heart rate to the highest I had ever seen it recorded. It was 197 on thissteep incline in the last quarter mile and then the steep incline becomes agradual incline all the way to the finish line and my heart rate got up to thisabsolutely astronomically high level especially for a half marathon distance.My average heart rate for the race was 181 and it was a PR for me at the halfmarathon distance. I ended up taking second overall in the race and to me itwas like this mind blowing epiphany moment that caffeine works.

 

Andy: Yeah.

 

Matt: I think my last quarter mile was something like a 68. Never would havebeen able to kick that hard I don’t think if I didn’t have that boost from thecaffeine or that reduction of perceived effort throughout the race.

 

Andy: Yeah, and I was going to ask you, you kind of answered it in the storythere, whether you only use it in races. Because I know you said you don’tdrink coffee, but do you drink tea or sodas with it in or anything or do youreally not have any day to day?

 

Matt: Yeah. I don’t really have any day to day. I don’t drink coffee. Ialmost never drink any sort of soda and not any caffeinated soda and I veryrarely have chocolate either. So I very rarely have caffeine and that’s just bynature. Then once I used it in that first race I just sort of made thatdecision that I would just continue to not have much caffeine in my day to dayroutine because that way when I used it on race day I would continue to havethis sensitive, sort of strong effect on me and I wouldn’t gather up any sortof tolerance, and I think that may be part of the science that maybe you canshare more on that as well.  

 

Andy: Yeah, no. Tolerance is definitely a thing like a lot of drugs orcompounds. If you ingest them regularly the body does build up a level oftolerance and that’s certainly the case with caffeine. There is a lot of debatearound the idea of whether athletes are better off abstaining from caffeine inthe buildup to a race so that you can feel more of a kick from it as youdescribed on race day or whether it’s better to maintain a normal routine. Ithink the jury is out on that somewhat. There are some strong advocates forboth sides, but one of the reasons why— That used to be advocated quite a lotand I think it’s become less popular is the fact that if you are habituated tousing caffeine every day and if you withdraw from it the last say ten days beforea race, that can genuinely affect your productivity, your mood, your focus andall of the things that it normally helps with. If the negatives of goingthrough that kind of withdrawal process outweigh the small potential benefit itgives you in enhanced performance on the day, then a lot of people don’tconsider it to be worth it.

 

Matt: I think if I was a regular, habitual caffeine consumer, I don’t thinkI would go through the withdrawal because from what I hear it’s kind ofmiserable. The headaches—

 

Andy: I definitely used to do it in the buildup to some Ironman races andstuff and it was a real effort it became a real— I was drinking decaf because Ikind of still wanted the smell of it and this kind of thing and yet it sort ofobviously does feel a bit like being cheated because you— It was prettymiserable and so what I tend to do now is if I was racing seriously I wouldtaper my caffeine usage a little bit, but I would still basically consume it ata level close to what I normally do and again, then go into my sort ofprecaffeination or caffeination routine for the race, whatever that is based onthe distance and intensity and stuff.

 

Andrew:The other thing I’m wondering just from hearing youguys talk back and forth. Matt, since you don’t really use coffee day to day, Iwork with Matt quite a bit. Matt just by default is our vice president ofmarketing and he is the media producer. Matt and I are often on and off callsduring the day just working on different projects and I’m wondering, would MattBach be more effective? Would his performance in the office place besupercharged by having a shot of caffeine from time to time when he’s workingon something important?

 

Andy: It’s an interesting question because in that Michael Pollen book that Imentioned, there’s a whole section on productivity at work and the theory ofthe coffee break is that it was kind of developed in industrial times becausethey genuinely found that if they gave workers a 15 minute break and they gavethem free coffee, then low and behold when they came back to pedaling theirsewing machines or whatever they were doing, productivity level was measurablyimproved. Because the theory goes that these factory owners or whoever weremaking the rules weren’t necessarily all that concerned about the well-being oftheir people. They weren’t giving them a coffee break to be nice to them. Theyjust figured out that if you gave them 15 minutes off and gave them free coffeethen you got more out of them in the afternoon…

 

Matt: Sure.

 

Andy: …rather than just making them work through and get progressivelytired. So maybe you could try it with Matt.

 

Matt: Absolutely possible.

 

Andrew: Andy, you’ll have to try our friends, another great podcast sponsorfor us, DeltaG. They have ketone products and one of their products that isprobably my favorite in their entire lineup is their coffee booster and that’show they market it. It’s the DeltaG Coffee Booster and just one teaspoon ofthat ketone ester in a cup of coffee what they found in their research is thatthe ketones have a magnifying effect on the effect of the caffeine and sowhatever caffeine content is in that cup of coffee or in that cup of tea or inthat soda you’re drinking, it’s just multiplied by the presence of the esterbeing in there as well. So the two go hand in hand. If I have a busy day or abig day I definitely make sure I put a teaspoon of that in my first cup ofcoffee and the rest of my cups I drink regular. But Andy, you’ll have to givethat a try and see if you find that’s the case for you. I feel like if we didthat for Matt it would just throw Matt bouncing off the walls based on whatwe’re finding out about Matt today. But just to steer our conversation back toperformance, a lot of good organic conversation here, but I know a lot of folksare wondering— there’s folks like Matt who just aren’t by default caffeineusers who do use it on race day, there’s folks that know they get along wellwith caffeine. As you alluded to, Andy, there’s all ends of the spectrum. So isthis one of those things that every triathlete should be using? Should all ofus be using caffeine in our performance or is it for certain people and how dowe know which one we are?

 

Andy: Yeah, that’s the right question to start with. It’s not how muchcaffeine should I use, but am I someone who might benefit from using caffeine?I think the first thing to say is the vast majority of people probably willbenefit from taking caffeine. We’ve asked people and gathered some informationon our website around this particular question to get people started andcreated this kind of Venn diagram with three parts to it where it’s like: Doyou use caffeine already on a daily basis, have you ever suffered any adverseeffects like anxiety, jitters, overstimulation from using caffeine, and haveyou ever used it in races or events with success? If the answer to those threequestions is essentially like yes I have it daily, I’ve used it in races before,and I’ve not suffered with the side effects, then it’s a slam dunk thatcaffeine is something to continue or incorporate in your race plan. I thinkthen you get into the gray area of Iike, well two of those statements apply tome and then probably using caffeine and experimenting around using it. But whenyou answer one or zero of those things it’s a bit more borderline as to whetheryou would want to use caffeine in the first place. There are also, as you know,some kind of genetic tests and things that can indicate whether you’re likelyto have the genotype that metabolizes caffeine fast or slow, but I always thinkthat given caffeine is so ubiquitous, most people have a level first ofexperience with it. A great place to fall back on is just that kind of feeling.When you work in an office or you work in an environment with people you get afeel for if you are one of those people who can and does hit the coffee machinea lot or only a little bit. Because I would say from my own perspective ofthis, I’m definitely an avid caffeine user and a daily caffeine user, but onthe lower to moderate end of the spectrum. Like I sit there and it makes menervous looking at how many times my colleagues use the coffee machine. Notjust because I’m paying for the beans either.

 

Andrew:Yeah.

 

Andy: But just because I know that if I was having coffees at three and fourin the afternoon and that’s cup five of the day, I would feel lousy. And I’vedone it very occasionally when I’m abroad and I’m jet lagged or something justto try and get through those first few horrid days of jet lag. It makes me feellousy and other people, Aly, I’ll name check him. He’s one of over developersand great dude, can drink coffee like literally all day long, happily with noside effects. He’s like a heavy caffeine, or seems to have the ability to usecaffeine. Dave, who you know now, our marketing director. Dave, almost neverused caffeine or drank coffee and then he started hanging out with us. He cameto a coffee shop in Los Angeles once when we were jet lagged and had a verystrong coffee and nearly blew his head off. It nearly killed him. But sincehaving like two small children, business has gotten bigger, Dave is someonelike me who does probably use a bit of caffeine at times. So I think that’s avery long winded answer to your question. I think you’ve got to feel your wayinto— it’s assessing the likelihood of whether it would apply to you and thenif it does, if you think I’m someone who can tolerate caffeine day to day, I’veused it in a race before, or even if not I feel like when I have a coffee andgo training everything’s fine, and I’ve never really had those sort of jittersor nervousness or anxiety around having it. Then if all of that lines up thenit’s probably sensible to then look into well then how do I strategically useit in a race.

 

Andrew:Yeah, so what maybe is that protocol for testingcaffeine in our training so that we can find out 1) if we should be using it atall and 2) how much should we be using to positively affect our performance?

 

Andy: Yeah, so in terms of dosages, dosages for caffeine are often expressedin milligrams per unit of body weight. So milligrams of caffeine per— and I’llrefer— I know you guys won’t like this, but I’ll refer to milligrams per kilobecause they stick in my head really well.

 

Andrew:Do it. Go for it. Yeah. We’ll manage.

 

Andy: Basically 3 to 6 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight isthe sort of performance orientated ballpark. There seems to be diminishingreturns and potentially worsening side effects when you go far above that upperlimit of 6 and you just don’t appear to get much of a benefit or as much of abenefit below 3. So that kind of window of 3 to 6 milligrams per kilo. Butcaffeine is a difficult one to get your head around because it’s not like saycarbohydrate where it’s just like you need to take this much per hour based onrate because caffeine is a bit like alcohol in the way it behaves in the sensethat you ingest it, it makes its way into the bloodstream at which point it candiffuse out to the body’s tissues and reach the brain and nervous system andhave it’s effect. But it decays relatively slowly. So you have this thingcalled a half-life of caffeine which is really where the time it takes for 50%of the effect to have decayed and caffeine takes about 15 minutes to hit yourbloodstream after you’ve taken it, but it will probably continue to grow inlevels and peak for another 30 or 40 minutes.

 

Andrew:Oh wow.

 

Andy: It could be close to an hour before— So you have a cup of coffee, youfeel a little bit after 15 minutes, but then you still may not reach peakcaffeination in your blood until 45 minutes after you’ve finished that drink.So when you’re caffeinating before an event, quite often you want to do it abit earlier than people think because if it’s a short event, you’re going towant caffeine to be peaking around the start. So for example, if you’re goingto run a 5K, you probably want to be taking the caffeine hit that you needaround about 45 minutes before the start or something like that.

 

Andrew:Wow.

 

Andy: Obviously in a longer race like an Ironman it doesn’t matter as muchbecause if you take a caffeine gel 15 minutes before the start, it will bepeaking in your bloodstream late on in the swim which might also be quitegoodband then it’s going to decay slowly over a number of hours. And theaverage time it takes for the half-life of caffeine to kick in is about fivehours, four or five hours. But the key word there is the average and for somepeople it might be two or three hours, for other people it might be six orseven hours. That’s where knowing your body a little bit, how you respond isquite important. If it’s not an over complication at this point it tends to bethe people that metabolize caffeine fast are those who have a shorter half lifeare those that seem to get the most benefit from it.

 

Andrew:Matt, when you were racing Ironman, what was your kindof personal protocol and timing for how much caffeine you took on course?

 

Matt: Yeah as you were talking Andy with the recommendations with the 3 to 6milligrams per kilogram, I’m about 70 kilograms with the calculation which isabout 154 pounds and if you use the low end there that’s 210 milligrams and ifyou use the high end that would be like double that so 420 milligrams. So I waskind of doing all the math there to kind of put into perspective how much Iactually used that I found to be effective and I typically would have somethinglike 200 milligrams before the race, about 45 minutes before which jivesperfectly with what you were saying with kind of that peak. Then 200 mg when Iwas on the bike, early on in the bike, and then 200 mg later on in the bikethen 100 mg about midway through the run. So about 700 mg over the course of— Imean that’s an Ironman so that’s 9-ish, 10 hours for me. So I’m kind of in linewith what you’re talking about. I think probably if I had to guess, probably onthe lower end of what most people would take to find effective.

 

Andy: Yeah, I think it varies a lot too Matt to be honest with you. Whatyou’ve described there, some people see that as a quite aggressive regimen ofcaffeine for them. Other people would be doing considerably more. What we’venoticed in the case studies that we’ve pulled together that you guys have seenand other things, is there is quite a lot of individual variability in caffeineuse with obviously the low end being like close to zero or in fact zerocaffeine use with some people right up to way over 6 milligrams per kilo bodyweight with other people. But long races you also get this kind of confoundingfactor where if you are a relatively quick metabolized, let's say the caffeinehalf-life is about three or four hours for you, it means that after six or eighthours the first doses are gone completely. So the caffeine that you took beforethe race is defunked by the time you’re starting the marathon almost in thatcase. That’s why your strategy of topping up throughout with these infrequentdoses to keep levels high. I don’t know if this is a great analogy, but I’veused it before and you guys tell me whether it makes sense to you.

 

Andrew:Sure.

 

Andy: If you imagine, this is a bit like going to a bar and drinking andgoing out with your mates for a long evening of drinking, what you don’t wantto do is like get really, really drunk in the first hour, but you want to havefun and just have a few drinks and stay nicely drunk for several hours. Well,that involves like drinking a little bit then maybe having a bit. It doesn’tinvolve having ten shots at the start of the night and then it all hits you atonce and you peak and go home too early. With caffeine it’s kind of a similarthing. I think you want to have a bit to start with, get the effects going, andthen it’s a case of topping it up at a rate that appears to match the rate ofdecay so that you’re keeping the effects on for the time. Does that vaguelymake sense?

 

Matt: Yeah, it does for sure and I’m thinking of those times when somebodyshows up late to a party and they’re like, “Oh, I’ve got to catch up.” Thenthey slam like four shots then just like you said, they’re tapped out like twohours later.

 

Andy: And that Matt, that is a great example of the guy or girl who is likestruggling in the marathon on the Ironman and then smashes four caffeine gelsbecause there’s a level of desperation that kicks in and like the person thatturns up late to the party and just chugs a yard horrible spirits or somethingand then wonders why they end up on their back. It’s a similar  thing. You don’t want to be taking, I don’tthink, too much in too concentrated doses. For most people it’s about drippingit in and feeling out what is that appropriate dosage. I think using thoseguidelines, kind of that 3 to 6 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, seeinghow you respond to it starting on the lower end. I suppose this is probably agood point to talk about an actual routine. You’ve talked about your actualroutine. My actual race day routine for a morning race is usually get up, havemy breakfast, and have one or two relatively strong cups of coffee with thatbecause that is part of my normal breakfast routine. And that’s probably goingto be anywhere between 75 and 125 milligrams of caffeine per cup. So if you goat the higher end I might have 250 milligrams at that point or on the lower endit might be 150. But that kind of gets me setup and that’s probably 90 minutes,2 hours before the average race. I’ll then top that up with one or two caffeinegels in the last 15 - 20 minutes before the start. So knowing that the caffeinehas peaked with me already, but then I’m putting another decent dose in whichwould then carry me into the first couple hours of the race. Then because mostof the races that I do now are relatively shorter, that’s probably all I’mgoing to do. I might have a caffeinated gel or something mid way through therace if it’s a long one; if it was say a few hours, but in general that’s kindof a routine and I’ve just honed that over quite a few years of figuring out.That feels to me about right. I will actually, based on that experience Italked about with the duathlon, I will almost certainly dial that down a littlebit if I was particularly nervous before a race. Like if it’s a big racebecause I know that adding a little bit more stimulation and something which isgoing to induce a bit more anxiety is not helpful in those circumstances– Anexample of that would be the Otillo World Championships, the swim run thing,although it’s called the world championships, I’m not there to win it, but I’mtrying to do my best and I get a bit more hyped before that because it’s goingto be nine hours long and I’m a bit more nervous. So I’ll probably ease off onthe pre caffeine, but then hit the caffeine in the race a little bit harderonce I’m going in my rhythm and feeling good and then I don’t get the anxietyor the stress with it. Because you know what it feels like once the race isunderway, the psychology of it all changes.

 

Andrew: So we’ve heard quite a bit about just the way each of you have usedcaffeine in your own race flows and I think within that there’s just a lot ofactionable tips and items that we as athletes can kind of take into our ownrace flow and how we want to try using caffeine on race day. But Andy, arethere any more just kind of in your time working with different athletes,working with the pros that are racing and using Precision Fuel and Hydrationproducts, what are the other kind of best practices that you have foundspecifically for making the most of our caffeine usage on race day?

 

Andy: Can I slightly flip that around and say there’s probably three bigmistakes that people make I would say with caffeine and these are the ones toavoid just as a starter.

 

Andrew: Sure.

 

Andy: The first one would be– the first mistake would be, slightly coveredit already, but OD’ing on caffeine before the race on the belief that more willbe better. The second one is not knowing the correct dosage for your bodyweight or the correct range of dosage for your body weight. So you’re shootingin the dark when it comes to starting to incorporate it. The third one and thisis the most common one is using caffeine way too late in the race. Actually notappreciating that 45 minutes to an hour, if you’ve got a hard section of therace that you’ve forecasted coming up, banging a caffeine gel five minutesbefore it is not going to help you. You might feel a boost from the sugars inthe gel if you’re low on cabs, but you won’t feel the effects of the caffeine.If you have a lot–I’ve seen many people do this in marathons. They’ll savetheir caffeine gel for mile 20. So actually where that’s going to help you islike staying awake at the after party, not in the race. So you’ve got to sortof think about not OD’ing the dosage. If you decide all of a sudden caffeine’sfor me– I always say to people, if you decide that you’re going to usecaffeine, you wouldn’t put 250 PSI in your tires just on race day just becausenormally you ride them at 120. It’s not going to be great to just double yourcaffeine on race morning because of all those things we’ve already talkedabout. Like understand the numbers then of what you’re going to hit and starthitting them relatively early on in the race or depending on the length of therace and the aims, hit them at strategic points, not assuming what this isgoing to do is help you get through the painful last hour. It’s only going todo that if you take it two hours out. So think about the timing aspect of itand I think when we see athletes getting it right, they’re doing all of thosethings. They’ve carefully calibrated with trial and error their pre caffeinelevels and got that right. They have an appreciation for how much they need touse during the race and then they take it early enough that the effects cankick in when they’re required rather than too late and too close to the end

 

Andrew: So I’m proud of myself in the sense that just before even learning allthis today I feel like I mostly was using caffeine correctly. I would kind oftake my morning cup the way I normally would. Before a race I would take acaffeinated product a little bit before a race would start and then I wouldkind of drip it in throughout the race in addition to the normal carbohydratethat I’m taking in. But I have always, Andy, been guilty of one of the thingsyou said and I always save that last caffeine gel for way too late in the racethinking oh this is going to help me in that final mile push, that final twomiles in a 70.3 and I save it and now I will know to take that finalcaffeinated gel well before that finishing stretch because it’s 45 minutes beforethe effect of that caffeine even peaks in my system and then it begins to losesteam. So I will now be taking that last caffeinated gel earlier. I do want toask this, Andy, because I know there’s a lot of–there’s concerns that caffeinecan be addictive, there’s concerns that you can use too much or that you caneven use so much that it loses its effectiveness in your system. Talk to usabout these concerns with caffeine usage. Are these fears grounded in realityor are they mostly just caffeinated myths.

 

Andy: I think they are all valid to a large extent in that a lot of people,myself included, would if you really asked yourself in the cold light of day“Is your caffeine usage, does it have the hallmarks of an addiction?” Itprobably is true that it does because you will suffer withdrawal if it’s takenaway. It will affect your mood. I was saying it jovially earlier, but when yougo to the airport first thing in the morning, those people are cueing up inline for a drug there, effectively.

 

Andrew:Yeah.

 

Andy: So there is that. We have all decided that the benefits of caffeineoutweigh–there is quite a lot of evidence that moderate use brings with itdescent health benefits. It certainly feels like it brings like physical andproductivity benefits. So like anything though, if you over use it or if it isused to excess then clearly there can be issues. But I don’t think those issuesare sort of massively overblown. I think the bigger issue is in the sportsperformance context not understanding how much to use and then inadvertentlyoverdosing acutely. There is a risk of OD’ing it. It’s an individual risk basedon your tolerance and habituation to it and so just be mindful of that andcertainly don’t go into it thinking that just because we’re basically promotingthis message that caffeine is potentially beneficial for athletic performancethat more is going to be better.

 

Andrew:Well and Andy, I love that it falls in line with theethos of Precision Fuel and Hydration and that’s know your numbers.

 

Andy: Yeah.

 

Andrew: You know, know your numbers for the electrolyte intake you need perhour. Know your numbers for the carbohydrate intake you need per hour and knowyour body weight and your numbers of the caffeine intake you need and at whattimes you need that caffeine. If you know that, you’re not going to be at arisk of OD’ing on caffeine out on the race course or in your training.

 

Matt: You’ve got the hydration calculator, the sodium calculator. You’ve gotthe quick carb calculator. Maybe you’re going to have to put out a caffeinecalculator now.

 

Andy: Wow. Yeah, maybe you’re reading our minds Matt. We’ll see.

 

Andrew: So Andy, I’ve always been a big fan of the caffeinated gel eventhough, like I said, previously I wasn’t necessarily using it absolutelycorrectly. I would save the last caffeinated gel until too late in the race.I’ve learned the error of my ways thanks to this conversation. But Andy, I wasamped when you first told us that Precision Fuel and Hydration was working on acaffeinated gel and so that product is now on the market. I’m excited to workit into my own fueling strategy. Andy, what was the development process likeadding caffeine to the product line?

 

Andy: The main thing, the main challenge to overcome with adding caffeine toa product is it will usually quite negatively affect the taste. So we were– andlots of caffeine gels, you'll know because you’ll have used them, are quitestrong flavors. They tend to be like chocolate flavors or mocha flavors orcoffee flavors and that kind of thing and we really wanted to try to stick withthis idea of a neutral flavor. So we had to try a few different dosages, a fewdifferent suppliers of this raw caffeine additives in order to get a gel whichhopefully tastes almost indis– if I can say the word– indistinguishable fromour sort of like plain energy gel. Because as you know, a big feature of ourproducts is to make them really palatable when you’ve got to take a lot of themover a long period of time and we definitely didn’t want to put a strong flavorin with the caffeine and I think hopefully where we got to– I’ve certainly useda few in recent races and had to actually look at the packet to see, ok is thisa caffeinated one or not, because just by taste I couldn’t really tell. So Ihope that that’s the common perception and that was one of the– genuinely wasone of the biggest challenges. Once we had overcome that it was really then wehad a lot of discussions in the office as to is it better to have 50 milligramsof caffeine in a gel and get people to sort of take more than if they needed ahigher dose or is 100 milligrams more appropriate so you would take fewer tohave the same overall dose and in the end we decided that it was probablylogistically easier to put a little bit more caffeine in, make it 100 gramswhich is a pretty solid dose for anyone and then you can take less of them overthe course of a race and weave less of them into your regime. So I know what alot of people will do, for example, is if they happen to pick up the regularenergy gels on course in a race that they have the particular caffeine dosesthey could just take two, three, four of these with them, pick up regularenergy gels for their carbohydrates, but they don’t have to carry tencaffeinated gels to hit their caffeine dose basically.

 

Andrew: I could even see myself out on a race course, on the run coursecarrying the PF90 gel that you have and then having one of the caffeinated oneson me to strategically take at the right time. So Andy, my final question herebefore we land the plane on the main set and move into the cool down, is whiledeveloping these caffeine products did you or any other members of the team hittoo many product samples at once and get a little hyper in the office?

 

Andy: That is an occupational hazard in our office when we’re testing newproducts. We were pretty disciplined with these ones actually and we did, wealso farmed a lot of our samples out to some of the UK-based ambassadorathletes that we work with so we had Piere who is a marathon runner. He used afew of them quite effectively in the Manchester Marathon and we put them outthere and got a lot of feedback. I think probably the PB for like gel tastingin the office is around like four or five in a day which definitely leaves youfeeling quite carbed…

 

Andrew: Oh yeah.

 

Andy: …and out, but it was just a case of needs must be done some days.Because when we go to get feedback in from the tastes we’ve got to get feedbackin.

 

Cooldown theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.

 

Andrew: Episode 129 of the podcast was called “Examining Athlete Case Studiesfor Nutrition Insights.” On that episode, Andy Blow and Abby Coleman fromPrecision Fuel and Hydration taught us how they analyze the fueling strategiesof athletes during race efforts in order for us to learn what works and whatdoesn’t work. On their website, precisionfandh.com there is an entire sectionwith case studies they have conducted with pro and amature  athletes alike, myself included. Now Andy,back when we recorded that episode a question that I asked was of all the casestudies, besides my own Ironman Waco case study of course, what was a great onefor our triathlete audience to look at and Abby specifically mentioned LeonChevalier, a male pro from France who you guys are working with. At the time wewere recording and releasing this podcast, Leon just placed sixth overall atthe Ironman World Championships in St. George, Utah. You were there. We werethere. It was a great day for racing and Ironman there in St. George. Andy,tell us about Leon’s race and more specifically, how he fueled thatbreakthrough sixth place performance.

 

Andy: Yeah. So Leon did a fantastic job in St. George and it was kind of thecombination of quite a few months of work, quite a few races where he iteratedhis plan and the headline numbers for him coming in sixth at the WorldChampionships were that he consumed an average of 90 grams of carbohydrate perhour.

 

Andrew: Wow.

 

Andy: When we were doing the maths on that we wanted to double check thatwas right because the recommendation for him to take was 90 grams and wethought surely the guy kind of aced it and got it exactly 90 grams. But we ranand reran the numbers and sure enough he did manage to hit exactly 90 grams anhour.

 

Andrew: Impressive.

 

Andy: He took in about 720 milligrams of sodium per hour which is a decentamount as well alongside 892 milliliters. So just a little bit less than oneliter or about 32 ounces of fluid per hour in those hot, dry conditions. So therelative sodium concentration of what he was drinking was about 808 milligramsper liter and he actually also took in 521 milligrams of caffeine during thatrace and he did that through a combination of– well predominantly throughcaffeine gels actually dripped in throughout the course of the race includingone that he took about ten minutes before the start. So Leon not only executeda great race in terms of tactics and tenacity because that was a fast race asyou know. There were times when he was stretched pretty hard, but he did manageto really hit his numbers very, very accurately and I believe his run splitwas– I’m going to make sure I get  thisright– like 2:46 I think at the end of that hilly course which is an incredibleeffort for a young guy, sixth overall in the world and if anyone’s interestedto kind of dig more into it, we got very condensed report on the website withthat case study and itemized list of the products that he ate and drank, kindof a bit of description on it. I think he described his kid of GI state forthat race as 8 or 9 out of 10. It was a really, really strong performance sowell worth digging into one if you want to see what a successful outcome lookslike on paper.

 

Andrew: Yeah, and it was great seeing the Precision Fuel and Hydration hatcome across the line in sixth and you told us before the race that he was adark horse, no one is talking about this kid. You told us I think he can have astrong day and sixth overall at the World Championships. I mean that is thestrongest field you can get. I was blown away Andy, by the fast times that wesaw knowing how hilly and challenging that course is, knowing how hot it was.Sohats off to Leon for an incredible performance there. I encourage everybody–I’ve already looked at his case study and read through it. A Lot of really,really great stuff there. Encourage people to go look at it. Another top tenfinish from a Precision athlete was well earned by Fenella Langridge with hereighth place finish in the female field. You know, same race, different athletewith different numbers. How did Fenella fuel that eighth place finish?

 

Andy: So yeah, exactly. Fenella had a really, really good day as well. Shehad a couple of technical problems. If you saw her on the feed when she cameout of the swim she was I think in third. Sort of second third place joinedwith Lisa Norden and then couldn’t get her wetsuit undone and it was agonizingto watch that. So she kind of ended up riding very early on her own. She also,very unfortunately, got pinged for a drafting penalty coming down one of thehills where she was just I think a bit nervous on the bike handling and didn’tget on the brakes in time. So kind of an unfortunately stop and go like fiveminute penalty.

 

Andrew: Oh wow.

 

Andy: But she battled back from that and stayed, and clawed her way back intothe top ten and finished eighth. Fenella also did a fantastic job with fuelingand her numbers, the headline numbers were 70 grams of carbohydrate per hour,so a little bit less than Leon, but that’s typical for what we see with Fenellaand Fenella is a smaller athlete. She only weighs around 55 kilos so that’spretty normal for her and a decent amount of carbohydrate. She hit a bit moresodium per hour, like 980 milligrams in only 600 milliliters of fluid becauseagain her smaller stature and lower sweat rate means she doesn’t sweat as much,but she is quite a salty sweater so her sodium concentration relative, in herdrinks was much higher at 1600 milligrams. Fenella also is a big coffee loverand she hit the caffeine pretty hard and was more on the upper end and she hitabout 8 milligrams per kilo of body weight and like we said though, because ofsome of that caffeine coming in before the race, we would also infer that some ofit will have degraded and be metabolized before the end. So although it lookson paper like she may be overdosed more than the 3 to 6 milligrams, thesuspicion is that she’s probably a fast metabolizer and therefore A) could copewith that and B) was probably only topping up towards the end. But raced verywell off of it and quite rightly really stoked with her performance. One of thenicest things that happened with those at St. George was Fenella and Leon werestaying in a house on the same complex as ours and they popped over on thenight after the race to have a quick bite of food and we managed to get somechampagne bottles for them to pop.

 

Andrew: Oh great.

 

Andy: Sort of a little private sort of, little bit of a privatecongratulation thing, and he won’t mind me telling you this story, but Leonbeing a young guy, he’s been on a few podiums so far, but I think they’vehelped hi before with the champagne by taking that little wire cage off thething and he was shaking up this bottle of champagne and it wouldn’t pop, buthe still had the wire cage on it so Jonny had to dive in there and help himundo it. Then when it went off, it went off like a rocket, but unlike in thecycling that’s been happening lately in Europe, luckily it didn’t get anyone inthe eye so we didn’t have any injuries.

 

Adrew: No, that's great to hear. I love just putting those two side by sidebecause it just shows you how different we all are. Just how you’ve got to knowthe numbers that work for you. I encourage everybody, go look at those two casestudies that they’re on the website. You can see exactly what Leon and Fenelladid for their races and remember that what they did probably won't work foryou. They were planning to be on course for eight hours and nine hours. A lotof us are planning to be on course for longer than that so connect with Andy,connect with the Precision Fuel and Hydration Team and find out what yournumbers are and find out what you would need to take to fuel your own raceefforts.

 

Andy: Absolutely. I’ll also point out, Andrew, that we've got another WorldChampionship case study on there now as well which is from a gentleman calledMartin Gannon who’s a friend of ours in the business. Martin did 11 hours and 9minutes. So it gives you a bit of a case– and that was an interesting, that wasgood enough to win his age group by an hour. So he was an age grouper for the65 age group and yeah won it by an hour. But his numbers were very impressive,but it also shows you what it starts to look like when you’re out there formore like 11 hours rather than the 8s and 9s.

 

Andrew: Well that’s it for today folks. I want to thank Andy Blow fromPrecision Fuel and Hydration and Tridot’s own Matt Bach for teaching us how tocharge up with caffeine. Remember if you want to learn more about fuel andhydration from Andy and his team, head to PrecisionFuelandHydration.com to booka call with one of their sweat experts to form your own race day strategy. Ifyou want to give Precision Fuel and Hydration products a try you can use promocode TRIDOT10 for 10% off your order. Also a shoutout to 2Toms. Here at TriDotwe trust 2Toms to keep us moving. So to make the switch to 2Toms head toMedi-Dyne.com and use the code TRIDOT to save 20% on your entire order. We’llhave a new show coming your way soon. Until then, Happy Training!

 

Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDotpodcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community,connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize yourtraining? Head to tridot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – theobvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

 

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