TriDot Podcast .246

Your Ultimate Guide to Using Ketones in Triathlon

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Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.

Andrew Harley: Welcome to the TriDot podcast! It's a ketone day on the podcast, specifically learning how real-life everyday triathletes are using ketones in their training and racing. There are many ways you can mix ketones into your fueling flow, and as pricey as our favorite ketone products can be, we want to make sure we are getting the most out of our precious bottles of deltaG. Our first guest is professional triathlete and triathlon coach, Tim O'Donnell. Tim is one of the most successful American long-course triathletes. He won the ITU Long Distance World Championship in 2009. He is a two-time IRONMAN Champion, a nine-time IRONMAN 70.3 Champion, and a six-time Armed Forces National Champion. He has stood on the podium in Kona multiple times, and most importantly, he is now coaching triathletes through Team Salty Bears, which is powered by TriDot. Tim, welcome back to the podcast!

Tim O’Donnell: Thanks Andrew! It's always good to chat with you.

Andrew: Also with us is the Chief Strategy Officer for deltaG, Brian McMahon. Brian consults directly with athletes as the resident Human Performance Expert, and is the ketone coach to the world's most elite athletes. Brian, thanks so much for joining us for the podcast!

Brian McMahon: Andrew, always great to see you. And anytime with Tim O'Donnell is a blessing. So it is fantastic to be here, yes.

Andrew: That's absolutely the truth. Absolutely the case. Yeah, Tim was just on our show a few weeks ago, talking about swimming with Vanessa and Dede Griesbauer. So Tim, pretty quick turn-around getting you back on the show.

Tim: I’m a regular! A co-host!

Andrew: Yeah, we'll put you in the rotation, once a month. Well, I am Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People, and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always, we'll roll through our warmup question, settle in for our main-set conversation, and then we'll wind things down with Vanessa taking over for our cooldown. She'll be interviewing a TriDot coach to get our TriDot Coach Cooldown Tip of the week. Lots of good stuff, let's get to it!

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

Andrew: If you were to somehow, in some totally ethical way of course, become a billionaire or a multi-multi-millionaire – you did it, you won real life monopoly – and you were going to put some of your funds to work launching a new sports team, as our warmup question today, in which sports league would you launch a new team, and where would you hope to put it? Tim, you're a big-time sports fan, so if this was the case for you, what sports team are you launching?

Tim: Well actually, my buddy Alex last year tried to convince me to buy an underwater torpedo league team with him.

Andrew: No joke! No joke, is that a thing?

Tim: Yes, it's a thing!

Brian: It's a really cool sport, yeah! If you watch it, yeah.

Tim: It's pretty amazing to watch, actually. Obviously we’d do it in Boulder, but I don't know, at altitude when you're going hypoxic all the time, it might be a little harder.

Brian: But I don't think you’d need a billion dollars for that one though, too. You can get involved now, yeah.

Tim: No, no. I'm going to look under my couch to see how much spare change I can get out of my couch, I could probably get one. But honestly, supertri [formerly Super League Triathlon]. I’d buy a supertri team.

Andrew: Yeah, awesome.

Tim: Keep it in the sport.

Andrew: Yeah, I absolutely love that answer, and I imagine some other triathletes will feel the same way. And supertri is a ton of fun to watch obviously, so great pick there from T.O. If you haven't watched supertri, definitely look it up and give it a watch, a really cool format for our sport. Brian, what's this answer for you?

Brian: Yeah, I will also give a biased answer. I played football in college. It wouldn't be an NFL team, but there's this new league called United Football League, which is kind of like the minor leagues. I think maybe I just like the startup culture, kind of guerilla marketing, etcetera, where you kind of have to build a fan base. So it's a new league, and to be able to launch a team there – kind of like that Ryan Reynolds show where they bought that soccer team.

Andrew: “Welcome to Wrexham”, yeah!

Brian: Yeah! Like to do that in a football league, I think would be really cool. And you can kind of build a fan base, and I'd probably do it where I live, which is Charleston, South Carolina. I'm not trying to move, yeah.

Andrew: Yeah, it's a great city, a city in need of a pro sports team, Brian. There really is a need for a pro football team.

Brian: I very much agree.

Andrew: Well, this answer for me, now that I have a daughter – and Tim, I know you're a girl dad, you might relate to this one as well – but there's a huge movement right now in pro women's sports. In triathlon we're certainly seeing that, and at the time we're recording this podcast, we just had like crazy March Madness with Caitlin Clark and the Iowa women's basketball team. A lot of great traction right now across all leagues for women's sports, and I'm here for it. I know most, if not all, sports fans are here for it. So my answer – I don't know what league I would want to land in, but I would love to just be a part of that, and just start a new women's pro sports team. I'm in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, so I think Dallas already has a lot of the a lot of the teams, but I would just look for, “What do we not have, and what can I start, what can I plant?” Because even if my daughter grows up and doesn't have a huge interest in sports – maybe she's into music, maybe she's into art, maybe she's into academics – whatever her interest ends up being, just to be around an environment where she sees professional women being, for lack of a better term, badasses at what they do, and to see the way they train and the way they apply themselves, I would love for her to have a front-row experience for that show. So that's this answer for me. I don't have a specific league or specific city, but I would want to get involved in that in some way.

We're going to throw this question out to you, the TriDot podcast audience. There are a few ways you can interact with the warmup question. I will post this question in the I AM TriDot Facebook group. We will post this question as a story on the TriDot Triathlon Training Instagram account. And now that we have the Circle community, if you're not involved in the TriDot Circle community that is growing rapidly, I will post this question to the TriDot Podcast space in Circle. So go find this question – if you somehow got a ton of money, and wanted to launch a new pro sports team, what league, what kind of team are you looking to start? And is it underwater torpedo? We'll find out. Can't wait to see what you have to say.

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

Andrew: Here at TriDot, we are huge believers in boosting your performance with the deltaG ketone ester. We've actually had Dr. Kieran Clark from Oxford University on the show twice, she's the founder of deltaG, and she has given us the origin story of deltaG, and taught us how ketones give our body a boost. So today, we are going to take the conversation one step further, and learn from Brian and Tim exactly how athletes are implementing deltaG into their training regimens and race-day nutrition. So if you've ever been interested in using deltaG ketones in your own fueling plan, today is kind of like your how-to guide for doing so. And Brian, our listeners can totally go check out Episode .104 and Episode .124 of the TriDot podcast if they want to learn all about the science behind the deltaG ketone ester. But for folks that maybe missed those episodes, but they’re listening today, can you give us the super-quick version of what ketones do for us as a fuel source?

Brian: For sure, and I think it's important to really understand what a ketone is. Despite my best efforts, it's still viewed as in a clear relationship with fat. Which it does, it does have a relationship with fatty acids. But ketones themselves are a third energy substrate, with glucose and fatty acids. They're one of the three main energy substrates. So your body does take ketones in, and break them down, and use them as energy. The reason why ketones are really interesting, is really two main avenues. Number one, as a fuel source, like I said. The cells can use ketones for energy, and the organs that love ketones are really the heart, the brain, and the muscles. All of them can use ketones and love to use ketones, and we know that because when presented with both glucose and ketones, ketone uptake is quite strong. But also, and what's really important with using ketones, is I would say just high-level efficiency. They're a very efficient fuel source. What that means is the amount of work you can do with the amount of ATP that's available. So if efficiency is really important in whatever it is you're doing, let's say an endurance sport like a full Ironman for instance, which efficiency from a fueling perspective should be probably the most important.

Andrew: Little bit, yeah. It matters.

Brian: Yeah, they appear to help. But then also, despite it being a fuel source, it also has these signaling properties, and one of the main signaling properties is this stabilization of blood glucose, which again kind of feeds into this whole efficiency benefit. When your body senses elevated blood ketones, certain things happen within the body. That's really, really important, and it's kind of forgotten. Everyone just thinks, “Okay, I'm taking ketones, therefore, I'm using ketones as an energy source,” and that's the end of the story. But with ketones as a signaling molecule, that's why you need to get to certain blood ketone levels in order for certain things to happen within the body. Really what the main thing is to transition your body into using ketones as a primary energy source, and also for your body to not use as much glucose, not use as much fat. That would be part of the main reason, then I can get into those levels that you would want to look for on the signaling side.

Andrew: I imagine it might come up in this question right here, and this is one I definitely wanted to make sure we covered today. It's something that I'm well aware of, but I want you Brian to be able to kind of catch our people up. There's a reason why TriDot’s partner in this space is deltaG. There's a reason why, in this conversation about how athletes are using ketones in their training and racing, we're talking specifically about the deltaG ketone ester and we're not talking about just ketone products in general. It's because the science is there, and there's a huge difference in the effectiveness of deltaG, versus other options our athletes might be seeing on this “market”. Brian, what differentiates deltaG from the other products on the market that are claiming to do the same thing?

Brian: It's really that deltaG –it's called the ketone monoester, that's really important. I can get into the reason it's called a monoester after I talk about the other products, but the monoester technology is the only available ketone technology that can increase your blood ketones. The whole purpose of taking an exogenous ketone is to increase your blood ketones to these beneficial levels. So the ketone monoester is the only technology that we're aware of that can increase your blood ketones to these beneficial levels safely and effectively. And “safely” is really important here, because you could probably increase your blood ketones to these beneficial levels with a lot of other products that are on the market today, but it would not be safe. You would not put yourself in a safe situation. For instance, I'll start kind of on the bottom of impact to blood ketones. Everybody's heard of MCT oil, medium chain triglycerides. It's really easy to mobilize fat, it's great for fat oxidation. But if you take enough of it, you can increase your blood ketones. Your body will actually take those MCTs as fatty acids, convert them into ketones in the liver. But it's not going to be very many ketones at all, and if you try to increase your blood ketones to any level of ketosis, you're going to have some pretty extreme GI disruption, let's say.

Andrew: Yeah, super fun.

Brian: Yeah, fun stuff. Then next up you have what's called R13 butane diol, this is Ketone-IQ product. Butane diol is a di-alcohol. From a molecular perspective, it’s very similar to ethanol, but it's an alcoholic ketogenic precursor. So it's not a ketone, despite what some of the marketing may say, but it does convert into ketones in the liver. So it's like a high-powered MCT oil, which is a good way to think about it. The issue is, if you attempt to achieve these deeper states of ketosis that appear to be required for any kind of endurance performance enhancement, or even cognition enhancement or recovery enhancement, you're going to feel similar effects that you would with ethanol. And believe me when I say, I've tested the hell out of it. I know a lot of people who have tested the hell out of it. I know all the researchers in the space. So the fact that people are recommending to take 30 grams of butane diol, by itself, before getting on a bicycle and going 30 miles an hour down the hill is wild to me, to be honest. So again, and I'll repeat myself, it's really important that people understand the goal of doing this is to increase your blood ketones. You can cite whatever study you want, put it on your web page, but it's important to look at the studies and see what ketone level were the participants achieving? Then next up, on the top, you have the monoester. It's called the monoester because beta hydroxybutyrate – which is the ketone body that will increase if you're fasting, or if you're on a ketogenic diet or Atkins diet – that's the ketone body, one of the three, but it appears to be the most important one from an energetics perspective and from a signaling perspective, those two avenues I referenced. We can create beta hydroxybutyrate quite easily, through precision fermentation in the lab, completely bioidentical to what you produce endogenously. But taking BHB by itself is really difficult. It’s an acid, so if you just ingested BHB by itself, you’d have all these acidity issues. Your teeth enamel would be affected, your stomach lining, your blood pH – it just wouldn't be a good idea. That's why, when you're taking BHB and you can actually bind it to something, you can bind these molecules together. A really cheap way to sell BHB that's ingestible safely is by binding it to a salt, so that's why they call it a ketone salt.

Andrew: Okay, yeah. I've heard of that.

Brian: Prüvit is a really big brand in the ketone salt space, they sell BHB bound to a salt molecule, either sodium, calcium, magnesium or potassium. A lot of it's mostly sodium. The issue again is – I'd say the best ratio I've ever seen is like maybe two grams of BHB to one gram of salt, and two grams is not very much. So if you wanted to get to these elevated ketone levels, and you tried to do that with a ketone salt, you'd probably be taking in 4,000 milligrams of sodium or something like that.

Andrew: Sheesh! So you’d see GI issues there, for an athlete.

Brian: Yeah, exactly, for sure. Or if you're older, hypertension or kidney issues. But back to what I was talking about, you can’t really take BHB on its own. So the NIH and Oxford, with funding from DARPA, after a lot of trial and error with the products that you'll see on the market today, they decided to bind beta hydroxybutyrate to a delivery molecule, which is 1,3-butanediol. But that's not what's doing the legwork. 1,3-butanediol is just allowing the molecule to safely enter your system. The entire molecule goes to the gut, and then gets cleaved in the gut, so the ester bond gets broken, the BHB goes into your bloodstream, which is doing almost all the legwork, and then the 1,3-butanediol will go to your liver and produce a little bit more ketones on the back end. And because it's such a small amount of butanediol, you wouldn't have the same kind of sedative effects that you would from taking it straight. So I know I kind of ran into a lot there, but does that make sense?

Andrew: No, that's exactly what I wanted to hear, and have our listeners understand. Because I feel like every year there's something new that comes out that claims to do what you guys do. And as a partner of yours, I look at what they're saying and I'm like, “Okay, I know that's not the case because of what I know from my friends at deltaG.” So I absolutely wanted to give you the space to express all that. And back to what I said in the intro, at TriDot we don't back something without looking into it, we don't back something without believing in it wholeheartedly. And the science is so there with you guys, that I wanted to let you kind of air that out for listeners to understand why we're talking about deltaG specifically on a full-length podcast episode. It’s because of the extreme boost this can give to an athlete, and how solo you are in the space, in being able to do that for athletes.

So now Tim, I've seen on social media that, as a pro triathlete, you've been doing some fun pieces comparing deltaG to some of the other players in the space that Brian just mentioned. What's some of the feedback and reactions you've gotten as you've released some of those videos?

Tim: Oh, like you said, it’s a lot of fun. But yeah, I just wanted to actually show people the difference. Because it's one thing to talk about it, but to actually show people the numbers, I think that's where you can really open some eyes. Like Brian said, there's certain blood ketone levels that you have to hit to stimulate, say performance. And with deltaG, my levels were – with similar gram doses – I think double, twice as high versus –

Andrew: And you were actually measuring – so not anecdotal, you were actually measuring this.

Tim: No, you're correct. Yeah, I have a little device called the Keto-Mojo that can measure your blood ketone levels, kind of like a little glucose monitor, or like you're doing lactate testing.

Andrew: Okay, yeah. So Tim, how did you even get hooked up with the guys from deltaG in the first place?

Tim: So actually, before ketones were really being talked about, I used them in my prep for and in racing the 2019 IRONMAN World Championship with another product. And then I couldn't find it. I sort of kept looking for it and couldn't find it, and simultaneously a mutual friend connected me and Brian. And I started talking to him like, “Yeah, I can't find this product.” He's like, “Yeah, well they licensed it from us, and now we're doing this on our own.” And that's where deltaG came in, I'm like, “Well, yes, then I need to get this back.” So that's kind of how it all started. I was so pumped to realize that I was getting the deltaG ketones the whole time, and then I could have access to it. Because I thought, “Oh man, the race in my life in Kona in ’19. I’ve got the secret sauce, I’ve got these ketones,” and all of a sudden they're gone. So it was amazing to get connected with Brian, and just kind of started working together from there.

Andrew: Yeah, I can't believe that at this point the whole field isn't using it. I know certainly many are. I don't know Brian, if you're able or want to name drop some of the current pros who are using deltaG for their training and racing.

Brian: I can only talk about officially who's using it.

Andrew: Okay, there you go. Which shows you how many more are using it that you can't talk about.

Brian: Yeah, for sure. And of course we want to be respectful of their rights. But of course T.O., Matt Hanson, Lucy Charles-Barkley, Emma Pallant-Brown are like the four main ones. Then we have a lot of athletes who are, let's say semi-pro, that are using it, which we don't have anything official with them, but it's a lot of those. Then with the top 15, I would say a majority for sure are using it. But again, it's one of these things where you can't – and I think this is what I think HVMN has done a really good job of, is Ketone-IQ is really paying a market that didn't have a lot of money floating around, credit to them. But I think it's moving now towards – which is I think a blessing for us – is the product really works, so people really want to use it. That's kind of the position we're in. We know it's going to work, we know people really want to use it, so let's work with people who actually use the product and want to use it. That's been our approach this whole time. So you know that if we sign on a new ambassador, you can actually be positive that they're obsessed with the product, and they really, really want to use it. Those are the people we look for. T.O. is a perfect example, where his audience takes him very seriously, because he doesn't just take money from anybody, even though he doesn't really believe in or use the product. He's been like the prime example that we look to, where an audience really, really listens to somebody, that's really worth it for us. Versus just when somebody wins a big race, we pay them a lot of money, they push the product for six months, and then the relationship just kind of fizzles away.

Tim: And Andrew, I’ve got to tell you, being in Boulder, there's a lot of pros. And whether I'm at the pool, or I'm on rides with some of the other pros, they're always kind of like, “Hey, you got any deltaG I could get my hands on?”

Andrew: You're like a secret dealer? Yeah.

Tim: I’m like in the back alley going, “Hey, come here, you want some?”

Brian: It’s so funny you say that. I’ll never forget it, one of our colleagues, Casey, I know T.O. you've met. Andrew, you met him in Kona.

Andrew: Yeah!

Brian: So actually, in Kona – Casey always talks about the story that he's like, “Alright, this is when we knew we were on to something.” We had just landed in Kona, and the night we got there it was just pouring rain. And one of our customers was there, and he was incessantly emailing us like, “I need this product.” So we met him – it was in an alley, but it wasn't like a dark alley –

Andrew: And flash your lights a couple times across the parking lot.

Brian: – in the rain, and he had like this hood up, pulled up in a car. It literally felt like a drug deal. And we’re like, “Alright, if people are this desperate for this product and this technology, something is for sure here.” That's really exciting to see, that you're actually selling something that people really, really appreciate, and use, and find it necessary for whatever it is they want to do.

Tim: In the pro ranks, people talk, and there's people that may sign on with another company for the cash, and they're still using deltaG behind the scenes. But it doesn't go the other way around. So it's a testament to the product and the company. Yeah, marketing is great, but the proof is in your performance, and if you want to spend money on something that's not going to work as well because they're super flashy, good on you. But I'm here for performance and quality, and that's why I've been working with deltaG for so long.

Andrew: So Brian, I want to get really practical today. Now that we've established why we believe in the product, like how much more effective it is than anything else an athlete will see in the marketing space to triathletes, I just want to spend the rest of our time talking about how to actually use this in our training and racing effectively. Because I talk to TriDot athletes who are using it, and it's really cool to see everybody kind of finding their own path to mixing it with what else they're using – their carbohydrate fuel sources, with their hydration – whatever they're taking in training and racing. People are finding their own ways to leverage this product. And I know you talk one-on-one with a lot of athletes. Tim is at the pool watching how pros are using it in their pool sessions. So I just want to give our audience some concrete thoughts, examples, ideas over how to use this most effectively, when you purchase your bottles and get them in the mail. So for starters, Brian, you guys actually see the buying habits of triathletes. There are a couple different deltaG products on the market, what are triathletes buying and actually using in their training and racing?

Brian: For sure. It's cool – this isn't a function of myself. It is my team and it's the technology, it’s definitely not me – but we get to speak to some pretty interesting people, as you can imagine, especially in the human performance space. They're always asking us how to use it, but also they're doing their own testing. And unfortunately, science is really, really slow

Andrew: Good science. Yeah, good science is slow.

Brian: Yes, great way to put it, good science is very slow. So if we do see something, it takes a long time to prove that in a lab or in the clinical setting. But in the field, it's a lot easier. And I think because of our network now, we're able to test things very quickly, whether it be with World Tour human performance coaches, triathletes, triathlete coaches, it's great. I say all this because we're always kind of fine-tuning and learning about how to best use the technology. That would be pretty arrogant if we said that we knew exactly how to use this technology, especially in a performance setting. We don't know exactly how to use it. Like we have a pretty good idea, based on the feedback we get, and of course the data and the research, but also how it's being used in the field. But again, there's always going to be a learning curve with this. Same thing with, let's say glucose. How long was 90 grams of carbohydrates an hour the standard and the maximum? Now the Norwegians are have completely flipped that on its head, and a lot of people are saying –

Andrew: How much can I take?

Brian: Well, now 120 grams an hour, that's the new maximum. And then what type of glucose, or what type of carbohydrates? So I think it's going to follow the same trajectory, where people are going to say, “Well, this amount of ketones gets me to three millimolar. Well, when would I want that? In what combination? In conjunction with what would I want 3mm?” Maybe it's higher with just fat, and maybe it's higher when you're just fasted, or maybe you want it at 2 millimolar with X amount of carbohydrates. We're always trying to learn. And I think that's the standard we try to set in the market, that we are the company who isn't just going to say, “Hey, take this and go running.” We're the ones who are like, “Here's what the research says, here's what the data says, here's how it's being used by X, Y, and Z, and here's what we still don't know.” But we do know there's something here. So start here, and then try to try to work off of that, and iterate off of that for yourself. It's a long-winded way of starting this conversation, but I think if you're looking to try the product in the performance realm, a good standard and foundation to start from, and it's been our standard for a while – but let's say you get a three-pack of our performance product, which is the flavored high-performance serving size of the monoester. Take a full bottle around 20 or 30 minutes before you start a run, ride, or swim, that would probably be around 2 hours. Two hours is a really good amount of time if you're taking a full bottle, because that should get almost everybody up to this performance ketosis range, which Tim showed in his wonderful video, which is 2 to 3 millimolar. That's a really, really good place to start. Then from there, you can always iterate. Like what some people do, and I believe Tim does this, is you can do half bottles, just more frequently. And if anybody knows Dr. Dan Plews, that's kind of his approach. While we have other athletes, especially on the World Tour stage, who will do full bottles at one time. So I think starting with that is just a really good place to go. And if you're doing anything that's more prolonged, you would just repeat that process every two hours, let's say, if you're doing a full bottle. It's a really good place to start.

Then I would say there are three main things you'd be looking for when you're taking the product. Number one, you feel like you have more consistent energy. A lot of people, if they're doing it on the amateur level, especially if you're if you're doing like a two-hour run – you're probably taking some glucose, maybe you're doing it in in a in a really good way, maybe not, but you're probably going to have these excursions of blood glucose, which will probably lead to more inconsistent energy feeling. So I think if you're taking the product, you should feel way more consistent energy. Number two, you should feel like you have a lot more left in the tank at the end of something like that, at the end of a two-hour run, let's say. You should feel like you still have really, really strong energy at the end, stronger than you would otherwise. Then lastly, this is something we've been getting a lot of – and we do have one study pointing to that in the ultramarathon space, and intuitively it does make sense – but people feel as though they have a lot more cognitive acuity for a longer period of time when using the product. And why I say it's intuitive, that that makes sense, is you are giving your brain its preferred energy source that it wouldn't otherwise have. Because the brain is probably sacrificing some of its energy needs when you're doing something physically demanding, so if you're able to fuel the brain during those times, you probably feel a lot more focused. I've never done a full Ironman, I'll admit, but I'm guessing focus is really, really important.

Tim: Smart man!

Brian: Haha, yeah, exactly. I don't want to become addicted for sure! But I would bet focus is very, very important. You can make some mistakes that will cost you a race. You really want to feel that you have your wits about you, especially when you're becoming physically exhausted. The area that's really exciting for us, outside of triathlons, is ultra-endurance. This is like a perfect ultra-endurance product, honestly. And we have Zach Bitter, he's official, and then we have two others that are really at the top that use it, but we haven't signed them yet. But fueling becomes an efficiency problem to solve if you're doing an ultramarathon. And then of course focus is really important, because mistakes when you're doing an ultra trail run, that could be even life-threatening almost.

Andrew: Yeah, and a lot of triathletes dabble in trail running in ultra, when they're not racing triathlon. So definitely something for our people to hear and absorb. Normally, when I'm talking triathlon on the podcast, I like starting with training, and then kind of transitioning to talking about racing. But today I'm going to kind of flip that. Let’s just start with the big day. Let's start with how deltaG impacts us on the big day. How are triathletes actually taking deltaG when they're in race mode, out on the race course? What are the strategies? How are they mixing it in? When are people taking it on the bike, the run, the transitions? I want to hear all of that kind of stuff. So Brian, as you dialogue with triathletes, how are you hearing people are using it when they're out on the race course?

Brian: Really quick, just to close the loop on the training – it's a super-expensive product. There is a cost.

Andrew: There is a cost. I hear feedback about that from our audience, yeah.

Brian: Yeah, and please everyone understand, it's not like we're just raking in the dough because we're charging everyone an arm and a leg. It's just a very expensive product or technology to manufacture. But the way I've seen people get around that, to get the most out of the product – the good thing about the product is there's no loading, there's no tolerance, you don't have to train your body to utilize ketones. You can use it right now, today, in a training session and say, “Okay, I really like it. I'm going to use it in six months on race day,” and that would be totally appropriate, totally fine. That's important people to keep in mind. Because how I've seen athletes use it, and I think get around the cost a bit, but also get the most out of it, is they'll experiment with it in training, understand that they really like it and want to use it on a race day, put bottles aside for race day, and then use other bottles sparingly during really difficult training blocks. Let's say one or two of a really, really important training block, you would use the product in a recovery setting. So that way you're getting the recovery side, the performance side, without spending like $1,000 a month basically. That's a way that I've seen people get around it, but also make the most of it.

With racing it, it has remained pretty individual to the specific athlete. We've seen a lot of different strategies, but it does again follow the same foundation of increasing your blood ketones to this 2-to 3-millimolar level, and then attempting to keep it in that range for as long as you can. Now it's going to dip below that of course, which is when you would take another dose. It's hard, with selling direct to consumers who don’t have easy access to testing products – we do sell a Keto-Mojo on our website – but with professionals, we have them establish their “serving size”, let’s say. That's the amount of the monoester that YOU are going to use on race day and for recovery. So what is the serving size that gets you to, let's say 2 1/2 millimolar, then that's the thing you're going to be taking every hour and a half or two hours. Then with Tactical and Performance, people sometimes do mix Tactical into something that is flavored, because the taste of Tactical is super, super bitter. But it's really important that you do drink it pretty quickly, because you want your blood ketones to increase dramatically, versus just remaining pretty low throughout the hour, let's say.

Andrew: Okay, gotcha. When I raced IRONMAN Waco with deltaG, I had a Tactical in my bottle with my UCAN and my Precision Fuel and Hydration electrolytes. So I had this concoction on my downtube with three different products mixed in with some water, and just constantly sipped on that throughout the entire race. And in transitions, I was popping an entire bottle of the Performance that had a little flavor.

Brian: Oh, perfect, yeah.

Andrew: That’s kind of the way I approached it on my particular IRONMAN race day. Tim, when you were racing on deltaG, what was your protocol with how you were using it out on the course?

Tim: Yeah, like Brian said, I'm a Tactical guy. I pretty much exclusively use Tactical. I don't want to mess with flavors, I just want to get going and get that hit. I don't mix it with my sports nutrition. Because like Brian said, you really want to take it in doses. It's kind of like caffeine. Because the half-life of caffeine is a couple hours, you’re better served to just take it in chunks, versus trying to have a little bit at a time. Like Brian said, you're not going to get those elevated blood ketones, because it's not going into the system at once. And yeah, I just don't want to ruin the taste of whatever I'm drinking. It might subconsciously stop you from your nutrition plan, because you're like, “Oh, I don’t think I want to sip on this!” So for me, it was half a bottle of Tactical 30 minutes before, and then like Brian said, every two hours would be a half bottle of Tactical. And the great thing about Tactical too, it's in small plastic bottles, so it's very easy to take with you on the bike or on the run in a back pocket, or I have a little zip pouch on my number belt that I could throw it in. You just want to make your nutrition as easy as possible on race day, and that's what I found with just the small bottles of Tactical, straight up every two hours, it's the absolute easiest way that I could do it. The more complicated you make it, the harder it is to stick to your plan. I actually remember that the IRONMAN North American Champs in Des Moines in 2022, it was me, Matt Hanson, and one other guy on the front. And he was trying to drop us, and I was really struggling mentally, my cognitive ability was really low. I was definitely riding too hard for my fitness level at the time. My heart wasn't super high, but I couldn't stay focused, and I specifically remember hitting my deltaG protocol, and very shortly after, settling back in and being able to mentally deal with the punishment that Matt Hanson was putting me through.

Andrew: Yeah, and that, Tim – from TriDot athletes who I know have used deltaG on course – that's the number one thing that they come back saying, is they felt so much clearer mentally. Obviously it was having a performance benefit, because we know that from the science. But what they noticed more so was the mental clarity benefit, and just the mental sharpness that they had deeper into the race than they normally would. So Tim, you're taking that half bottle of Tactical every two hours. Is that the whole way through the race, bike and run, or just primarily on the bike, or what?

Tim: Yeah, I mean that’s only maybe three doses during the race, if you're hitting eight hours.

Andrew: And your race is quicker than our race!

Tim: Well yeah, I mean you’ve got to you’ve got to get it done, right? But honestly, for all the TriDot athletes out there – we all have race rehearsal sessions. Those are the times that, if you're wanting to be smart and economical with the product, those are the sessions that you really want to hit it. Because you're going to be at effort, so you know how your body is going to handle it at effort, which is really important. And you should be practicing your race nutrition on those race rehearsals as well. You should be, “Here's my nutrition plan on the bike and in a race, and I'm going to follow it to a tee during this race rehearsal.” And that should include your deltaG as well.

Andrew: Yeah, great point, Tim. And that's exactly what, when we first started talking with Brian and the team from deltaG, I tried it in a couple hard sessions. I learned that it agreed with my body. My body could put it down just fine, I liked the way I felt on it. And yeah, after that I saved it for those last two or three stamina sessions before race day, I saved it for the race rehearsals, and obviously saved it for race day. The product I found myself using, outside of that, is the Gold Coffee Booster. Not every day, guys, but having the one-year-old in the house, and having a full-time job, and having triathlon training that I try to do from time to time – I throw a teaspoon of that in my coffee on mornings when I need a little extra pep, whether it was from the baby not sleeping well, or from just a lot going on. So probably three or four days a week, I'm just throwing a small dose of that down, and it just jump-starts my day, frankly. So that's the thing that I'm using ongoing. I'm curious to hear – Brian, from your standpoint talking to athletes, and Tim, from your standpoint as a user – on how else are you hearing of triathletes using this product day-to-day. Is it just a few of us that are using it a lot, or are a lot of people using it throughout their week like I'm talking about? Brian what are the consumption habits of athletes throughout the week?

Brian: I would say, like from a professional athlete perspective, using it in a recovery setting for difficult sessions is when it's used most regularly.

Andrew: Okay, interesting. So it's not to fuel those sessions, but to help recover from those sessions afterwards.

Brian: For sure, yeah. And I think that's just a very straightforward protocol. It's funny, but I mentioned that we just don't understand it fully yet on the performance side, even though we know something is there. A perfect example of this is, like a month ago we had a call with a trainer of two of the top Ironman athletes in the world. They've been testing it a lot, and they were using it in a fasted setting for like 70 minutes, and they noticed some of the highest power output. So this isn't with carbohydrates. This is waking up fasted, using high amounts of the monoester, and they notice some of the highest power output in like the last like three months, and the lowest lactate levels they've ever measured. So yeah, there's something there, and we're trying to just work through both clinically and in the field, because a lot of athletes will use it in training. I think it's a really interesting tool for fasted training, if you're trying to increase your fat oxidation rates using ketones, along with working on your fat oxidation. I think it’s a really interesting tool because some people will struggle with fasted training, especially in the beginning, but this can hopefully give you that extra bit of energy, while also working towards that goal of increasing your fat oxidation or your ability to mobilize fat. So that's really how people use it for performance in training or during training. But yeah, I would say the majority of athletes who use the product in training will use it as a recovery tool. For instance, we did partner with Alpecin-Deceuninck, the World Tour team. I think we sell to 85% of the World Tour teams, and 100% of those teams use it in a recovery setting, while like 50% will probably use it during a stage.

Andrew: Wow. That's powerful knowledge right there, just to hear that.

Brian: Of course, that’s a different problem set than a full Ironman, but it's still interesting nonetheless, and like I said, I think the protocol is a lot more straightforward. And also I think on the research side, there's a ton coming out using the monoester in a recovery setting, a lot of really exciting things.

Andrew: Yeah, and admittedly, Brian, I haven't tried that. I'm training enough right now to keep my body moving, and try to keep the dad-weight off. I don't have a huge goal that I'm looking to go crush anytime soon. So I personally haven't been doing hard enough sessions to merit trying that, but I am very curious about that application. So in that case, how much are we needing to use and when after a session to recover fully?

Brian: It's the same kind of deal, but I think this is especially true with recovery, you want to make sure your blood ketones are getting up to 2, 2½, or let’s say 3 millimolar. I'm pretty close with a few of the researchers who recently came out with a couple of studies pointing to EPO, increase in angiogenesis, increase when using the product in a recovery setting, but none of the recovery benefits manifested below 1½ millimolar of blood ketones. So for recovery, it's really, really important you're getting your blood ketones up. So you would still take a full bottle of Performance or Tactical. Then if you want to be really technical, you would take that immediately post-exercise. So like if you watch the Tour de France at all, especially a few teams in particular, you'll see them drinking those water bottles of the blue liquid. That's Performance. They'll do it immediately post-stage race, and then wait around 20 minutes before taking in their other recovery nutrition, so their protein and carbohydrates, because you want your blood ketones to be elevated by the time you're taking in your glucose and protein.

Andrew: Interesting, yeah. So pop your deltaG, cool down, and then enjoy your recovery meal, makes total sense. Tim O'Donnell, when it comes to using deltaG throughout the week, and you talked very specifically about how a TriDot athlete can approach using it for those key sessions, using it for those race rehearsals. How much are you using it throughout the week, versus saving it for kind of the big moments?

Tim: Yeah, so as I've shifted purely from training and racing, to other facets of life like coaching – I am still training and I'm still hitting hard sessions, but then you’ve got to go hop on and write programs, or talk to athletes. That has been the greatest thing for me with deltaG – like Brian said, post-training you have the recovery benefit too – but for me, it just helps on the cognitive side of it. Usually after a hard session, I'm just a zombie, I can't function. But for all the age-group athletes out there, life goes on. You usually train in the morning, and then you’ve got to go on with your day, right? So in my opinion, for the age-group athletes out there, post-training, particularly going into your work or environment, it's such a benefit to keep you on your game and be efficient. You want to be efficient with everything, including when you head to the office or whatever you’ve got to do. I think that's a huge benefit for me.

Brian: That's the funny thing about ketones, is they can be so many things to so many people. Like we have people using it at every hour of the day. It just really comes down to, “How do I feel when I'm on them, what am I looking to help with, and what part of the day is that?”

Tim: We haven't talked about deltaG Health, but Rinnie is a big fan. Like I said, we're in different places in life right now, and to be quite honest, she's coming off our third baby and getting back into shape, losing weight, these are things that she's dealing with, just like every other mom out there.

Andrew: Yeah. Working a job, coaching triathletes, being on IRONMAN broadcasts.

Tim: She loved Health. The metabolic benefits that Brian had alluded to earlier, that's something that's on her radar too. She tries to get back to where she wants to be. Yeah, there are so many applications for what you're trying to achieve with the product and the product line.

Andrew: Two more questions for you Brian, and we'll wrap up our main set. I'm curious to know this, because I know that one of your roles for the company is – one, you work with the pro athletes that are using deltaG, so you're hearing first-hand from them what their needs are and how they're using it. You also do consultations with athletes, and any TriDot athlete listening can go to the deltaG website and sign up for a 15-minute consultation with Brian to learn a little bit more about the product, and to pick his brain on how you can use it for your context. As you're having those conversations, Brian, what are you hearing from athletes? What are the questions they're asking? Do they ask questions that I haven't asked today that might be interesting for our folks to learn from those conversations you have?

Brian: No, I think you're a pro. I think we covered a lot. But yeah, I think a lot of the questions are around, “What even is a ketone? Why do I want to use ketones? What's the purpose of this? Why is it so expensive? How do I use it on race day? How do I use it in training?” Those are really the main questions, and I think we’ve covered that. And maybe I just know what things to talk about because I've done now like 1,800 consultations. I've done quite a bit, so I kind of know. What the questions would probably be. But like Andrew said, if anybody has any further questions about this stuff, it's really easy to go on the website and book a time on my calendar. It's cool, because like we've talked about, people can have different use cases for this. There are a lot, even outside of triathlon. Like people have issues, people have metabolic issues, people have cognitive issues, and they read a lot of published data out there now about how the ketogenic diet, or just about ketones, can help. So even if you want to take your triathlete hat off and say, “My dad has this issue,“ or, “I know a diabetic,” or anything like that, I'm happy to talk about all that stuff.

Andrew: Yeah, I'll put in a link to today's show. Wherever you consume your podcast, if you look down in the description, I'll definitely make sure we have our link to deltaG. We have a discount with our friends at deltaG for TriDot athletes, so definitely go check that out when you're using your purchase. Just go through that link and/or use our code, and you'll get a little bit off your order of deltaG ketones. Brian, I know you guys are always working on ways to lower the price point for athletes. You're always working on ways to improve the flavor for athletes. Maybe just to leave us today, for any of our athletes who are already fans of deltaG, is there anything new coming down the pipeline? Anything interesting in regards to price or flavor that we can expect to see in the future that you can tease? Maybe so, maybe not? I'm going to dig. I’ve got to dig!

Brian: For sure, yeah. We have a lot. I can't tell you a lot, but I'll give you some teasers. We did launch an espresso shot. I think you can pre-order on the website right now, but I think it should be ready to ship this week. Really good flavor, it has 150 milligrams of caffeine, so a high dose. We worked with a cold brew company, a really good one out of Wisconsin. Yeah, it's super clean – just ketones, caffeine, and cold brew concentrate, and it's definitely more affordable. So that's one thing. But I think the next phase of our product development – and we have a few in the pipeline right now – is going to be mixed actives. Whether it be caffeine, carbohydrates, there's a ton that we have on our list. And I think doing that would of course help people understand how best to use the product. Because you think, “This is a product that you use for sleep. This is a project used for performance. This is a product that you use for recovery.” Versus just saying, “You can use ketones for all those things.” Of course you can, but giving people a few more tools to help understand the product, but also to make it more convenient for them.

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

Vanessa Ronksley: Hi friends! Welcome to the cooldown. I'm Vanessa, your Average Triathlete with Elite-Level Enthusiasm! Today's guest is TriDot Coach Jessica Qualls. Jessica has been a chiropractor for over 16 years, and currently works as a clinical manager in the field of Utilization Review. In the triathlon world, Jessica has been with TriDot since 2019 and is no stranger to standing on the podium, from sprints all the way through to 70.3s. However, she considers her biggest athletic achievement to be her comeback from a serious bike crash that left her with fractures, dislocations, lacerations, and a brain injury. Jessica is a certified TriDot and USAT Coach who enjoys working with athletes wanting to complete 70.3s, or those that are struggling with improving in the sport. She loves giving her athletes special attention, and watching them succeed as a result of working together. Jessica is also very passionate about female athlete physiology, and spends a lot of her time researching this area. Welcome to the cooldown, Jessica!

Jessica Qualls: Thank you! I've been looking forward to this all week!

Vanessa: Oh I love it, me too! It is quite evident, Jessica, that you are an amazing athlete, because you have competed in three completely unrelated national championships, and I think this is absolutely amazing. What were these three events that you competed in?

Jessica: Well, triathlon. Aside from that, when I was a kid I was a gymnast. So I actually was in a national championship for power tumbling.

Vanessa: Oh wow!

Jessica: And I am from a county in Kentucky called Greenup County. In Greenup, cheerleading is just the end-all to be-all. We went to basketball games and football games as a practice basically, but the true overall thing is we were champions, and the season always involved the National Championship down in Florida.

Vanessa: Awesome! That's really cool. So we have triathlon, power tumbling, and cheerleading. Incredible. That's amazing, thank you for sharing that. Now, what tip do you have for us all today?

Jessica: The biggest tip I have is for women, and that is that we need to start embracing, possibly celebrating, training and racing with our period. I would think for a majority of women, their initial thoughts are that they just dread, and even fear, the possibility of doing any sort of training when they're on their period. And it's really sad, because our hormones are actually more ideal once we start our period. So there's a really good chance that we're going to have great performances during that time. Our hormones are far more favorable for performance once our period starts. So it's just really sad how many people are so fearful of this, and honestly don't talk about it. No one seems to want to talk about this, and it's a topic that we shy away from, and that's also really sad because it's going to be part of our lives for a very long time. So we need to learn to embrace this, we need to learn how we're going to use it to our advantage.

Vanessa: That's great. So what strategies do you have for your athletes when they do start their menstrual cycle? How would you tell them to go about continuing on with their training?

Jessica: Most of the athletes that I have, when we do approach these topics the first thing that we do is, we really start to learn about what's going on with our bodies. That's what's important. Before we can really even approach how we're going to deal with it, we need to make sure we understand what's happening. Our menstrual cycle is divided into basically four different phases, but generally speaking, you have a low-hormone phase and a high-hormone phase, and your menstrual period is sitting right there in that low-hormone phase. Which for most athletes, they're just dreading the fact that they're on their period. But this low-hormone phase can offer huge advantages. So what I make sure I tell my athletes is one, we need to identify where you are. If we're in the low-hormone phase, if we've been educated about it, we know how we're going to handle it. For example, we know that during that low-hormone phase, our bodies are going to have the ability to store carbohydrates and utilize energy better, it's actually at its peak during that time. So we know that's definitely going to help our performance. And studies have also shown that during that low-hormone phase, we are even stronger, that we're likely to feel less pain, and we're going to recover faster. While we're on our period, we're actually primed to have really great results. So after we have had this discussion, and we've gone through this and had this understanding, my athletes know that when they are approaching their period, this is their time to shine. They know that, approaching this, we are getting ready for some huge advantages. And they know that as long as they are going to be prepared, that they can make some huge achievements during that time.

Vanessa: I do have a question about athletes and their training schedule. So if you can identify when an athlete is going to be on their period, do you adjust their schedule to include additional strength training, or move their strength training into a more heavy-lifting type of situation? How do you go about adjusting?

Jessica: Oh, a hundred percent! That's part of embracing it. If we never test our body during our period, you will never let your body tell you how great it can be. So many people just don't do any workouts, because they've either been told by their moms or their aunts along the way that you're not supposed to do anything when you're on your period. But then they'll never learn to trust their body, and if they never learn to trust their body, when it comes to race day and the period shows up, they're going to freak out. They're immediately set up to be worried and freaked out, when actually they can be setting up for a PR! First step is to start tracking it, that's number one. You have to start tracking it. Poor Garmin knows everything about me. Garmin knows my sleep, my weight, my period. It's in there. There's a ton of apps out there, and I've used a lot of them, but I always go back to Garmin, just because Garmin knows everything about me anyway, so I might as well let it know that too.

Vanessa: Yeah. Yeah, right.

Jessica: But if you don't ever track it, you're never going to be able to utilize that information. If you don't know you're in a high-hormone phase, you're not going to know why you're struggling. Because you will, you'll struggle in that high-hormone phase. And if you're not tracking your periods, you won't know that you're there, and you also won't know you're about to be on your period, which would allow you to move and adjust things in your daily training. So definitely starting to track it, that's number one. I also highly recommend checking your iron, going to your provider and getting your iron checked. Because women in general, just because of menstruation, we do have a risk of anemia. But athletes are at a higher risk because we have that increased muscle stress, and also our cortisol levels can impact iron deficiency. Cortisol levels are often increased, especially in endurance athletes. So track it, get your iron checked –

Vanessa: – and adjust your workouts during the high-hormone phase.

Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And just learn. We need to make sure that we're learning.

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

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