Fuelling Ultra Endurance Events

sarah cuff Endurance Sport, Performance, Running Performance Leave a Comment

Seven years ago I found my way from marathons into ultras. A couple years later I wrote a post on How to Fuel an Ultra. Now 5 years later with extensive additional personal and client hands on experience, I have more to add. Plus I find it rather data and numbers driven – a good place to start, but often …

How to Use Nutrition to Manage Stress

Tanya Jones Digestive Health, Endurance Sport, Food for Runners, Gut Health, Nutrient Timing, Nutrition Tips, Omega-3s, Performance, Running Performance, Stress Management, Training, Vitamins & Minerals Leave a Comment

I feel like we have all had an experience or two where you’re out there having a great ride or run and suddenly, you’re out of energy, or feeling crampy and nauseous or in a worst-case scenario looking desperately for somewhere to go the bathroom wishing you had a roll of toilet paper in your pocket.
Fear of these scenarios happening can lead us to limiting how much we eat pre-workout as well as not taking in enough nutrition during our training sessions or race. This is so unfortunate because we know we need to nourish our bodies for the workout that we are doing but even more importantly to support our recovery so we can make the adaptations we are working so hard for as well as set ourselves up well for our next workout.

Most Inflammatory Foods (part 1): Processed Oils

sarah cuff Avoiding Injury, Heal Injury, Inflammatory Foods, Performance, Run Recovery, Run Stronger, Running Performance Leave a Comment

Generally speaking, I prefer to highlight the foods and beverages that are beneficial to building optimal health and strength. In doing so, I hope that by including more of these foods we might, by default, crowd out the less than optimal choices. However, this ‘soft’ approach, as useful as it can be in some situations, doesn’t fully educate or bring …

Training Your Gut for Athletic Performance

Tanya Jones Digestive Health, Endurance Sport, Food for Runners, Gut Health, Nutrient Timing, Nutrition Tips, Performance, Running Performance, Training 3 Comments

I feel like we have all had an experience or two where you’re out there having a great ride or run and suddenly, you’re out of energy, or feeling crampy and nauseous or in a worst-case scenario looking desperately for somewhere to go the bathroom wishing you had a roll of toilet paper in your pocket.
Fear of these scenarios happening can lead us to limiting how much we eat pre-workout as well as not taking in enough nutrition during our training sessions or race. This is so unfortunate because we know we need to nourish our bodies for the workout that we are doing but even more importantly to support our recovery so we can make the adaptations we are working so hard for as well as set ourselves up well for our next workout.

How to Fuel Your Race: race day nutrition

sarah cuff Carb-Loading for Runners, Ergogenic Aids, Performance, Run Faster, Running Performance Leave a Comment

In any event that lasts longer than 90 minutes, we greatly increase our chances of optimal performance by paying close attention to filling and replenishing our glycogen stores, adequate hydration and maintenance of electrolyte balance, and utilization of appropriate ergogenic aids. This means planning our menu both in the days prior to race day, and importantly, for race day itself. …

Fueling Easy Runs vs Hard / Long Runs

sarah cuff Endurance Sport, Performance, Running Performance Leave a Comment

While traditional advice for runners has long been to eat ~60-65% of your diet from carbohydrates, after working 1-on-1 with hundreds of runners and hearing from thousands over the past decade, I do not believe this often recommended high-carb advice serves the majority of runners. To maintain our health and prevent injury over the years, as well as ensure optimal …

Metabolic Efficiency: How to Get There

sarah cuff Digestive Health, Endurance Sport, Gut Health, Heart Health, Performance, Run Faster, Run Stronger, Running Performance, Training, weight loss Leave a Comment

Improving Metabolic Efficiency Series (PART 2) In my last post, part 1 of this series Metabolic Efficiency: Why You Should Care, I talked about what metabolic efficiency is, its benefits, how it’s related to our metabolism and how our body makes energy. Personally I’ve used metabolic efficiency to help me achieve my goals and perform well many times over – …

Metabolic Efficiency: Why You Should Care

sarah cuff Digestive Health, Gut Health, Heart Health, Performance, Run Faster, Run Stronger, Running Performance, Training Leave a Comment

Improving Metabolic Efficiency Series (PART 1) I began talking about the importance of metabolic efficiency more than 5 years ago (back in 2017). At the time I held a number of workshops on the topic and planned to offer an online course that went into detail on how to become more metabolically efficient. Over the next few years, I went …

Sleep and Athletic Performance

Tanya Jones Brain health, Performance, Running Performance, Sleep Leave a Comment

Sleep is an essential component of our health and well-being. There are significant impacts on physical development, emotional regulation, cognitive performance, and quality of life when we don’t sleep well. Sleep is also an integral part of the recovery and adaptive process between training sessions. We work so hard during training so shouldn’t we put that same effort into sleeping as well?

Nutrition, Cognitive Sports Training and Performance

Tanya Jones Antioxidants, Brain health, Cognitive Training, Mental Imagery, Mindfulness, Omega-3s, Performance, Running Performance, Self-talk 2 Comments

There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that cognitive sports training can also play a role in sports performance enhancement. Cognitive sports training encompasses a broad range of mental tasks designed to improve various aspects of athletic performance. We’ve all had those moments when you didn’t think you could run one more step or lift one more rep but somehow you almost always area able to do so. So much of our sport performance is psychological, so it makes sense to support that aspect of your training as well.