Endurance Eats

You can know exactly what you’re supposed to do as an endurance athlete… and still get it wrong.
I’m a dietitian, but I’m also human first. And after years of triathlon, running, gravel racing, and now mountain biking, I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way. So have Hanna and Mary.
In this episode of the Endurance Eats Podcast, Team HAM is back! Hanna, Alex, and Mary are looking back at years of training and racing to answer one question: If we could do it all over again, what would we do differently?
We’re talking about everything from running a first marathon on basically no fuel (yes, really) to underfueling Ironman training, learning how to fuel a finicky gut, and realizing that sometimes the biggest thing holding you back has nothing to do with fitness.
Because endurance sports teach you a lot. Fueling matters. Recovery matters. Mental preparation matters. But so does knowing when to push, when to back off, and how to keep the sport you love actually enjoyable.

What You’ll Learn
What I would completely change about how I trained and fueled for Ironman Wisconsin

Why knowing how to fuel and actually practicing your fueling are two very different things

How endurance fueling has changed since our early racing days

Why Hanna once felt like taking fuel during training was almost “cheating”

The fueling mistake that can happen when you’re feeling too good during a race

Why your recovery nutrition can determine what you get out of your next workout

How Mary learned what works for her finicky gut through years of trial and error

Why Hanna says her biggest do-over might actually be mental preparation—not nutrition

How we think about training during busy, stressful, or ridiculously hot seasons of life

Why “maintenance is a win” can be one of the smartest approaches to long-term training

The importance of focusing on what you can control on race day

Why preserving the joy of your sport might matter more than forcing yourself through another training block

And yes, somehow we also get into mountain biking, slow walkers, candy corn, and whether mellowcreme pumpkins count as endurance fuel. It’s Team HAM. What did you expect?
Want to fuel your training and racing with more confidence? Explore Alex Larson Nutrition programs and one-on-one support: https://alexlarsonnutrition.com

Connect with Me:
Follow along for more practical sports nutrition and fueling support: Instagram: @alexlarsonnutrition

Website: alexlarsonnutrition.com

Work with Alex Larson Nutrition: https://alexlarsonnutrition.com/

Check out our endurance nutrition tools and resources 

Don’t Forget to Subscribe!
Click that follow button to stay updated on future episodes packed with actionable insights and expert advice for endurance athletes. Leave a quick review to help more endurance athletes find the show

Have Questions or Suggestions?
Send me a message, and I might cover it in a future episode!

This episode of Endurance Eats is brought to you by Alex Larson’s 1:1 Nutrition Coaching.
If you’ve ever wondered, Am I eating enough? Am I fueling this right? Why do I still feel tired? you’re not alone. Alex Larson Nutrition helps endurance athletes cut through the confusion and build a fueling plan that actually works for their training, lifestyle, and goals.
You can learn more at alexlarsonnutrition.com. 

This Episode is Brought to You By Carb Culture Shop
Grab your merch from the shop with saying that endurance athletes just get!

This episode is brought to you by Thorne. 
Shop Thorne Supplements and get 15% off  https://www.thorne.com/u/alexlarsonnutrition

Stress is higher. Life feels heavier. And if your training, recovery, nutrition, or patience feels different lately…you’re probably not imagining it.
In this episode of the Endurance Eats Podcast, I’m sitting down in person with returning guest Erin Ayala of Skadi Sport Psychology to talk about what increased stress actually does to us as athletes and why trying to simply “push through” isn’t always the answer.
Erin and I recorded this one during a mini work-and-riding retreat in Cuyuna, Minnesota, after putting in plenty of miles on the bike (and after I got a very unexpected new max heart rate on some beginner singletrack 😅).
But the real reason I wanted to have this conversation is something I’ve been noticing in my own work: this year feels different.
I’ve seen more athletes dealing with stress, uncertainty, disrupted routines, and situations that make nutrition and training harder than usual. Erin has been seeing it too.
So we’re digging into what happens when life stress piles on top of training stress and, more importantly, what you can actually do about it.
We talk about adjusting expectations during high-stress seasons, why self-compassion isn’t the same as “going soft,” and how social connection can play a major role in resilience.
Then we nerd out on heart rate variability (HRV): what it actually measures, why you shouldn’t compare your HRV to someone else’s, and how Erin is using HRV biofeedback and breathing techniques to help athletes train their nervous systems.
If you love data, endurance training, recovery, or understanding why your body is doing what it’s doing, you’re going to love this conversation.

What You'll Learn
Why increased life stress can change how you show up in training, nutrition, work, and relationships

The connection between stress, loneliness, and recovery

Why your usual training load might suddenly feel harder even when the workouts haven’t changed

How to recalibrate your expectations instead of assuming you need more discipline or willpower

The three pieces of self-compassion Erin wants athletes to understand

Why social support can be a powerful tool for managing stress

How coaches and providers can better support athletes during high-stress seasons

What heart rate variability (HRV) actually tells you about your nervous system

Why your personal HRV trends matter more than comparing your number to someone else’s

How sleep, alcohol, training, illness, nutrition, and life stress can influence HRV

RESOURCES:

Skadi Sport Psychology: https://skadisportpsychology.com

American Psychological Association Stress in America survey 

Follow Skadi Sport Psychology on Instagram 

Connect with Me:
Follow along for more practical sports nutrition and fueling support: Instagram: @alexlarsonnutrition

Website: alexlarsonnutrition.com

Work with Alex Larson Nutrition: https://alexlarsonnutrition.com/

Check out our endurance nutrition tools and resources 

Don’t Forget to Subscribe!
Click that follow button to stay updated on future episodes packed with actionable insights and expert advice for endurance athletes. Leave a quick review to help more endurance athletes find the show

Have Questions or Suggestions?
Send me a message, and I might cover it in a future episode!

This episode of Endurance Eats is brought to you by Alex Larson’s 1:1 Nutrition Coaching.
If you’ve ever wondered, Am I eating enough? Am I fueling this right? Why do I still feel tired? you’re not alone. Alex Larson Nutrition helps endurance athletes cut through the confusion and build a fueling plan that actually works for their training, lifestyle, and goals.
You can learn more at alexlarsonnutrition.com. 

This Episode is Brought to You By Carb Culture Shop
Grab your merch from the shop with saying that endurance athletes just get!

This episode is brought to you by Thorne. 
Shop Thorne Supplements and get 15% off  https://www.thorne.com/u/alexlarsonnutrition

Your labs came back “normal”… but you’re exhausted, your training feels harder than it should, and something still feels off.
Iron deficiency is incredibly common in female endurance athletes and if ferritin isn’t being checked, you could be missing a really important piece of the puzzle.
Today on the Endurance Eats Podcast, we’re talking about iron deficiency in endurance athletes, particularly female athletes.
I’m joined by Dr. Cory Dugan, a postdoctoral research fellow at the LSU Pennington Biomedical Research Center and a researcher in iron deficiency and women’s health. Cory earned his PhD from the University of Western Australia, where his work focused on iron deficiency management and treatment in active females.
My goal with this episode, along with my three-part ferritin series on Substack, is to give you the knowledge and language you need to better advocate for yourself at your doctor’s office.
We’re breaking down what ferritin actually tells us, why hemoglobin alone doesn’t give us the full picture, why female endurance athletes are especially vulnerable to low iron stores, and what we actually know about iron deficiency, fatigue, and athletic performance.
Because being exhausted all the time shouldn’t automatically get written off as “normal.”

What You’ll Learn
The difference between iron deficiency, iron deficiency without anemia, and iron deficiency anemia and why knowing the difference matters

Why your hemoglobin can look completely normal while your iron stores are already running low

Why ferritin is one of the most important numbers to understand when you’re looking at iron status

Why there’s still so much disagreement around what counts as “low” ferritin

Why Cory advocates for looking beyond the traditional ferritin cutoff, especially in athletes

How hard training and inflammation can affect ferritin and potentially make your results harder to interpret

Why female endurance athletes have so many overlapping risk factors for iron deficiency, including menstrual blood loss, GI blood loss, sweat losses, foot-strike hemolysis, and exercise-induced changes in iron absorption

And if you’ve ever been told your labs are “fine” while you’re still wondering why you feel so tired, this is an episode I really want you to hear.

Resources Mentioned
 My three-part ferritin series on Substack

PART 1: Ferritin: The Number No One Agrees On

PAR 2: Ferritin Low, Everything Else Normal: Now What?

PART 3: Iron and Ferritin - Supplementing Smart

Dr. Cory Dugan’s website 

Dr. Cory Dugan on Instagram 

Dr. Cory Dugan on LinkedIn 

Dr. Cory Dugan’s free iron risk questionnaire 

Dr. Cory Dugan’s plain-language iron guide for women 

“The Misogyny of Iron Deficiency” by Dr. Cory Dugan 

Connect with Me:
Follow along for more practical sports nutrition and fueling support: Instagram: @alexlarsonnutrition

Website: alexlarsonnutrition.com

Work with Alex Larson Nutrition: https://alexlarsonnutrition.com/

Check out our endurance nutrition tools and resources 

Don’t Forget to Subscribe!
Click that follow button to stay updated on future episodes packed with actionable insights and expert advice for endurance athletes. Leave a quick review to help more endurance athletes find the show

Have Questions or Suggestions?
Send me a message, and I might cover it in a future episode!

This episode of Endurance Eats is brought to you by Alex Larson’s 1:1 Nutrition Coaching.
If you’ve ever wondered, Am I eating enough? Am I fueling this right? Why do I still feel tired? you’re not alone. Alex Larson Nutrition helps endurance athletes cut through the confusion and build a fueling plan that actually works for their training, lifestyle, and goals.
You can learn more at alexlarsonnutrition.com. 

This Episode is Brought to You By Carb Culture Shop
Grab your merch from the shop with saying that endurance athletes just get!

This episode is brought to you by Thorne. 
Shop Thorne Supplements and get 15% off  https://www.thorne.com/u/alexlarsonnutrition

What does it actually mean to be a woman in endurance sports right now?
I’ve been thinking about this episode for more than a year, and I knew I didn’t want it to be another conversation focused only on the challenges women face. So I asked three incredible professional female endurance athletes the same four questions and their answers went in directions I think we all need to hear.
Because what our bodies can do is a whole lot more interesting than what they look like.
In this special episode of the Endurance Eats podcast, I’m bringing together three professional athletes from three different corners of endurance sport: Olympic marathoner Dakota Popane, 2022 IRONMAN World Champion Chelsea Sodaro, and professional gravel cyclist Cecile Lejeune.
We talk about what they love about being women in sport, how they wish we talked about female athletes differently, the conversations our sports still aren’t having enough, and what they want the next generation of girls and women to know about performance and body image.
We also get into the media’s fixation on female athletes’ bodies, the need for more women-specific sports research, motherhood and professional sport, athletic longevity, and why preserving the joy of sport matters.
These are three very different perspectives and that’s exactly what makes this conversation so good.

What You’ll Learn
Why getting beaten by a woman should never be treated as an insult and what that attitude says about the way we still view women’s performance

What Dakota, Chelsea, and Cecile genuinely love about being women in endurance sports

Why the conversation around female athletes needs to move beyond weight and appearance and toward performance, preparation, tactics, and mindset

What the coverage of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes revealed about the way we talk about women’s bodies in elite sport

Why women-specific research still has a long way to go and why better research matters for athletes at every level

How pregnancy, motherhood, sponsorships, and professional sport collide in ways we still aren’t talking about enough

Why longevity shouldn’t mean only staying physically healthy, it should include protecting your mental health and your joy in sport

What some of the best women in endurance sports want younger female athletes to understand about their bodies

Why helping the next generation develop a healthier relationship with food and body image starts with what we model for them

The reminder I hope every athlete takes from this episode: being strong, powerful, and capable matters so much more than chasing a certain appearance

Resources Mentioned

Dakota Popane — Endurance Eats Episode 47

Chelsea Sodaro — Endurance Eats Episode 56 

Cecile Lejeune — Endurance Eats Episode 33 

Dr. Abbie Smith-Ryan — Endurance Eats Episodes 25 & 26: 

Follow Dakota Popane 

Follow Chelsea Sodaro 

Follow Cecile Lejeune 

Connect with Me:
Follow along for more practical sports nutrition and fueling support: Instagram: @alexlarsonnutrition

Website: alexlarsonnutrition.com

Work with Alex Larson Nutrition: https://alexlarsonnutrition.com/

Check out our endurance nutrition tools and resources

Don’t Forget to Subscribe!
Click that follow button to stay updated on future episodes packed with actionable insights and expert advice for endurance athletes.

Have Questions or Suggestions?
Send me a message

This episode of Endurance Eats is brought to you by Alex Larson’s 1:1 Nutrition Coaching.
If you’ve ever wondered, Am I eating enough? Am I fueling this right? Why do I still feel tired? you’re not alone. Alex Larson Nutrition helps endurance athletes cut through the confusion and build a fueling plan that actually works for their training, lifestyle, and goals.
You can learn more at alexlarsonnutrition.com. 

This Episode is Brought to You By Carb Culture Shop
Grab your merch from the shop with sayings that endurance athletes just get!

This episode is brought to you by Thorne. 
Get 15% off Thorne Supplements

What if eating better could actually help you sleep better and sleeping better could make it easier to fuel your body well?
It turns out these two things are way more connected than most athletes realize. And if you’ve ever noticed that you’re absolutely ravenous after a terrible night of sleep…there’s a reason for that.
In this episode, I’m joined by nutrition and sleep researcher Marie-Pierre St-Onge to dig into the fascinating, bi-directional relationship between sleep and nutrition.
Marie-Pierre’s background is in nutrition, and her research explores how sleep duration, diet quality, meal timing, and other lifestyle factors influence energy balance and cardiometabolic health. She’s also the co-author of Eat Better, Sleep Better.
And I loved this conversation because it confirms something my team and I see with our endurance athletes all the time: when we improve how an athlete fuels during the day, sleep often improves right along with it.
We talk about what happens to hunger when you’re sleep deprived, why eating more earlier in the day may benefit both sleep and metabolic health, and what athletes with evening workouts can do when training and bedtime are uncomfortably close together.
We also get into magnesium, tart cherry juice, melatonin, sleep trackers, women’s hormonal changes, and why your watch’s sleep score shouldn’t necessarily dictate how you feel about your day.

What You’ll Learn
Why sleep and nutrition have a bi-directional relationship, meaning poor sleep can change how you eat, while what you eat may also affect how well you sleep

What happens to hunger and satiety hormones when you’re sleep deprived and why you may legitimately feel hungrier after a rough night

Why overeating after several nights of poor sleep isn’t necessarily a willpower problem and what I want you to get curious about instead

What researchers found when people restricted their sleep by about 90 minutes for six weeks

Why a higher-quality diet with more fruits, vegetables, fiber, whole grains, nuts, and seeds is associated with better sleep

The fascinating connection between eating five servings of fruits and vegetables per day and less fragmented sleep

Why I’m such a fan of front-loading nutrition

How eating later in the day may affect your body’s ability to wind down for sleep

What the research actually says about magnesium, tart cherry juice, melatonin, and GABA for sleep

Why consistent bedtimes and wake times matter and how “social jet lag” can affect your health and eating patterns

How hormonal changes throughout the menstrual cycle and the menopause transition may influence women’s sleep

Why your Garmin, Apple Watch, Oura Ring, or other sleep tracker can be useful data but shouldn’t override how you actually feel

Resources Mentioned

Marie-Pierre St-Onge’s website

Marie-Pierre St-Onge on LinkedIn 

Eat Better, Sleep Better by Marie-Pierre St-Onge and Kat Craddock 

Marie-Pierre St-Onge’s interview on the Huberman Lab podcast 

Connect with Me:
Instagram: @alexlarsonnutrition

Website: alexlarsonnutrition.com

Don’t Forget to Subscribe!
Click that follow button to stay updated on future episodes packed with actionable insights and expert advice for endurance athletes.

Have Questions or Suggestions?
Send me a message, and I might cover it in a future episode!

This episode of Endurance Eats is brought to you by Alex Larson’s 1:1 Nutrition Coaching.
If you’ve ever wondered, Am I eating enough? Am I fueling this right? Why do I still feel tired? you’re not alone. Alex Larson Nutrition helps endurance athletes cut through the confusion and build a fueling plan that actually works for their training, lifestyle, and goals.
You can learn more at alexlarsonnutrition.com. 

This Episode is Brought to You By Carb Culture Shop
Grab your merch from the shop with saying that endurance athletes just get!

This episode is brought to you by Thorne. 
Shop Thorne Supplements and get 15% off  https://www.thorne.com/u/alexlarsonnutrition