The Shakeout Podcast

The Canadian half marathon championships take place this Sunday, August 16th in Edmonton and for Canadian marathon record holder Natasha Wodak 13 miles and a stellar women's elite field stand between her and a 13th national championship title.

After a convincing win on the Edmonton course in 2025, Wodak returns looking to defend her title against a field loaded with talent, including last year's runner-up Florence Caron and half marathon debutants the likes of Jadyn Keeler and Gracelyn Larkin. The race serves as a critical step in the selection process for the 2026 World Athletics Road Running Championships, September 19-20 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

This week on The Shakeout Podcast, Wodak joins the show to talk about her signature grittiness in competition, how she continues to adapt and adjust her training to compete with the best in the country year-on-year, and how her own work as a coach has shaped how she approaches race day.

Follow Natasha @tashawodak

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Kumsa Yuya spent years believing that his chronic fatigue and frequent illnesses were simply the cost of training hard for his marathon goals. Based on conventional wisdom, it seemed to Kumsa that he was doing everything right: prioritizing recovery, eating nutritious food, and paying special attention to his nutrition around key workouts and long runs. 

Still, bouts of sickness and fatigue that resigned him to bed persisted, and even many medical professionals were at a loss as to how a seemingly healthy, active man in his prime could keep succumbing to the symptoms Kumsa experienced.

It was only after beginning to work with a sports dietitian that Kumsa realized his body was in a chronic state of low energy availability, despite his thoughtful attempts at fueling and nutrition. He would come to understand it as a case of Relative Energy Deficiency in sport, or REDs and began a year long journey back to health.  Now, he joins the show to share his experience and help others spot the signs of a condition that’s all too common in endurance sport, but frequently misunderstood.

Subscribe to The Shakeout Podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts.

 [This collaboration is part of an advertising campaign led by the Podpass agency for Altitude Sports]

Shop now at Altitude Sports and enjoy up to 20% off your first order with the promo code "SHAKEOUT2026" Click here to order 👉 https://bit.ly/altitude-shakeout2026

For someone who has yet to reach his 27th birthday, Thomas Nobbs has already spent a lifetime in the world of competitive running. Since joining his first track club at age seven, the Vancouver native quickly found his stride, falling in love with the work harder/run faster equation that distance running offered. He also found his stride on the track and went on to assert himself as one of the country's top youth athletes, with a pair of national youth championship golds in the 3,000m and 2,000m steeplechase.

But for someone who loved to work hard, the risks associated with a high-output approach began to grow, and Nobbs spent much of his late high school and early university careers sidelined with injuries, including multiple stress fractures.

Nevertheless, the passion for running never faded, and after wrapping up a university career at UBC in 2022, Nobbs began exploring the world of longer distances on the road, a journey that eventually, and inevitably, took him to the marathon.

Since debuting three years ago, the 26-year-old has steadily improved his time over 42.2 km, most recently with a breakout performance in March in Rockland State Park, NY, where he won the McKirdy Micro Marathon in 2:09:24. It was a three-minute personal best and made him the fourth fastest marathoner in Canadian history.

After years climbing his way back through injury, the former youth champion finds himself once again among the best in the nation, and will make his Abbott World Marathon Major debut in October in Chicago, entering that field as the top-ranked Canadian.

This week on The Shakeout Podcast, Tom joins the show to recap his breakout race, the big-mileage training that got him there, and what he's learned from the highs and lows of 20 years immersed in the world of competitive running.

Follow Thomas @nobbs.not.knobs

Cover Photo: Max Collier

Subscribe to The Shakeout Podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts.

 [This collaboration is part of an advertising campaign led by the Podpass agency for Altitude Sports] Shop now at Altitude Sports and enjoy up to 20% off your first order with the promo code "SHAKEOUT2026" Click here to order 👉 https://bit.ly/altitude-shakeout2026

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For most of the past 40 years, the Canadian record in the women’s 100m remained stagnant, hovering right under the 11 second barrier and moving just 0.04 over the span of nearly 4 decades. But that all changed earlier this month when Ajax, ON Sadé McCreath stormed to a massive lifetime best of 10.86 at the Edmonton International Track Classic, taking nearly a full 10th of a second off of the previous national record and becoming the first woman in Canadian history to dip under 10.90 seconds. 

And while the record-setting run marks a new era in Canadian sprinting, McCreath’s own journey to Canadian record holder parallels the trajectory of the record itself. Far from an overnight success story, McCreath’s breakthrough is rather the result of a decade-plus of relentless work. From nearly walking away from the sport altogether earlier this year to breaking new ground as the fastest Canadian in history, Sadé joins the show to take us inside her journey to national record holder, and how she’s embracing this new chapter in her career with an eye on finding out just how fast she can go. 

Follow Sadé @onlymissmac

Subscribe to The Shakeout Podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts.

 [This collaboration is part of an advertising campaign led by the Podpass agency for Altitude Sports]

Shop now at Altitude Sports and enjoy up to 20% off your first order with the promo code "SHAKEOUT2026" Click here to order 👉 https://bit.ly/altitude-shakeout2026

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For many athletes, especially in the world of endurance sport, the exhaustion that follows a hard effort is part of the reward for the training it took to make it happen. But when the mountaintop feeling of a new personal best fades away and the fatigue still lingers, it might be a sign of something deeper lurking beneath the surface. 

What if that fatigue you’re battling during a heavy training block is more than simply the product of hard work? What if the impacts of an activity-filled lifestyle might actually be contributing to long term health risks? These are the questions that have often gone unheard or overlooked by athletes at all ability levels, but are crucial to making sure that sport remains a healthy part of any athlete's life. 

While there’s no simple catchall answer to the above questions, a recurring theme that has drawn the ongoing attention of leading sports scientists, dieticians, and doctors is the impact of low iron levels. Yet for all iron’s importance to our overall health–and sport performance–it remains largely misunderstood by many athletes.

That’s why a group of Canada’s leading sport-science minds have spent the last three years compiling the research for a landmark consensus on the role of iron in sport. This week on The Shakeout Podcast we’re joined be Kelly Anne Erdman, a registered sport dietitian, Olympian, and co-author of “Canada's Best Practice Guidelines for Iron Optimization in Athletes”. Kelly Anne joins us to discuss the critical importance of maintaining healthy iron levels for general wellbeing, how to spot and treat the signs and symptoms of iron deficiency, and how making iron a priority could be the path to feeling–and performing–at your best.

Subscribe to The Shakeout Podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts.

Find out more about Kelly Anne's work with Canadian Olympian teams and athletes at all abilities at https://healthandperformancenutritioninc.com/about/ or contact Kelly Anne: kellyanne.erdman@gmail.com

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