The Shakeout Podcast

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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A few months ago, Madelyn Eybergen joined this show as Canada's university cross-country champion. Today, she's back as a world champion, but not in running. Instead, she conquered one of the fastest-growing sports in endurance: hybrid racing.

If there were ever a competition to crown the world’s most well rounded endurance athlete, Eybergen would be able to make a strong case. She's no stranger to reinvention after trading the high jump for the track and quickly becoming one of Canada's brightest young distance running stars. Now, she's taken on a challenge even further removed, the fast growing world of hybrid racing. Late last month at the HYROX Global Championships in Stockholm she was crowned World Champion in the Professional 20-24 division, with a new national record setting time of 57:37 to boot. 

What makes the accomplishment even more impressive is the fact that it comes fresh off the heels of a personal-best setting track season, including a new 15:30 5000m PB set just one week prior to the HYROX global championships.  This week, Madelyn joins The Shakeout Podcast to recap her historic world title and answer once and for all the question runners everywhere are starting to ask: Could Hyrox be the future of endurance training?

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[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 all of Canada’s incredible venues for trail racing, none captures the attention of the running world quite so much as the famed Quebec Mega Trail. For years, QMT has been the proving ground for the nation’s top ultra endurance athletes and one that has increasingly drawn the interest of some of the sport’s biggest names globally as a stop on the World Trail Majors circuit. Whether it’s the raucous crowds, the beautiful scenes along the St. Lawrence, or the ever-increasing depth of competition, the Quebec Mega Trail weekend has established itself as the crown jewel on the schedule of the Canadian trail scene. 

Adding further intrigue to the 2026 iteration is its status as the Canadian trail championships for long and short course, pulling nearly all of the country’s top names to compete head-to-head over the 80 & 50k distances. No stranger to QMT is one of Canada’s top returners for this year’s event, Kelsey Hogan. While her global accolades continue to impress, it is here at QMT that Hogan seems to find her very finest form and after 4 straight years on QMT podiums, including back-to-back 100 mile championships in 2022/23, she’s back again in 2026 and looking to reclaim top honours against a stacked field in the women’s national long course championship. 

Today, Kelsey joins the show to talk all things Quebec Mega Trail, from her own preparation leading into this year’s event to the storylines she’s most looking forward to watching play out across the slate of race distances, and what it is exactly about the QMT vibe that keeps athletes coming back year after year.

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

Follow Kelsey @KelseyPamela

[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

Create an account or sign in to access the discount. Valid on items at regular price only. Valid for a limited time only after sign up. Cannot be combined with any other discount code and/or promotion. Limited to one use per customer. Membership discount not applicable on this offer.

Nickademus de la Rosa is no stranger to mountaintops, of both the literal and metaphorical variety. 

For much of the 2010s he was at the top of the ultrarunning world, rattling off podium appearances at some of the longest, toughest and most iconic events in the sport, and boasting a list of completions almost as long as the races themselves.

Of all the highs, perhaps none was greater than his finish at the 2013 Barkley Marathons, a race often deemed the toughest in the world, with only 26 finishes in its 30+ year history. 

Yet, while a victory on one of the sport’s greatest stages brought the promise of a legacy cemented, it also served to further deepen an identity rooted in performance, one perpetuated by a constant striving for the next win.

While de la Rosa's immense talent for the trails allowed him to dictate his own story for years, his performance-centric identity collapsed when an abrupt diagnosis and open-heart surgery forced him to retire from competition in 2017. What followed were years of soul-searching and grappling to rediscover a sense of self outside of sport. 

That journey ultimately led him to mental performance coaching, using his education in sport and performance psychology and the hard-earned lessons from his own career to help athletes separate their self-worth from performance and free themselves to compete at their best.

Today on The Shakeout Podcast, Nick shares from his own journey of mountaintops and valley bottoms, how’s he reshaped a relationship with the sport he loves that’s built for the long run, and how stepping away from the narrow constraints of the podium can help us all get the most out of the sport we love. 

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

Checkout Nickademus on social media @ultrademus

[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

Create an account or sign in to access the discount. Valid on items at regular price only. Valid for a limited time only after sign up. Cannot be combined with any other discount code and/or promotion. Limited to one use per customer. Membership discount not applicable on this offer.

The 2026 Canadian track & field championships are underway from Ottawa and The Shakeout Podcast team brings you all the storylines you need to know heading into a full weekend of action on the track.

Host John Gay is joined by Canadian Running's Cameron Ormond and special guest Avery Pearson, fresh off her final collegiate season at The University of Colorado.

From a jam packed night of distance action on Thursday, June 18th right through the always-riveting 1500m finals set for Sunday, the team takes a deep dive into the head-to-head battles, superstar showdowns, and dark horse picks you need to keep an eye on this weekend.

Plus, Pearson shares from her experience competing in her final season as a collegiate athlete, from the demands of the NCAA racing schedule to making her first senior national team earlier this year and how she plans to carry the momentum from a breakout season into a stacked women's 800m competition this Friday and Saturday in Ottawa.

Follow Avery @averyypearson

Cover Photo: Lauren Cawley

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

Create an account or sign in to access the discount. Valid on items at regular price only. Valid for a limited time only after sign up. Cannot be combined with any other discount code and/or promotion. Limited to one use per customer. Membership discount not applicable on this offer.

Time to plan your next Run-Cation! Spots remain for the 2026 Fiddler's Marathon, a BQ-eligible course in beautiful Sydney, Nova Scotia

Sign-Up today: https://fiddlersmarathon.com/