Jackie Hering: Welcome to the Women's Race Podcast. I'm your host, Jackie Herring, and that was my daughter, Skylar Herring, joining me for that little bit of the intro. This is a podcast about professional women's triathlon. Here I talk to pro triathletes. We cover racing, what's going on with them, behind the scenes, and many things in between. My goal with this podcast is to shine a light on women and endurance sports, share their stories. And things you might not hear other places. If you're enjoying the podcast, make sure you subscribe wherever you're listening. We now have a Friday newsletter that will cover many different topics, and I hope to have some guest contributors in the near future to that newsletter. So go on Instagram and find out how you can subscribe for to that. We also have launched in Collaboration with Katie at Boyhood Threads. It's her Etsy store. She has made some merch for us. We have some shirts, some tanks, and some sweatshirts that are all about supporting women's triathlon. And my main saying, which is swim, bike, run, have fun, is on one of the shirts. And I hope you guys like it a lot. The ethos of that is just. No matter how serious you are in the sport, it still is something that should be fun and you should enjoy. So hopefully that shirt can remind you of that feeling of finding the fun in it, even on the hard days, even when things don't go as planned, it can still be fun and it should be. Another thing, we have a Patreon. You can find that link in Instagram if you want to just support the show monetarily. That just covers my monthly fees, pretty much like recording this podcast in a nice software and anything else that is involved, there I could list them all out for you if you're interested. Just let me know. I also, lastly, last announcement before we get into today's episode, we have some special Kona hats. I'm gonna be making 50 of these hats. They will be some will be able to be shipped if you get your order in in time, which will be very soon. The orders will close August 20th. I will be sharing that soon. And some I will have available to get in person in Kona. More details will be coming on that and look for the design. They're gonna be really pretty. I may even race with it. It will be a really nice run hat. You guys are gonna love them. So today's episode is specifically focused on nutrition. We're gonna cover five big things. You guys are gonna love this episode. our first non professional triathlete, I brought her on because she's got a lot of expertise and a lot of great info. And I hope you guys enjoy the chat. All right, hey guys. So as I said, I'm here with our very first non-professional triathlete. I'm here with Marnie Soomball. Did I say that right? Marni: Yes, you did. Jackie Hering: Okay, good. and I've brought on Marnie because so many of the comments and questions that I get personally and that I've gotten to me here on the women's race are regarding nutrition. This is like everyday eating, race nutrition. Just generally, I think people are. Searching for how to feel good, how to be healthy. And it's as I've experienced over my life, it's like a constant mission of trial and error. So I've brought on Marnie. She has a lot of material to draw from. She's a board-certified sports dietitian. She's an exercise physiologist, a coach, and then also a 22-time Iron Man finisher. So she's really got a great spectrum of experience with herself and with Coaching different athletes in a lot of different scenarios. So we're gonna have a conversation today and just cover some of these topics. I made a list and I've got five big questions that I hope that we can cover today. But so here they are, just so you guys know what we're about to be getting into. Number one, are we eating enough? Number two, how much even is enough? And how do you figure out how much is enough? Number three, Why does my stomach hate me sometimes? Number four, does lighter mean faster and getting to the bottom of the race weight discussion, the body image, and the red S? And then number five, as endurance athletes, what actually matters? And that's a huge list of topics that someone could probably do an entire like doctorate on. But we'll just crack into best that we can. I don't want to overwhelm you with all that. yeah. So Marnie, welcome to the show. Do you want to just give people like the two minute bio on you? Marni: Well, thank you for having me. I'm honored to be the first non-professional trahlete. You and I go way back. I was Jackie Hering: Yeah. Marni: sharing some pictures. I have actually have a few pictures of us. So when it was back in when was it 2010? We raced Iron Man Wisconsin together right before you turned pro. And Jackie Hering: Yeah. Marni: we were babies back then. So that was 16 years ago. and you had let your slot roll down because you were turning pro and you were doing Kona. And I got that slot. So we instantly became besties right away. Jackie Hering: Yeah, seriously. I remember that because I was like, should I go pro? Should I not go pro? And you really wanted the slot because it's just so nice to secure it, you know, that full year beforehand. So that was awesome. Marni: Yeah, yeah. And then we just met up with each other. Remember us doing a little jog before St. George one time. And that's one thing I've always appreciated about you is you're all about community and other people, and nobody, you're never too fast for anybody else. And so I really appreciate that about you as an athlete and a human. But also this podcast has been so great. I've listened to every episode since you've put it out. It's my go-to for driving to the pool. but I really like that you're sharing these stories about professional athletes because it's just showing that athletes are more than just athletes. They're humans and they have stories, they have pasts, they have challenges. And so we we need this podcast space for women just because it reminds us that athletes are so much more than just a body or a finishing time. We're just so much more than that. Jackie Hering: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And that's probably summarizes the ethos, like our main mission here. So thanks for saying that. And I'm glad you're enjoying the episodes so far. I think I've just I mean, I choose the guests, so of course I love the guests I've had on so far. Marni: They've been great. Jackie Hering: yeah, it's been it's been super fun to just get a little bit more behind the scenes with with some of those ladies. So, You said all that and not anything about you. So let's tell everybody, let's t tell everybody like where you live. I mean, we don't have to do a big ad. I don't, I don't work with you. I don't work with you in coaching or any of that. So it doesn't have to be anything like that, but just where you live and a little bit about your experience working with triathletes and how you mix in, I guess, like helping people get healthy with their nutrition as they're training for these endurance events. Marni: So little bit about me. I live in Greenville, South Carolina, and I mean my husband Carell, we moved here in 2014 from Jacksonville, Florida. And we absolutely love it here. It's very cycling heavy with a lot of professional cyclists here. We're close to the mountains. So it's very Europe-y type riding, just with non-pristine roads, with very bumpy South Carolina roads. but absolutely love it here. It's a great place to train and a great community. I have a board certification in sports nutrition. I've been a dietitian for over 15 years now. I started off as a clinical dietitian as I was starting to grow my business with coaching and nutrition. And then once we moved to Greenville, I just do the coaching and sports nutrition for athletes. So that is my full time job. I've also, as you mentioned, completed 22 Ironmans. I've also done three extreme trathlons. Norseman being the last one, Canada man being the first one, an icon. and I also do mountain biking, which I've gotten into the past few years, but my first love is trathlon. now, fast forward a little bit. So the other side of what I do is working with athletes. So I do coach athletes, but one of my Passions within the endurance space is helping athletes with sports nutrition. And that can involve daily nutrition, timing nutrition with workouts, fueling during workouts, helping to recover, helping athletes develop a healthy relationship with their food and their body. I don't specialize in eating disorders, so I don't work with athletes in that space. But just helping athletes learn to trust and listen and respect their body so that they can get the most out of it through training and racing. One of the areas that I really enjoy helping athletes with is the troubleshooting part of sports nutrition. So when athletes have an issue or want Jackie Hering: Yeah. Marni: to try to reduce the risk of having an issue, so GI issues or bonking, that's an area that I really enjoy just because there's a lot of pieces and that draws into my background. in exercise physiology. So that is one of the fun parts. Fun for me, not so much fun for the athlete, but I enjoy that because then also we can hopefully reduce the risk of that happening and not be a limiter in future races. Jackie Hering: Yes. We'll get into that one in number three. Why does my stomach hate me? that's awesome. I think you obviously have a lot of great experience and I'm interested to just like talk through some of the stuff and and share this with people because I get so many questions and all I can really speak of I mean, I have coached a handful of people, but obviously I don't have the scientific experience with nutrition. I know what works for me and I know what can work. Generally for most people. yeah. So let's just crack into these five big questions. Number one, are we eating enough? As endurance athletes, as humans in general, I think this is s something that kind of like oscillates based on what the trends are in general. what's your like gut reaction to just the question of are we eating enough? Marni: Yeah. It's a loaded question, but I really like how you frame that because that's how I want athletes to look at food. I think diet culture kind of teaches us are we eating too much? and constantly looking at where we should cut back or logging reactivity. reactively, kind of, did I eat too much? What it do where do I need to cut back? But as athletes, we need to think about are we giving our body enough fuel, enough energy, enough nutrients to support these added stressors on our body? And I know we're we'll talk about reds or low energy availability later on in this conversation. But this idea of are we eating enough in my practice, I would say that I really haven't worked with an athlete that is eating enough. And so that should just be the answer right there. I don't think athletes are eating enough. Now, should it set off the alarm bells that everybody is going to get sick or injured or not have good performances? No, I think our sport is definitely improving and we've got a lot of reasons why. But when it comes to eating enough, it can be very challenging. You know, for professionals, they're expending an extreme amount of energy, a lot of training sessions throughout the day. It can be very difficult to understand and even meet those energy needs. Then you have the age grouper who's balancing life, career, family, other obligations. And so eating can often become an added stressor. It's an afterthought. There's, you know, unfortunately, some people feel like they just don't even have time to eat. And then there's the planning of meals. So there's a lot of different components. And I think it goes beyond just athletes intentionally restricting. I would like to think that the majority of athletes want to get the most out of their body and want it to perform well and want it to stay healthy. certainly there are athletes that struggle with that side of wanting to get leaner or lose weight, and they think that eating less will help with that. But the answer is no, I don't think athletes are eating enough. Jackie Hering: Yeah, that's that's kind of been my experiences too. And and I know just thinking back to like old me, pretty much there's two versions of me. There's version of me pre-kids, and then version like, well, I guess maybe 2.5. There's one that's pregnant, and then there's one that's like after kids. And the version of me before kids, I was very fixated on being a certain weight. I was very fixed on like trying not to eat too much. It was that idea that I needed to like restrict in order to like try to be the certain size, even though I was training a ton. I was racing professionally. And funny thing is, back then I was bigger. My body was holding on to weight. I think because I was like probably in a little bit of like My body was in a bit of a panic state because I was training so much. I was trying to use all my resources, but then not giving my body enough resources to actually do what it needed to do. So I didn't feel super healthy back then. And I just felt like I was always battling myself. And when I was pregnancy kind of healed me because I completely let that go. I'm like, man, I need so much because I'm growing a human inside my body. So then I went like not really overboard, but I released Any weird psychology around food, I just let it go and I said, I just gotta eat when I'm hungry, I gotta try to eat healthy. And I like really found what what I do now, which is like intuitive eating. It's just like aim for healthy stuff, eat when you're hungry, think about the activities you're doing and put enough fuel in the tank to give your body energy for everything. So I don't do any tracking. I don't do anything crazy. And I I only did that back in the early version one of me that was not, did not have a healthy relationship with food. So how do people, if you're not getting pregnant, how do you like move through that spectrum and find the place that you do feel healthy with it? Marni: Yeah. So I think that there's two parts that you brought up here. There's one that in and I think we're moving away from it. I wrote an article for Trahlate magazine about this whole idea of race weight and how we're seeing different bodies represented in endurance sports and not just different bodies all around, but different bodies at the top of the sport. so we're kind of moving away from that idealized image, but we still have this belief that lighter is faster and Society loves to glorify leanness. It's it's sexy, it's appealing. These people look happier or healthier. but we can't assume that being leaner is going to automatically make us better athletes. so we have to first move away from this look or this image. And a lot of times athletes like yourself just kind of have this aha moment where maybe it's a different chapter in life. It's not letting yourself go. It's just You just kind of things just happen and then you realize, like, you know what? I'm happier, I'm healthier, I feel stronger, I can train more consistently. And what's interesting is sometimes the body doesn't change. Sometimes it it surprises you and you lose weight. I mean, it just the body just does what it needs to do because you're actually fueling itself. So that's one side of it. The other side is that A lot of athletes don't understand how much they should be eating. And when I work with athletes, I really encourage athletes to work on their nutrition or focus on their nutrition the off season so they can really understand what is a foundational diet. What is it that I should be eating on a day-to-day basis where I'm only training six to eight hours a week, you know, just exercising maybe an hour a day, which I think most athletes do in the off season. They may consider it more exercising. And then as we ramp up, then we need to adjust our daily needs. And what's interesting is when I work with athletes, let's say preparing for a long distance race and we're going over making sure that they're eating enough. What's surprising is a lot of these athletes, what they consider is their baseline diet, that foundational off season, is actually what they're eating in peak training. So they can't even fathom eating. More because they already feel like, well, I feel like all I'm doing is eating, or I'm not hungry, or you know, I eat so much more than so and so. but in reality, it's actually that foundational diet that needs to be built from. So they're actually underfueling significantly as the training volume goes up. The main thing that we need to adjust is carbohydrates. So We can keep our protein and our fat fairly consistent. Yes, we need to adjust fat around our workouts because of slow digestion. It's also more satiating, so that can make it more difficult. If you're having a lot of peanut butter throughout the day, you might be full and not want to eat more carbohydrates as an example. But carbohydrates is our energy source. So that's the macronutrient that fluctuates throughout the year. So that's really where we need to be giving more attention. as our training volume increases. Jackie Hering: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And for me, I mean, very naturally, as you're training more, you're putting more carbs in your bottles. You're putting more carbs in your drinks. Like carbs are our main go-to, like during activity fuel. So you're gonna stick to your meals. Maybe your meals get a little bit bigger. or maybe, like for me, when I'm training more, my day will look the meals are just spaced around my workout. So I don't usually, for example, almost I almost never eat lunch at a normal lunchtime because I'm doing breakfast, swimming, second breakfast, maybe another snack, but then I'll do like big bike ride. I'm not usually stopping for like a full-on lunch in the middle of most of those rides, but then afterwards it's like a big late lunch because I am very hungry by then. And then dinner. So like For me, it's kind of like as much normal food as I can, but then as the training ramps up, it's so much more carbs in the drink bottles. just during the training itself, just trying to keep everything topped up the whole time. Marni: Yeah, and you're doing it correctly. And that's one thing that when I work with athletes, I try to encourage them not to think about standard meals like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Because for example, research tells us that in order to recover from a high volume training session, we have to continually be eating about every hour for the four hours after a workout. So we can't just say Hey, I'm going to have a a sandwich and soup after a long workout and then be done until dinner. We have to keep that process going. So when it comes to refueling, it's not about eating lunch or eating breakfast. It's just eating a meal to recover, eating another snack to recover. And it's all within the context of the duration and the intensity of that sport. But we have to think that training is that stressor that you're adding onto your body. So we have to support. That extra intensity and volume that's happening. So the harder or longer that you work, the more nutrition that you need to be consuming outside of that training session so you can replenish afterwards, which is a lot of eating. But at the same time, there are some shortcuts. And I think this is where some athletes get confused that we still want a healthy diet, but it's hard to eat enough rice and potatoes and apples throughout the day because they're filling. There's more fiber in those foods. And so sometimes we have to deviate and we have to choose more engineered or processed or more carb dense foods. And I think that's where sometimes athletes get confused or concerned because then it it makes them feel like the diet is becoming unhealthy. But in reality, we're actually keeping our body healthy by providing it a variety of nutrients and energy to support that training. Jackie Hering: I mean, I'm not gonna lie. When I see people like busting out the Pop Tarts, I definitely make some judgments. Because for me, I would have to have dug a hole to be eating the Pop Tarts, or I'd have to be in my 20s. So that doesn't fit my current spectrum. You know, some of some of the like emergency extra carb stuff, I'm like, man, I'd have to be in a really rough spot. But I mean I get what you're saying. Like, I think a big conversation that we're hearing lately is all these like big, huge numbers of carbs that people are trying to do during training and then trying to push during racing. Like, how do people go about, I guess, knowing how much carbs to put in their drinks, how many gels to take? Like, where do people find the line with athletes that you work with? Like what feels healthy, what feels right for their training? And For me, I just pick it based on like how hard it is. generally I think that's probably the way to go. Is that kind of how you base it? Marni: Yeah, we can definitely talk about that. I want to go back to the Pop Tarts because I am a big fan of Pop-Tarts and cereal Jackie Hering: Okay shut. Marni: for athletes. so I'll I'll share why. so let's imagine a 130-pound athlete needs to consume, let's say, a very high-volume training day. Let's say they're training five or six hours on that training day. So their total energy needs. So we don't take carbohydrate needs, we don't combine it with what you consume during training. It's on top of that. So if an athlete is training, and let's say we'll just do a really high end number, they're doing a high volume training. Let's say this athlete needs somewhere between 450 to 500 grams of carbs outside of training. That is Jackie Hering: So Marni: going to be very hard for an athlete to eat all almost all real food. So then we have to be more strategic. So it's not that the athlete is in a hole per se, you may be very tired, but It's that there's just not a lot of time in that day or stomach volume to eat almost 500 grams of carbs. And so sometimes we then look for more carb dense foods that aren't as filling. So yeah, we could go to honey or maple syrup or dried fruit, which I think a lot of people would consider real food, but there's also value on top of what we're eating. It's not, I'm not saying that we only eat those foods, but there can be value and the benefit of that is that you're actually meeting your energy needs. So at the end of the day, you're not in a hole versus if foods start becoming off limit or we don't consume those foods, then it can be really hard to get back that energy. Jackie Hering: Okay, I hear what you're saying, but on a quick Google, a Pop-Tart has the same amount of carbs as a piece of pizza. I can eat a whole pizza. Marni: The problem there is that we're also having a lot of added fat and the protein. And so we really want to emphasize, I I'm a lover of pizza, it's my favorite food group. so you and I both eat pizza before a race. So we're right there. But yeah, so we just want Jackie Hering: Okay. Marni: to be strategic. And I think that's also you bring up another really good point that a lot of athletes don't really recognize the food that they're consuming if it's actually serving them well. So I'll give you an example. Sometimes athletes will do a hard workout and say, Well, you know, I need to eat my carbohydrate, so I'm gonna have some ice cream or I'm gonna have some chips. But those foods actually aren't very carb dense because they bring a lot of fat into them. We still Jackie Hering: Yeah. Marni: need the fat, yes, but it's not the best source when we are looking for additional carbohydrates. So this may start to make people feel like confused and overwhelmed, but The big takeaway is that we should prioritize whole foods in our daily basis. But there comes a point in endurance athletes' diet where it becomes very difficult to get that much energy. And I think that's where we then are seeing athletes get into this energy deficit, especially on high volume days when there's not enough time in the day, the appetite isn't there, we're very busy, and that deficit can then start to creep up. Then it goes into the next day and the next day. So now we can talk about the high carb fueling. Jackie Hering: Yeah. Well, just want to make a quick no quick note on the last thing you just said, which which I find very often happens. Like you live somewhere warm. When it's warm here in the summer, like you get back, I'll get back from a five hour ride and I'm like, like when it's not hot out, I'm starving when I get back. But when it's hot, I get back and I'm like, How can I eat a whole meal? Like just what you last said, like, you know, you can only make your smoothie, like so so dense. And and I think I do agree with with what you're saying that at some point in order to not like mess up your next day and your next day, which is something as like a consistency is king person, I'm really big on, which is like you need to make every choice possible to allow yourself to feel good every day. And that that does include like refueling as soon as you can after those big things, getting in the carbs to let your muscles recover. yes, we can talk about the the actual carbs during training though. Like this is a big one for me. Ever I used to go on, you know, we s we started probably around the same time. And back then I used to just ride with water in my bottles. I never even hardly thought maybe every now and then if I was like mega bonked I would get a Gatorade or something at at the gas station. But I used to just do plain water, ride all day. And that's probably part of why I was so messed up back then. But nowadays, like I hardly do anything without at least some form of either electrolytes or electrolytes and carbs in my bottles. is that kind of what you're seeing? Like what do you what do you advise people based on just like Duration intensity type of stuff. Marni: Yeah, we definitely are on a high carb revolution right now. And it's been a very hot topic. But I think that's also one of the reasons why you've been so consistent as an athlete. I know you're experiencing a little niggle right now, but you've been so durable and consistent as an athlete. And if we look at athletes who are pretty resilient that don't seem to get injured a lot, I think we can contribute that to Constantly keeping their body fueled. They're really not running into significant deficits. Sure, there's deficits that happen, but it's not intentional and they're trying to be very aware of that to make sure that they're keeping their body fueled as much as possible. So I think that's great. And I am a big fan of using sports nutrition for all sessions, but of course the The idea is not that more is automatically better or that we should always be using the same amount of carbohydrates. The amount of carbohydrates during exercise is very dependent on what you're asking your body to do. So the biggest factors there are intensity and duration. And when I work with professional athletes versus age groupers, there's a big difference there in terms of the absolute intensity that they're able to do for the duration that they're doing. So we look at The typical professional athlete or elite age grouper, and they're able to hold to their threshold a lot higher than the average age grouper. So thus their energy needs are going to be much greater because they're using primarily carbohydrates. That's going to be much different to an age grouper that can't hold that intensity as long. It's also a big difference if you're doing just an aerobic ride and you're not using as much energy during that ride. So there's two topics that I think we're kind of working with right now with this high carb revolution. There's one of this gut training, that yes, you can train your gut to take 90, 100, 120 grams of carbs, but do you actually need that? And I think that's the difference, is just because you can tolerate 120 grams per hour, that doesn't mean that you need to eat be can taking in that much. So that's where periodization with carbohydrates really comes into play. You need to think about what you're asking your body, how much carbohydrate do I need to consume versus how much can I actually consume? So it's not low carb, high carb, it's just appropriate carbs for that workout or race. Jackie Hering: How do people how do we determine that? Is it just use like trial and error, like when you feel good or when you feel crap? Marni: Well, I think we can learn from that that it's definitely using some subjective feedback on our workouts. But there are guidelines out there with carbohydrate Jackie Hering: Yeah. Marni: intake. So we kind of work on a 30 gram interval or increment with carbohydrates. So we can assume that if it's a shorter or easier session, we're about 30 grams of carbs. When we get to a moderate length session, we're about 60. And then when we get to our longer sessions, we're somewhere between 60 and 90. And I think that's really the sweet spot for. most athletes, even professionals, is hovering around that 60 to 90. I would say 60 is pretty low for athletes that can race at a higher intensity. but I think somewhere between 75 and 90 is a good little sweet spot to experiment for these longer sessions, especially on the bike. The run is a little bit harder just because it's more jarring. You're You're depending on how well of a runner you are off the bike, you might might not be able to get your heart rate up as high. You've got the heat stress as well. So there's a few more variables that impact your run nutrition, especially running off the bike. but there are some athletes that do fine with 100 to 120 grams. but I do think it's experimentation and finding out where that absorption rate is, where do you feel the best? Because you can take in carbohydrates at a high amount and it just kinda sit in your gut or not be utilized well. Jackie Hering: Yeah. Yeah. I tend to find myself in training and in racing I I'm a little bit higher. Obviously the engines burn in a little harder, but in in training, I'm almost always for any like endurance day, I'm probably about around ninety, I would say. Like I'm in the drinks and I have about one thirty, you know, thirty gram gel an hour or so and it it works pretty much fine. And I feel like For me, it's what allows me to feel good during the whole ride, obviously with some caffeine for myself. but then also like sometimes I run off the bike, but sometimes I'll just get done and ask myself truthfully, could I run off the bike if I have to? And then I sometimes just don't run off the bike. If I just like could be truthful and be like, I could if I had to, but do I need to? No. But I think it's that. I think it's people being honest with themselves and how they're feeling. And also like keeping track of what you're taking in and what like what workouts you actually feel good during. And then, okay, that's working. And for a race, you are gonna be going just a little bit harder. And maybe you don't totally have to ramp it up crazy. I just find like instead of like one gel an hour, it turns out to like one gel every forty five minutes during the race. So it's It's not a huge change, but it does like affect the overall carbs, I guess, in the end of the by the end of the race, which I need. So Marni: Yeah. You're you're training your gut, you're learning what works well, what products work well for you. Also on race day, even if you go a little bit harder, you're also more rested and more fueled just going into that workout. So you've got that internal store of carbohydrate hanging around, which helps with the brain and blood glucose as well, and just that extra fuel source on board. but I do think that that 90 grams is really a good sweet spot for that upper end for athletes. And you're right, you want to make sure that you don't have GI issues. So throwing in that brick after a long ride can be really helpful. How did that nutrition sit? You don't want to wait till race day to find out that, okay, that I really had a lot of stuff hanging around in my gut and I didn't feel it until I started to run off the bike. But you also bring up a really good point about other factors that impact that workout. I'm similar to you in that I'm very RPE based and listening to my body. I mean You and I have been doing the sport for a long time at different levels, but you kind of just know what's sustainable and those type of things. but paying attention to the weather, the dew point, your heart rate, just being able to look back at those things, that can also tell you a lot. So you might realize that on a really hot day, that that 90 grams just doesn't sit as well as maybe 70 or 75 grams. Or one thing that I'm working with a lot of athletes on right now. Just because we're seeing we have this is the slightly different topic, but hydration, just having bigger bottles now that people's sweat rates are, we need to pay more attention to that. We are now have bigger bottles to help with that. We don't have just 20 ounce bottles anymore. We've got 33 ounce bottles. but also paying attention to hydration and and titrating those things based on the weather. So you might start off. I know you've done like placid a few times, you start off, it's cooler in the morning. But then once it hits 70 degrees, that feels very warm and you start sweating. So adjusting these things as the workout goes on. and athletes can figure that out by themselves. It helps to work with somebody help just to help take away that guessing. But just kind of thinking about, okay, was I peeing a lot? Maybe I was drinking too much, or my gosh, I didn't pee for like seven hours today. Maybe I need more fluid, or you know, I had a headache. Okay, maybe I needed more carbohydrates. These are a lot of things you can just troubleshoot within that workout. And we've got plenty of long workouts that athletes do leading up to a race that you can do a bit of trial or error so that come race day you have an idea. And it's always better to do a little bit less than a little bit more when it comes to nutrition, just because it's really easy to come back from a slight bonk. It's really hard to come back from GI issues, and it's nearly impossible to come back from dehydration or heat stress. Jackie Hering: Amen to that. I think that all leads directly into number three, the topic that has affected every person that I know of, which is why does my stomach hate me? Some people's stomachs hate them on a very frequent basis. people I know a lot of people who struggle in training in general with like GI issues. I'm pretty I have a like generally strong tolerable gut, I'd say in general, but I have gotten myself Kona last year is a great example where I got myself into quite a terrible situation by all of the things that you just mentioned that you can't come back from, which is not drinking enough, heat stress, biking too hard, Marni: Sorry. Jackie Hering: literally everything. you it's so hard to come back from that when when your body's just like no, it's on like full shutdown mode. So first let's talk about in general, I think there's so many things, I guess, that can be causing people's stomachs to be mad at them. but I guess it's just the general diet. I'm a huge fan of making sure like being on a good probiotic. I think that helps tons ever since I started like me. like making sure I was taking a probiotic that was been helping me. But yeah, what do you see, I guess, for just like everyday like stomach problems? And then we can get into like what might be causing people to have frequent stomach issues during races. Marni: Yeah. So and I kind of giggled when you said the Kona stuff because I think Kona has a way of doing that to athletes. It just comes out of nowhere. Jackie Hering: Ha ha ha ha Marni: If if you haven't had an issue in Kona, you're you're not really doing Kona correctly. So it it it happens. I I don't wish it for anybody. Jackie Hering: No Marni: but so stomach issues, so we can kind of think about there's upper GI issues, there's lower GI issues, But when when people think stomach issues, they generally think lower gut issues. I think nausea is more upper, and that does impact athletes, but I think more during exercise. So the lower GI issues, just feeling that fullness or that bloating, having constipation or loose stools, these are real issues that happen to athletes, but we don't want to think of them as the norm. We we can work through them. So I'll try to go through a few different scenarios just in working with athletes of how we work through these. So the first thing is eating before workout. I think a lot of athletes struggle eating before a workout. There's a lot of athletes that have very sensitive stomachs or fragile stomachs, and they may just have, let's say, just a rice cake, which isn't giving you a lot of carbohydrates. It's something, or athletes will just say, I can't eat anything at all. But then you get to a race and now You're expected to eat something before this race. So the first thing we do is we work very slowly in incorporating more food before the workout. So we might start with a rice cake and then we might layer on a little bit of butter or honey. And then we might change that rice cake to an English muffin or a waffle or something a little bit lighter. And then over time we might build up to a bagel or oatmeal. So it's it's a gradual progression. We're just not expecting someone all of a sudden to just eat a bagel and peanut butter and scrambled eggs before a workout. So it does take time, but you want to work very slowly, maybe starting more before a bike workout, which isn't as weight bearing. Swimming can be tough just because of the turns and just being in that horizontal position. So w biking is a good place to start, then maybe going towards before swim workout and then before run workout. So that's one example for helping with the gut. The next thing which I've worked with several athletes on is figuring out foods that don't sit well the night before a morning workout. And I'm just using the morning workout as an example right now, just because that probably applies to to most age groupers and professionals as well, depending on what time you start your morning workout. but thinking about what you eat the night before. And unfortunately a lot of age groupers that have very demanding jobs, a lot of times their biggest meal isn't until the evening time. And then they're winding down, then they're going to sleep. And that can be an issue, especially if it's a very fibrous meal, like a big salad, or if it's a very heavy meal, whether it's carbohydrates or fat, that that might just not sit well or digest well. That could lead to some reflux or some other issues. impacting you the next morning. You also might wake up and not even be hungry the next morning because of maybe what you ate or overeating the night before. So we look into what you eat the night before that workout. And then the next thing is just timing. So a lot of GI issues happen for athletes when they work out later in the day. There's more roughage that accumulates, there's the stress of the day. So I think having Understanding the timing of food, maybe having more low residue foods at lunchtime. So instead of having a salad, maybe we instead of having raw vegetables, we could do cooked vegetables or sauteed vegetables that might sit a little bit better or no vegetables at all. Maybe a rice bowl with some chicken or tofu or something more simple, saving the veggies for later. So that timing of nutrition is is important as well. And then I also think that there's value of a good warm-up. Just giving your body time to warm up after you eat. So just saying, you know, I'll probably have to go to the bathroom in the first 20 minutes of my workout. So I'm just gonna make sure there's a porter potty nearby, or maybe I start my warm up at home and then I go to the bathroom. So I think it's also understanding your body and not seeing it as a stressful or an unwanted experience, but saying, you know, I need to just give my body time to wake up and get this food moving through me. Jackie Hering: Yeah, that's all good stuff. I mean, the the breakfast, the I I swim at 6 a.m. every single morning, except for weekends. I don't believe in weekend swimming, as everybody knows. but I eat, I wake up at 5 15, I eat my English muffin with peanut butter and banana and drink at least one coffee because I'm gonna get slammed at this swim workout every day. But I cannot imagine going there without eating. Actually I can because some Some mornings I'm not that hungry, but I just know like halfway through I would feel terrible. Like my body would wake up and be like, what? We're trying to do this with no energy. So, but also, so I eat the same thing every single morning and same exact thing on race morning. But on race morning, my body's like, nope, like not interested. You know, I've it's just the nerves. But you know, there is something to be said for just. your body knowing what to expect, being in the routine of it. It might seem boring to eat practically the same thing every day, but I think it's also like you gotta find something that you can eat. And for me, whether I'm sw well, swimming nowadays, but sometimes a year I'll be running early as well. But I will still eat that and then go do whatever run like forty five minutes later and it There may be a bathroom stop involved, but just like you said, that makes me feel a lot better. Like that is normal. Like your body has to digest food. and it usually is within those first couple miles. So that's that's not a terrible sign, and that's good to know. Marni: Yeah. Yeah, you're doing it you're doing it right. I think that's good. You you have familiar foods and you can always vary those familiar foods. So, you know, sometimes it might just be a an English muffin and then another day, you know, an athlete may choose a bagel because it has more carbohydrates. so it there's different ways to layer up your carbs or to bulk up those carbs where it's still kind of the s same thing. And athletes have different responses to carbohydrates and what they eat before a workout with their blood sugar and how they feel. So I'm like you, I can eat 20, 30 minutes before a workout and be fine. Other athletes they may find a fluctuation in blood sugar. So they need to maybe sip on a sports drink before. or other athletes that are like, there's no way I have to give an hour. at least to digest a piece of bread. And, you know, that's that's fine. So we just have to work with that and understanding, but you gotta practice it. And that's the thing Jackie Hering: Yeah. Marni: that a lot of athletes fall short on is they're not treating their long sessions or their key workouts as race rehearsals for for when it really matters. Jackie Hering: Yeah. And I know a situation I used to find myself in my first few years of triathlon and my first year as a professional, I did have a normal job. And I used to get myself in this situation where I was gonna be running after work. And so I would almost like not eat lunch because I didn't want to mess up my stomach for this after work run. And I think people get into this where you're you're worried about having some distress in the afternoon workout. So then they're getting way behind on calories. And for me, what I ended up starting to do was like I'd do breakfast, do something in the morning, and then just have like a big-ish, like early lunch. So Marni: Mm-hmm. Jackie Hering: there was probably still way too much time. Like I mean, obviously like I said, I wasn't like doing my best self back then. But I think that that's that's kind of a thing is like Finding things that work that you can be able to do your afternoon stuff without being so behind on calories by that point in the day that then you have to eat some like mega dinner and then that's gonna mess up the next day, like it could really snowball. Marni: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that really shows why we're seeing so much or we're getting more diagnosis of reds. I know we still need to talk about intra-working GI issues, but why we're seeing this low availability is there's a lot of moving parts throughout the day and it can get very challenging. so I do encourage athletes if you are struggling with GI issues, my best advice is try to keep your workouts as consistent as possible. Just because your body will be able to react better to that consistency and you'll be able to also be more consistent with your nutrition. So instead of one day, let's say on a Tuesday you run in the morning and then the next Tuesday you run in the afternoon. Try to keep all your workouts around the same time. So you can just really work with your body a little bit better. I know that's not always practical and schedules change, but Recognize when your body performs the best, do your key workout then. And then also be okay with you know a a workout even with a little bit of stomach distress is is not an entirely bad thing so long as it's not impacting your health. So if you have a normal bowel movement during a run, that's not a bad thing. Now if you have diarrhea, if you have blood in your stools, if you can't stop going to the bathroom, if you're vomiting. That's not a good thing. So I think we need to also distinguish, you know, yeah, it's annoying to have to go to the bathroom, but if it's a healthy valve movement, there's nothing wrong with that. Jackie Hering: Yes, that's true. Yeah, very good. Yes. You should not be emergency pooing your pants. You should be able to go to the toilet and do that. So that's good for that. Okay. What else? Do we need to cover anything else on why does my stomach Marni: Well we're Jackie Hering: hate me? Marni: Yes. W why does it hate me while I'm exercising? So why does it hate Jackie Hering: yes. Like Marni: me before and why does it hate me during? And this one is a bit more of a loaded question. And so I'll just kind of from my experience in working with athletes, some of the top issues. number one is just product choice, sports nutrition product choice. I try to keep sports nutrition as simple as possible. I'm a big fan of prioritizing liquid calories so we get everything. as simple as possible. When we start to get it from a bunch of different sources, a bar here, a pill here, a chew here, a drink here, it's very hard to understand what's working, what's not working. And also sports nutrition is engineered in a way that we need to make sure it has the right concentration to empty our from our gut and be absorbed. So our bodies just aren't that smart to be able to distinguish and say, okay, you pass at this time and your sodium, you go through at this time, it all has to work together. so we want to make sure it's not overly concentrated and we also have adequate hydration, which I know is an issue a lot of runners and traphletes when they run, run into just because they're not carrying any nutrition or hydration, and we we can run into issues there, literally. So that's one is just product choice and application. Another thing is just having taking too much at once or going long periods without consuming nutrition. So what we know about our bodies during exercise is that when we consume nutrition frequently, so taking in nutrition every 10 to 15 minutes, keeping some fluid in our gut and keeping that consistent throughout an hour, we can control our blood sugars, we can have more energy, we have less risk of D GI issues, better than having, let's say, all our nutrition or taking a big amount every forty five or sixty minutes, or even taking s very small amounts every five minutes. Jackie Hering: That's interesting. I think that's where I'm almost positive that's where I went wrong in Kona, which is I went a long period of time between where that was silly. A lot of a lot of poor choices. But yeah, I mean, during during the race, it's during races in particular. I think there's stuff that can happen during training, and you can always troubleshoot yourself out of that. But I know for pros, almost everybody does just. liquid and gels. And I remember when I was first getting started, obviously there was a lot less information out there, but it was just like choose and I think a lot of age groupers still fall in this category. It's like choose your own adventure of stuff. you're out there longer, you might not be going as high of an intensity, but that doesn't mean you need to mix match four different types of bars, you know, just like you said. Like Sometimes keeping it as simple as possible makes it your body knows what it's getting. I take, obviously I'm sponsored by Raw. It's just like the liquid, the gels, so simple. And of course, once you get on the run, you can chuck in like some coke and, you know, whatever you might need by then. But on the bike, it's I stand by that it should just be as simple as possible. Yeah. Marni: Yeah. I don't think, especially Iron Man athletes and and half as well, I just don't think athletes really recognize how fatigue impacts decision making as you're racing, and especially in a hot environment like Kona. And so keeping your nutrition as simple as possible, it also alleviates any stress if it's raining, if it's windy, if the pavement is. not ideal. you just want to make sure that your nutrition plan can be executed in all of those situations because it's so easy to fall short for whatever reason. And especially in a race like Kona where hydration needs are so high and you want to need to stay on top of that. It can get very challenging. And if you've got it nutrition coming from a lot of different sources, it's easy to fall short. Or sometimes be in that moment of desperation and taken too much all at once. Jackie Hering: Yeah. I actually made a YouTube video. I mean, maybe almost all for myself, but forever else wanted to watch it. But I needed to like, I was so I just did it, I executed it correctly in Texas, and I needed to do that for myself to make up for what I did to myself in Kona. And I so I made a video right after the Iron Man, just like what I actually did. And I was actually just about to go re-watch it because I'm Doing Iron Man Sweden. I'm like, what? I need to know exactly what I did because that worked. I felt good. And so I think just on like a something people can do is like write down what you do after each of your races, just at while you still remember it, just write it all down. So then you know, and two years later you can be like, wow, that was the race of my life. You can go see what exactly you did nutritionally and how you felt so good. I know for me that's something that has really helped me over the years. Marni: Yeah. Yeah. And I do that with a lot of my athletes that I work with on nutrition in that w after a race I ask them what what did you plan to do and then what did you actually do? because that can really distinguish between w were why were you not able to stick to your plan or maybe your plan wasn't the best plan. that should have happened. Or some athletes may actually find that, you know what, what I planned was not really realistic and I adjusted it on the go and actually it was a good decision. So there's a lot we can learn from that. Jackie Hering: Yeah, for sure. Okay, we better crack into topic number four, which is also important. All of this is great. I think this has been fun so far. number four says, does I mean I wrote these, but whatever, does lighter really mean faster? And this in this category is the idea of race weight, which is the actual topic that put me into my terrible zone of living in version one of me. I think it's a terrible term. body image and making peace with that, being an athlete, red S and the female athlete. There's a million things here. And I want to kick this off by saying that I don't think there is a specific weight for each person to choose or to to aim at. I think your body tells you what that is by You feed it food, you exercise, and pretty soon you will settle in a general weight area. And this may fluctuate a few pounds over the course of the year, or even the course of the month for certain people. And that's that's how I've settled upon race weight. I think if you can be healthy, you feel good, you can race well, and you're not getting injured. And you're eating, you're probably at a healthy weight and you should be happy about that. And who cares what the number is on the scale? What do you think? Marni: No. I think you said it really well. I'd be happy to expand a little, but you said it very beautifully. And I've this is a topic that I've written a lot of articles on and really tried to use my voice as a professional in this sport on helping athletes move away from this idea of race weight. and this idea that athletes think if, well, if only I could get a little bit lighter, they think back to a time when they weighed differently, they were faster. and it might work in the short term, but rarely does it hold true for longevity and health in the sport. So we have to really ask ourselves, you know, did that what at what cost did that weight loss what what was the cost of it? Did they lose body fat or did they lose muscle? Are they eating enough to support their training? Are they recovering? Are they sleeping well? Are they getting injured? Are they thinking about food all day? Do they not have an appetite? Do they have Deficiencies in their diet? Are they enjoying their sport? Are they showing up with workouts with enthusiasm and energy and confidence? And I think the big takeaway that I want athletes to remember, especially female athletes, it it impacts males, but I think females feel more vulnerable to this image. But the number on the scale does not tell you if you're ready to race. So race readiness is Are you fueled? Are you recovered? Are you healthy? Are you strong? Are you happy? Are you durable? Are you mentally prepared? Are you capable of executing the all the training that you've done? So that's to me, race readiness. And whatever weight you show up with on race day, that's the body that you've trained. And maybe things didn't all go as you planned throughout the training cycle, but that's the body you have. So Do something amazing with it on race day. So keeping that healthy relationship with your body and recognizing you don't have to fix your body. You don't need to be making it look different. You don't want to spend all season trying to make it look smaller. I think a lot of athletes run into the trap of, well, I weighed this weight and I was fast back then. So I need to weigh that weight again. But we go through different chapters in life and we need to just remember that. our bodies are allowed to change. so not how much do I need to weigh to race well, but what does my body need to stay healthy so I can race well? Jackie Hering: Yeah, I think that's exactly it. And I think at the professional level, it's it's an interesting thing. I remember being a young pro and looking at, you know, a lot of the like top pros at that time and aspiring to look like them and to to be like them. And the thing that now that I'm on the other end of it, having done this for a long time, the thing that you don't realize or think of back then is Those people have been training at that capacity and at that level for mostly like 10 years. at a very high level. And so they are gonna look a certain way because they've found the way that gets, you know, that their body is is gonna be. It's like me. Like I look a lot different now. I'm 41. than I did in my twenties. In my twenties, I had no definition. I was a little squishy and and I wasn't super duper healthy, but also I, you know, I hadn't been doing the sport as long. Your body morphs and and like you said, it does change over time. And some some people are like big, some people are small, and and that doesn't really term determine your like capacity or ability to be able to do a sport. We see all shapes and sizes in this sport and it really is finding the balance, I think, for each person, where they can most of all your determining factor if it's working or not, can you stay healthy and do you enjoy it? Like I had a training partner for a bit that would show up grouchy. I'm like, you need to go home and eat a muffin. Like some I think you're overdoing it. It's a it's a attitude, 'cause if your brain doesn't have enough carbs, like you're becoming a grouch. So Marni: Yeah. Very true. And we are seeing different bodies. And I think one of the things that I when I look at role models or people that I want athletes, especially female athletes, to aspire to, I think of consistency and durability. Is this athlete able to perform well season after season? And we know things happen and there's health issues. We're never gonna judge somebody for that. But if somebody loses weight, performs well, and then gets injured, that wasn't the good the best recipe for them. Sure, there could be other factors, but we see that a lot in in in in all sports, especially endurance and weight bearing sports, that athletes can get well in the short term, but at what cost? And so me as an an educator, I want to encourage athletes to not chase that short short term performance. but rather think about what can I do for the longevity of the sport and for what my body can do. And also there are safe ways of losing weight and optimizing performance. But unfortunately with diet culture, it's very easy to get sucked into many unhealthy ways. And like we talked about at the very beginning of this conversation, most athletes aren't even eating enough. And A lot of times I find that when athletes eat more, they actually lose weight or get stronger. And then there's also athletes that can benefit from gaining some weight and they're more durable, they're more fatigue resistant, they're more injury resistant. So we can't just judge success or health or performance based on a look or a number on the scale. Jackie Hering: Yeah, that's for sure. I know usually I keep these around an hour, but I want to do just like one little thing on Red S, which has been just like such a hot topic. And I feel like people are are more people getting diagnosed? Is this something that could just I just find it to be like there's just so many aspects to it. I think it can get a little bit confusing. So If somebody is listening that is like struggling with some of these warning signs or I guess not sure if maybe they have read us, like, what do you think people do people need to be thinking about this? What do you think? Marni: They should. Yeah, absolutely. You know, all genders should be thinking about this. It's not just the female athlete triad. and there are s d a few dietitians that really specialize in red S. so if that is something that an athlete is struggling with, then it's it's worth seeking out somebody that can help with that. But it's not that necessarily we're seeing more red S, but we're getting better at recognizing it or getting better at diagnosing it. And so the we didn't have the language or the framework of how to understand what's happening when an athlete was chronically underfueled. So what ended up happening is that professionals would end up kind of focusing on individual problems like, this athlete is chronically tired. This athlete is always getting sick or getting injured, or this athlete's struggling with their menstrual cycle, or this athlete has a performance plateau, or Having trouble re-recovering. So it was each, it was like individual problems that people were trying to address, like go see a physical therapist, go see a dietitian, go see a sports psychologist. But now we're beginning to understand that all of these things, they may not happen together. They may not happen consecutively, but all of these things can be connected to low energy availability. But the big takeaway is. Every athlete is susceptible. It's not something to be scared of, but it should raise awareness that we need to pay attention to how we fuel and take care of our body. Certainly, if we're trying to lose weight, it's going to put you more at risk for low energy availability because it's very hard to meet your energy needs when you're intentionally under-eating. But what's very interesting is that red S so being in low energy availability, it's many times it's unintentional. And I think that's where a lot of athletes, and we've seen, and I'm always very happy, not happy for them, but I like when I see athletes being vulnerable, especially professional athletes, and be in speaking about it because it just raises awareness and it also helps other athletes feel more accepted. Like There's not something wrong with my body, because it's not wrong. It's very hard to be an endurance athlete. There's a lot of things we put our body through. But you don't have to have an eating disorder or be restricting your calories or having underlying body image issues to be in red S or to be in a state of low energy availability. The, you know, as we talked about, your appetite might be low because of the summer training, or you get busy with work, or you're traveling. or you're training more, or maybe you don't want to have GI issues. So you eat a little bit less around your workout. so all of these things can happen unintentionally. And then, of course, if you don't know if you're eating enough and you're undereating, that can cause an issue. but we're really seeing just that we're getting better at diagnosing it. So it's not that athletes are doing something wrong, it's that we're actually finding becoming more aware of these problems. Problem areas that athletes might be getting themselves into that is causing them to be in a state of low energy availability. The last thing I just want to mention is that the answer is not just eat more or you know, how many calories are consuming? Should you need to be eating more? It's are you providing your body with enough energy to support the training that you're doing, but also have enough energy left over. For everything else that your body has to do. You're a mom, you're busy, you're running around with the kids, you have life outside of sport, may not be a lot of hours like some age groupers, but you got to take care of your body outside of sport. Your body has a reproductive system, a cardiovascular system, hormones, your brain, your heart, your muscles, all these things need to be taken care of outside of training. So we've got our sports nutrition side, make sure we're supporting our training sessions. And then we also have outside of workouts, we need to make sure we're eating enough to support our our overall health as well. Jackie Hering: Yeah, so good. And I think this is a case where we're actually I think it's great to be a woman because it's very easy to f to feel and to figure out when your hormones are out of whack. Like if you are y a younger lady and are still getting your period, like if you're not getting that, that's a red flag. Like you gotta try to get to the bottom of that. And I've definitely in a couple phases in my younger years, like when I was focusing on the weight. It's not hard to train yourself into the ground a little bit and to eat a little less and to lose some weight and be like, okay, now I'm crushing it. But as we kind of covered in the last bit, like the risk of of running that in that zone for too long is just very, very high. the risk of injury, the risk of long-term hormonal dysfunction, stuff like that is just like really not worth it. And You know, I had Penny Slater on here. She is just like gung-ho, I swear, probably devoting her like adult life so far to this topic, which I think is great. And I think more people are being diagnosed with this because this is an educational issue. This is getting it out there. People need to know about it. And many people I know aren't doing it on purpose, just like you said. Like it's not because you purposefully are trying to. you know, do a certain thing, but you need a lot of energy to train. You gotta eat a lot. yeah, it's Marni: Yeah. Jackie Hering: it's just a puzzle. Marni: Yeah. It yeah, it is very difficult. I mean, everything we just talked about today, I hope it helped athletes have a better relationship with food in their body, but it also can be very overwhelming. but I think the a big takeaway from everything that we talked about is if you don't respect your body, and it's okay to have bad body image days, we all have them. but if you're beating up your body and not fueling it adequately and punishing it by restricting food, it's going to be much more difficult to improve your health or to keep yourself healthy. And to also what what most athletes are after is improving their performance. So it kind of completely goes against everything that that you're working for. So I would say that the most important takeaway from all of this is make sure you have a good relationship with food and the body, that these things aren't the end enemy you know, your body's there working for you and food is helping to fuel your body. So if we can have a healthier relationship with both of these things, we can support it better. We can recover when we need to. We can fuel it, you know, all the time because we need to. so we just take better care of our body and then we can do more amazing things with it. Jackie Hering: Yep, that's it. I think we gotta close it down, Marnie. Thank you so much for coming on here and chatting. I think we covered a lot of things that hopefully everybody can find a couple of take home points for. and I am gonna see you in Kona. Is that right? Marni: Yes, I will be there spectating. So I'm very Jackie Hering: Okay. Marni: excited to return to the island. I've been raced there five times. I haven't raced since twenty nineteen. So I'm really excited to come back and and watch the race again. Jackie Hering: Awesome. Yeah. I last year I thought might be my last time, but then now I have to go back for redemption. So hopefully Marni: Yes. Jackie Hering: I can do a good job. Although maybe I'll want to go again, but we'll see. You never Marni: Never counting I'm never counting you out. Jackie Hering: You never know when it's your last. So you just gotta go and make the best of it. And yes, I'm sure I'll see you down there. And maybe you can we can meet up, do something for the women's race down there. I'm recruiting. yeah. Marni: Love that. I'd love to help out. I'm sure you'll have a lot of eager people, a lot of women wanting to help out. This podcast has been great. Jackie Hering: Yeah, it's been fun. So all right, we'll wrap it up. I forgot to ask our question. Every time I say what's something you're loving right now. So Marnie, what are you loving right now? Marni: I get the question. I Jackie Hering: Yes. Marni: I love that you asked this after at the end. The the responses have have been so like different depending on the the Jackie Hering: Yeah. Marni: people. Sometimes I try to predict like what they're about to say and I I can't can't. But what I'm loving, well, I'm I'm not sure when this will go out, but on August 10th, I'm tomorrow, I'm heading to France and I will be there for the month of August with my husband Corell. I am racing Embra Man. Which is this ex I think you've had two athletes, Zolanis and I think Jamie did it as her first. I couldn't really understand what race she said, but they've both have done it. So it's a Iron Man distance in Embraham, France, but the bike has sixteen thousand feet of climbing on it. so it's gonna be quite the adventure. but I love these type of things. So that is something that I'm really looking forward to, something I'm really excited about. And then we're gonna be biking a lot of the iconic climbs. But one of the things that I'm loving right now is watching the Tour de Femes. And I told Carel that how cool is it going to be when we're in Mont Von too and we're gonna see the names of female cyclists on the road under our wheels while we're biking. And that's my husband loves cycling. He loves watching women's sports. So we we watch everything with cycling. and I just think that this is such a a great time for women's sports in cycling, especially with the Tour de France. So that's something I'm loving right now. Jackie Hering: So good. And I saw like the viewing numbers for the women's tour this year were so good, which is an amazing sign. All when I watch it, all I can think is, man, I wish I could do it. Like I wish it was around like 15 years ago and I could have been in, Marni: Right. Jackie Hering: I think it would have like really pulled me in. So props to all the women that get to aspire and do that now. I think it's gonna be really neat to just inspire this next generation of cycling for women. So Yay, that'll be an awesome trip. I can't wait to follow along on your Instagram for that. So th Marni: And I'll and I'll wave to you as you're flying to Sweden. Jackie Hering: Yes. I'll be out there. okay, thanks Marnie. And I will Marni: Thank you, Jackie Hering: talk to you soon. Marni: thank you.