coach alison's new fueling tool
I spend a lot of time working through fueling plans with my athletes – and it never gets simpler. Every conversation involves the same three challenges: figuring out what you actually need (your targets), sorting through the sea of products available to you (your sources), and then determining what combination of those products, in what quantities and at what intervals, will realistically hit those targets across the full duration of your training session or event. It’s complex enough that I built a tool specifically to make it easier.
The Fueling Tool walks you through each of those steps – targets, sources, and plan – and generates a simple, hourly fueling plan you can actually execute in training and on race day. The Free Edition allows you to combine a default set of targets with a standard product library to create your individualized fueling plan right in the browser. For about the cost of one gel per month, the Athlete Edition unlocks personalized targets, a larger extended product library and the ability to add products not already in it, plus the ability to save and print your plans.
calories in / calories out is dead. here's what actually works.
Coach Julie:
Performance director Mike Posthumus joined the Ask a Cycling Coach podcast this week to challenge one of the most persistent myths in endurance sports: that nutrition is just a calories-in-versus-calories-out equation. The framework pros actually use is energy availability — how much fuel remains for your body’s basic physiological functions after exercise energy expenditure is accounted for. When that number is chronically too low, you’re not just tired; you’re at risk for RED-S (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport), hormonal disruption, suppressed immunity, and a performance ceiling you can’t train your way through. The scary part is how many athletes get there without realizing it — high training loads, structured plans, and still running on empty because calorie needs are simply higher than they think. The practical application is straightforward but requires a mindset shift: fuel the work, not just the body. That means prioritizing carbohydrates around key sessions, keeping fat and fiber lower on hard training days to support glycogen replenishment, and periodizing nutrition across the week so your intake actually matches your load. The fear of eating more leading to weight gain is real for a lot of athletes — but Posthumus addresses it directly: when energy availability is optimized, body composition tends to improve alongside performance, not in spite of it. The goal is consistency, not perfection, and building enough intake to support the training you’re already doing. 🎧 Listen to the full episode
channel your inner rotisserie chicken
Coach Alison:
We spend a lot of time thinking about our stroke mechanics in swimming – focusing on our catch and our high-elbow pull, making sure we’re moving water and generating propulsion, thinking about our breathing timing and mechanics. But you know what matters just as much, if not more? Our body rotation. Swimming flat is swimming slow – you need to swim on your side if you want to get moving. So next time you’re swimming, picture yourself as a rotisserie chicken with a skewer running from the top of your head all the way through your torso. Rotate around that rotisserie skewer as you swim – dropping your right hip and right shoulder as your right hand enters the water, and then rotating to do the same on the left. Feel how this forces your obliques to engage, and helps keep your head from lifting as you breath. And with any luck, notice that you picked up some free speed in the pool!