While I was running a 12-hour, overnight trail race in Highlands Ranch, Colo. in 2024, I got a hamstring cramp that forced me to walk until I could get it to go away. In the middle of the night, when it was fairly cool. What the heck! I started to think afterwards about the number of times I’d been impaired by muscle cramps over the course of 35-plus years of races. At mile 30 of the Leadville Trail 100. At mile 22 of the Lost Dutchman Marathon in Arizona when I was on BQ pace. When my hamstring and quad muscles cramped simultaneously at mile 23 of the Boston Marathon, causing me to hobble-walk a 19-minute mile when I had been on my way to perhaps breaking 3:10. With another Leadville Trail 100 attempt only a couple of months away, I decided it was time to do something about this chronic issue and get a sweat test done at the Nutrition Mechanic in Boulder, Colo. It’s a very simple test done in their office. They also had me do three short trial runs to determine my fluid loss rate. It was a real eye-opener. I always knew I sweated a lot of salt, but my degree of fluid loss was rather astounding. I was losing from 0.8 to 1.0 pounds of fluid in just a half-hour! Since your ability becomes impaired once you exceed losing 2% of your body weight, using 150 lbs. as a rough number, meant that that 2% was happening to me in only 90 minutes. I had never considered it necessary to carry water for a run this short. This info was a total game-changer for me. I used this knowledge during the LT100 to dial in my fluid and electrolyte intakes using products from Precision Fuel, and bam, no muscle cramps hindered me at all. In this episode, you are going to learn a lot that might also greatly impact your training and race performances with Nutrition Mechanic founder and CEO Dina Griffin. Dina is a registered dietician who has an MS in Food Science and Human Nutrition and has also finished races like Leadville, Run Rabbit Run, and Comrades. Our conversation goes in-depth not only about how to use sweat test results and the genetics behind them, but how to efficiently fuel, various kinds of testing that can be done to optimize performance, supplementation, and much more. Dina shares a lot of practical advice in very relatable ways that will potentially help you make adjustments that don’t require extreme supplementation or radical dieting.

Dina Griffin

nutritionmechanic.com

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Bill Stahl
silly_billy@msn.com
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