This is such an important conversation to hear about the danger of underfuelling and losing your period. Thank you to Ailbhe Carroll for being so open and honest and for all of the work you are doing to help women stay as active for as long as possible.

You'll hear:

05:00 Ailbhe introduces herself and explains how she's ended up living and training in Girona and why she loves it.

08:15 Ailbhe talks about growing up horse riding and playing Camogie, "I had to sell my horse in order to do triathlon." She did her first triathlon just before her 16th birthday, having never really done swim, bike or run before.

11:30 My first 400m timed effort was 6min and 20s which isn't too bad for someone who hasn't swum before. Within two years I had got it down to 4min48.

14:15 Ailbhe talks about her first European Cup race abroad when she was totally alone and the ups and downs of injuries in the early years. Then living in New Zealand before spending 5 years in Loughborough.

19:08 Ailbhe actually got in touch with Helen after the Body Positive episodes with Witsup and said she wanted others to hear her story and learn from it. "I had the biggest shovel I could find and I was digging the biggest hole I could dig for myself. I had just come through 18 months of underfueling, losing my period, just not getting my body to do what I wanted it do to. There was a pressure to lose weight in order to race, so I dropped all food. I was down on 1200 calories, no period, but instead of losing weight, I was piling weight on. There was one week during this 18month period, that I consumed less than 500 calories a day for 7 days in a row because I felt like I needed to do something extreme. I don't think I cracked right until the end.

30:00 During all of this my parents knew nothing. I have since called them. I did a lot of mental healing before I spoke to them which was a shock.

33:00 What would Ailbhe's message be to others? Off the back of all of my issues, I undertook a Masters in Sport and Exercise nutrition, because I think if you can do coaching and nutrition together, it will stop a lot of people going down the rabbit hole that I went down.

39:00 Ailbhe's work with triathlon Ireland and her work through Women and Sport.

41:00 "I'm just really excited all of the time. I feel like I have a new lease of life. I'm going into sessions fuelled but my brain is fuelled too.

Find out more about this week's guests

Ailbhe Carroll Instagram

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