The Common Threads

Anne Guzman is a sports nutritionist, former pro cyclist and lifelong learner obsessed with sports science and helping people reach their physical and mental potential. We caught up with Anne for this podcast to go over how athletes can maintain health during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well thoughts on performance nutrition, food journaling, weight and body image, and practical tips on pre, during, and post-race nutrition. While Anne can go deep on the research and science, she knows how important it is to be able to translate that science into practical and actionable insights for all of us. For her personal story, and other tips, check out our interview with Anne. Listen to the podcast on The Common Threads: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify. We’ve included a few highlights from our podcast with Anne below.

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David Swain: What type of athletes do you work with?

Anne Guzman: Everyone from 16 and 17-year-old athletes to masters athletes and pros. 

For people who have never worked with a sports nutritionist, what do the first couple weeks look like?

It’s so individual. For me, food journaling is important. I want to see where somebody is coming from, so I can help them make directional changes. There’s a bit of a misconception that elite athletes are immune to inadequate eating. A food journal makes the athlete part of the process. I know that it’s time consuming. It takes some commitment. On the other hand, if someone is willing to put that commitment in, then it’s something they want to do. I don’t really work in calories, but I start with the big picture: carbohydrates, proteins, macronutrients.

When I first meet someone, I try to get to know them. I want to help them improve their health and their performance. It’s not about, “don’t have this or don’t have that.” A big part of my approach is to focus on what they want to add versus on what to take out. I generally want to see where they’re coming from. Are you a parent masters athlete with three kids and a full time job? That’s really important for me to know. I might get your food journal and see some interesting patterns. If you are an athlete who has a lot of time to prepare your food, that’s a completely different scenario that we can take advantage of. Everyone’s so different. It’s difficult to have a cookie cutter approach, but there are some foundational things everyone can work on. 

Maintaining Health through a Pandemic 

We’re living through COVID-19; What are things you’d recommend to build or maintain healthy habits? 

I think this has really thrown a lot of people’s eating patterns off. Take a moment to focus on your habits. Are you someone who is stress eating all of a sudden because you’re home? Or are you not eating?

Jeremy Jones didn't set out to start a movement or change an industry. But he did, reimagining snowboarding and forever shaping how big mountains are ridden. He could have stopped there. Instead, he started a climate movement with Protect our Winters, created Jones Snowboards to push snowboarding innovation, and along the way starred in 50+ movies.

It all seems so big and so unreachable. A kid who hitched rides to Jackson Hole receiving a Champion of Change Award from President Obama. But as Jeremy shares, it all starts by taking one step, sleeping in one friend’s closet, following one passion and focusing on it with unwavering intensity. And doing it with curiosity, respect and admiration for your surroundings and the people who came before you.

This is Jeremy Jones and here's his story. "It's one step at a time. We need to just start."

If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love to hear your feedback by leaving a star rating or review. For more like this, join our new community of athletes and our outdoor lovers at Prokit: https://theprokit.com/signup/.

When Eric Min was thinking about starting the indoor cycling giant Zwift in 2013, he wasn’t sure his previous business success was enough to justify calling himself an entrepreneur. He turned to his co-founder from his last startup and asked, “did we just get lucky or are we entrepreneurs? Let’s test that. If we do it again and it works, then I'd say we're entrepreneurs.”

Eric can safely call himself an entrepreneur. Zwift hit the cycling scene in 2014 and hasn’t looked back, raising $170 million and forever changing indoor cycling. Eric and his team are now on a quest to reimagine eSports and land the sport in the Olympics. If you’re like many of us who aren’t “gamers,” the concept of eSports is as foreign as trying to figure out the Fortnite craze. 

But Zwift has nothing to do with sitting on a couch playing a video game. It’s people of all ages, all around the world, racing their bikes against real people through iconic mountains and cities. They just happen to be inside. Chasing a goal, avoiding traffic, and most certainly getting a lot more fit. It turns out Zwift might just be the perfect answer for people looking to keep their mind and body active with the Covid-19 pandemic and social distancing.

If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love to hear your feedback by leaving a star rating or review. For more like this, join our new community of athletes at https://theprokit.com/signup/.

Whether as a pro mountain biker at the world's biggest ultra endurance races, or as an entrepreneur, Sonya Looney turns ideas into actions and has stacked the deck in her corner for maintaining a growth mindset. Navigating life as a pro athlete, and now a pregnant athlete, is certainly not for the faint-of-heart. There is no playbook and putting yourself out there and sharing the journey takes vulnerability and courage, two things Sonya has a lot of. She is an engineer by trade who's journey to becoming a pro athlete started by simply showing up to a ride with friends. That phrase -- Showing Up -- is her common thread.

Want to become a public speaker? Add a speaking tab to your website and see what happens.

Want to start a podcast? Well, start a podcast.

Want to change your diet? Take the first step, be consistent, and maybe start a supportive Facebook Group to keep you honest.

Sonya is expecting her first child any day and has this to say, "I'm a woman, I'm an athlete, I'm going to be a mom, and I can be all those things at the same time."

YiOu Wang didn’t grow up a runner, or even an athlete. Her form of competition was excellence in academics and you’d find her on the math and debate teams. Fast forward to today and she’s one of the world’s top trail and ultra runners. Her path has one common thread, whether in sport or academics: setting goals and putting in the work to reach her potential.

YiOu discovered running during college in Boston and has since become a force on both roads and trails. She is a two time Marathon Olympic Trials qualifier, 2017 US 50K trail national champion, two time winner of Lake Sonoma 50, and most recently she won the 2019 North Face Endurance Challenge 50 Mile Championships in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. YiOu sat down with us and shared insight on her training routines, nutrition strategy and the mental side of running and pursuing goals. 

If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love to hear your feedback by leaving a star rating or review. For more interviews, in-depth athlete features, and podcasts, check out our new platform for athletes at https://theprokit.com/.

Pro cyclist Alison Tetrick didn’t have a traditional upbringing full of team sports and structured activities. Rather, Alison grew up on a cattle ranch, and used her grit, drive and belief that anything was possible to become a collegiate tennis player before quickly hitting the cycling world tour as a road racer.

Today Alison is lauded in the world of gravel biking, and as an ambassador for her sport. But the journey doesn't follow a straight line. Her cycling career almost came crashing down after a traumatic brain injury from crashes in 2010 and 2011 left her in a spiral of disorientation and depression.

Alison sits down with Prokit's David Swain to talk about her path back to the top levels of cycling, what she’ll be doing in ten years, her career off the bike, role models, and why gravel biking has found the perfect combination whether you’re winning or on the “party bus.”

If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love to hear your feedback by leaving a star rating or review. For more interviews, in-depth athlete features, and podcasts, check out our new platform for athletes at https://theprokit.com/.

In the running world, Mario Fraioli has covered it all. He immersed himself in the sport first as an athlete, and now as a podcaster, coach, and author. Today, Mario combines a love of the sport with innate curiosity—he’s got empathy for everyone he meets, especially those who come into life through his trademark podcast and newsletter The Morning Shakeout.

Just as most great athletes and leaders stick to a consistent schedule, Mario hasn’t missed a week of publishing The Morning Shakeout since it debuted 203 weeks ago. We sat down to get into everything: coaching, training, the state of running, the value of personal relationships, and the tools in Mario’s kit that keep him moving as a writer, entrepreneur and athlete.

If you want to hear Mario in action, check out his episodes with: Shalane Flanagan, Ryan Hall, Kara Goucher, Des Linden, Colleen Quigley, Scott Fauble, Stephanie Bruce, Gwen Jorgensen, Brad Stulberg, and Frank Gagliano.

If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love to hear your feedback by leaving a star rating or review. For more interviews and podcasts, check out our new platform for athletes at https://theprokit.com/.

Triathlete Sarah True has spent over a decade on world podiums. She was the top American in triathlon at the 2012 London Olympics with a fourth place finish. In 2018, she made the leap to Ironman distance and instantly made a mark, finishing 2nd at Ironman European Championships in Frankfurt and 4th in her Kona debut at the Ironman World Championship.

Like most professional athletes, Sarah’s journey hasn’t been all champagne and podiums. She is among pros like Michael Phelps and Lindsey Vonn who are starting to lead the way talking openly about the mental health challenges, depression and post-race blues that affect so many people in sports and society.

This year has been one of perseverance and grit, with back-to-back nightmare scenarios at Ironman Cairns and Ironman European Championships, where 100+ degree heat led to blacking-out in Cairns and being pulled off the course with a several minute lead with less than 1km to go in Frankfurt. We spoke at her home in New Hampshire in August shortly before her last chance to qualify for Kona at Ironman Mont-Tremblant. Spoiler alert: She is going to Kona in October!

Sarah is much more than the All-American athlete. She is thoughtful, deeply articulate, and understands her mind and body with the nuance of a professor. Her sense of humor, big smile, and dog, Buddy, made this a special conversation.

Visit our new platform for athletes, https://theprokit.com, for the full interview Q&A with Sarah True.

Rich Roll had the American Dream—Cornell and Stanford degrees, a great job, a wife, but by age 39 the pieces weren’t lining up. In Rich’s words, “From the outside looking in, it all looked pretty great, but on the inside I was like this decaying corpse. I was really dying because I was living at odds with the person I was meant to be.” Rich talks about this moment of clarity and the road he’s been on over the past 12 years to understand himself and, in doing so, shape how many people think about endurance, food and the human experience.

Rich is an author, ultra runner and host of a podcast that explores all sides of health, mindset and reaching our potential. His podcast has been dowloaded more than 60 million times.

We get into it all: food, recovery, sleeping in a tent, meditation, parenting, running a business and finding balance in the chaos.

For more interviews like this discussion with Rich Roll, visit our new platform for athletes, Prokit. https://theprokit.com/

Video shot in Rothrock State Forest, Pennsylvania, by Spencer Kholi and Ryan Henderson.

I had been wanting to make a short cycling video for a while and finally got the chance to do so with one of my friends. Being at Penn State, I’m so lucky to have Rothrock State Forest in my backyard. Nearly 100,000 acres of beautiful, and nearly untouched, land make this forest perfect for exploring trails, shaking out stress, and gaining fitness. Getting out and going for a casual ride or ripping up one of the climbs is just so refreshing. I find that going for a hike, run, or ride provides happiness and confidence that translates into everyday life. This year I made cycling a priority and put it in my schedule. Now I’m really seeing the difference.

What I love about gravel riding is the adventure and sightseeing along the way. This year I’ve had the opportunity of travelling to many different states and traversing gravel roads on a bike – which after doing so, has become my new favorite way of seeing the country. The small towns, weathered barns, rustic tractors, forests, streams, wildlife all make it memorable. Country roads, take me home.

A special thanks to Spencer Kholi for the help with the video and editing the clips.

“Not until we are lost, do we begin to find ourselves…” – Henry David Throeau