The Best and Worst Nutrition Advice I Received in My Career
By The Feed.
Guest writer, cycling legend, and Olympic medalist Bobby Julich reflects on his time as a pro athlete. Specifically in today's article, he shares the advice he received that shaped him as an athlete – whether that was for better or worse.
The Best Advice:
EAT BEFORE YOU ARE HUNGRY AND DRINK BEFORE YOU ARE THIRSTY!!
Many people provided me with nutritional advice during my +/-40 years in the sport of cycling, but no one more than my father.
I was lucky enough to have a very supportive father who did a lot of reading and research on this topic, so it was ingrained in me at an early age without really thinking about it.
Even before I started cycling, we had very little junk food in the house. Instead of eating sugary cereal for breakfast each morning before school, we would have protein shakes, oatmeal, and fruit plates. As a young teenager, I didn’t exactly buy into this healthy breakfast idea, but you have little choice when you live at home with your parents.
Ask any person that saw us around the races in Colorado in the mid to late 80’s and they would confirm the level of support he provided me. I am forever thankful to him for taking nutrition and hydration so seriously at a time when it wasn’t as popular as it is now.
Growing up in Glenwood Springs, Colorado we would have to drive to the eastern slope of Colorado each weekend as that was where most of the races were held. My father would take time off work and pay for everything, so if we were going to do this, we were going to do this right!
For a year or two, we stayed in hotels which meant we were forced to eat out 3 times per day. It was a challenge to find good food, so he decided to buy a small motor home to make things a bit easier for both of us around the races.
This motor home removed the need to stay in hotels but also provided other comforts of home. Most importantly, due to having a small kitchenette, we were able to control not only what we ate, but also when we ate before, between, and after the races.
He would wake me up and make a healthy breakfast at least 2 hours before my first race of the day. I was a junior back then and we usually were the first race of the day, so those were some very early mornings!
Quite often, I wasn’t very hungry that early in the morning, but he would always say, “eat before you are hungry and drink before you are thirsty”. This went in one ear and out the other for many months, but one day it stuck in my teenage brain for good. Where this simple advice really benefitted me was in the races.
As we all know, in the heat of race we can easily be distracted and lose track of time between sips of the water bottle or nibbling on something in your back jersey pocket, but then I would remember these wise words from my father….
The Worst Advice:
NO TRAIN, NO EAT!
In early May of 1990, I was 18 years old and recovering at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs after a block of early season racing when there was suddenly a loud knock on my dorm room door.
Still half asleep, I answered the door. It was one of the coaches and he informed me that one of the riders selected for the upcoming Tour de Trump had injured himself so I would be taking his place. I was told to get ready as soon as possible as I was booked to fly to the east coast the next morning.
The inaugural Tour de Trump (later known as the Tour du Pont) in 1989 was won by Dag Otto Lauritzen, one of my childhood idols, from the powerhouse 7-Eleven team. I couldn’t believe that I would soon have the opportunity to race against some of the best European professional riders in the world for the first time. I was excited, but extremely nervous…
After picking up my luggage, I was instructed to board the bus that the race organization had chartered to take us to the race hotel.
I took a seat in the middle of the bus and someone from the race organization asked if I wanted something to eat. I hadn’t had much to eat that morning and was starving, so accepted a sandwich and bottle of water.
As I started to eat my sandwich there was suddenly a lot of commotion at the front door of the bus. I looked up and saw a whole team of guys board the bus dressed in suits with PDM embroidered on the sport coat. As they filed past me, I recognized another hero of mine. It was Sean Kelly!
He took a seat close to mine and I tried not to stare. With the now half eaten sandwich in my hand, I mustered up enough strength to tell him that they had sandwiches and drinks available if he was hungry. He took off his suit jacket, glanced in my general direction and firmly said, “No train, no eat”.
Let’s just say that I couldn’t hide my sandwich quick enough! I didn’t do anything but sip on my bottle of water the rest of the way to the race hotel and try to understand what he had said. That comment coming straight out of King Kelly’s mouth was quite powerful. I had never heard anything like that before and it went against my mantra which I mentioned above. I was a young kid, and he was an icon of the sport, so who was I to question anything?
I know now that on days that you don’t train, you shouldn’t overindulge, but you still need to eat enough to recover from the previous day’s training and load the muscles with glycogen for the following day.
I will admit that I didn’t exactly stick to the strictest of diets when I was racing, but on days that I didn’t ride, those words from Sean Kelly echoed in my head.