Whether you are entering into the Sunshine Coast Marathon Festival or merely interested in stepping up your weekend recreation, The University of the Sunshine Coast has a talk about endurance for you.

Scheduled just a few days before the Marathon Festival, the August 11 Sports Talk event will feature UniSC fitness experts from across a variety of health fields.

The event is being coordinated by Tania Stevenson of the High Performance Student Program.

“The High Performance Sports Talk session is really about helping people on their individual journey,” Ms Stevenson said.

“You might be an endurance event novice seeking information and advice for your first long race.

“Or you could be a developing athlete looking to improve in key areas.

“Even if you’re an experienced endurance athlete, seeking to fine-tune the one-percenters in pursuit of the perfect race, we encourage you to bring your questions for our expert panel.”

The panel for the one-hour event includes PhD candidate Aaron Turner, who has 10 years’ experience working with athletes and special populations, holds a Master of Clinical Rehabilitation and a Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Science.

UniSC Nutrition and Dietetics graduate Kate Primavera will also be on hand, utilising her knowledge to recommend optimum fuel sources for endurance events and the best aids for recovery.

Rounding out the panel will be UniSC High Performance Student Athlete and Bachelor of Dietetics student Matt O’Brien, a qualifier for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships.

“We want everybody to be able to put together a race or event of which they can be proud,” Ms Stevenson said.

The High Performance Sports Talk will take place at the USC Stadium Function Room, 32 Olympic Way, Sippy Downs from 6-7pm on Thursday, 11 August.

Cost is $10 per person, with all funds raised directed towards student athlete bursaries. Attendants are encouraged to book online.

Top Tips for Fuelling Performance by Kate Primavera

• Do not skip your pre-training fuel, especially if your session is longer than 60 minutes
• Although protein is important for muscle recovery, for endurance athletes, so are carbohydrates. Include both protein and carbohydrate foods when refuelling after training
• Don’t try something new on race/event day. Always practice nutrition strategies in training
• Adjust your nutrition to match your training demands. If your training demands are different day-to-day, or you’re going into off-season, you will need to consider changing your fuel accordingly
• Hydration is critical, consider your fluid and electrolyte intake and have a hydration plan for long sessions and event days. Just 2% dehydration can impact your sporting performance
• Remember that firstly, you are human. Secondly, you’re an athlete. Your diet still needs to meet the basic nutrition requirements for overall health and wellbeing before you can focus on your performance nutrition. Fine-tuning will be much less effective without the right foundations
• For female athletes, monitor your menstrual cycle and be aware of any changes. This can provide clues as to whether you may be under-fuelling

Top Tips for Endurance Athletes by Aaron Turner

• Track your training load, ensuring you have regular planned reductions (every three to four weeks) in training load to aid training adaptation and combat fatigue accumulation
• Aim for at least one non-exercising day in a seven-day period. This is a holistic recovery strategy, not only aiding fatigue management and tissue regeneration, but also provides psychological benefits (due to having a break from the training environment)
• Step tapers should be replaced with exponential tapers, ultimately aiding in rapid fatigue decay, while preserving fitness qualities
• Following an overloading period and subsequent taper, anaerobic performance qualities take longer to super-compensate than aerobic performance qualities. Therefore, consider tapers of two to three weeks in duration
• Quantify your lactate threshold, and use this objective information not only in planning training sessions, but also to help you with race pacing strategies
• Address movement dysfunctions and underlying strength impairments where possible, as these issues are amplified in the presence of fatigue, thus leading to more extreme malpatterning. These factors lead to performance impairment and injury
• Increase your strength, as it improves exercise economy and efficiency, which would have benefits in increasing your lactate threshold, improving training load tolerance, and reducing injury risk.