Matt Fitzgerald Quotes & Sayings

eating enough carbohydrate every day will allow you to train harder, better absorb the stress of your training, and perform better in important workouts than you would without adequate carbohydrate intake. — Matt Fitzgerald

runners with very heavy training loads need more carbohydrate than runners with more moderate training loads. The more you train, the more carbs your body uses, and the more carbohydrate your body uses, the more carbs you need to eat to maintain adequate muscle glycogen stores. — Matt Fitzgerald

Dear God, don't let us confine Easter to Easter. — Matt Fitzgerald

Confidence is not some nonphysical quality snatched from the spiritual dimension and installed in the mind. It is the feeling that arises when the body's knowledge of itself is in harmony with a person's dreams. — Matt Fitzgerald

Masters runners fare best when they designate every third week as a recovery week. — Matt Fitzgerald

If I was ever going to win Ironman, I was going to have to beat the man who rinsed his cottage cheese — Matt Fitzgerald

Mindless performance may be especially helpful in endurance sports because of the supreme importance of the capacity to suffer. The more science and technical detail an athlete incorporates into the training process, the more distracted he becomes from the only thing that really matters: getting out the door and going hard. — Matt Fitzgerald

There are two types of nutrition that have the potential to significantly enhance performance when consumed during running: water and carbohydrate. It is no accident that these are the two main ingredients in almost all sports drinks intended for use during exercise. Most — Matt Fitzgerald

The magnitude of the satisfaction that a triathlete experiences upon crossing a finish line is directly proportional to the amount of suffering he has overcome to to get there. This reward knows no ability. Even the slowest of the slow can push themselves beyond existing limits and finish with tremendous satisfaction. But winning often demands and inspires the greatest suffering and thus confers the greatest sense of pride. Often, because of the nature of competition, it is precisely he who has the most guts who is the fastest and experiences the most intense fulfillment at the finish line.

Theoretically, then, the most deeply satisfying experience a triathlete could have in the sport (and among the best in life) would occur at the finish line of a race in which he has overcome as much suffering as he could possibly ever endure, and knows it. — Matt Fitzgerald

Interestingly, slushie ingestion not only delayed the point at which the subjects reached a critically high core body temperature, but also allowed a higher tolerable core body temperature before exhaustion was reached. In other words, the slushie let them start colder and get hotter. — Matt Fitzgerald

Build step by step. Push yourself, but not too hard. Learn. Keep it fun. — Matt Fitzgerald

Body weight is the enemy of running performance. Running is, after all, a continuous fight against gravity. With every stride you take your body must be lifted completely off the ground, because all of the progress you make when running is made while your body is airborne. What's — Matt Fitzgerald

Low-intensity, high-volume training develops the sort of suffering tolerance that enhances fatigue resistance more effectively than does speed-based training. Fast runs may hurt more, but long runs hurt longer. The slow-burn type of suffering that runners experience in longer, less intense workouts is more specific to racing. — Matt Fitzgerald

runners throughout the first half of the twentieth century generally avoided drinking anything during long races because they believed that submitting to their thirst would cause them to become "waterlogged" and slow down. One expert of the time wrote, "Don't get in the habit of drinking and eating in a Marathon race; some prominent runners do, but it is not beneficial. — Matt Fitzgerald

Some say there's no magic formula. I say there is. It's just that the magic is different for everyone. — Matt Fitzgerald

For the only time homeostasis fails is when we are no longer alive. — Matt Fitzgerald

Beet juice is rich in dietary nitrates, which are precursors for nitric oxide, a chemical that the body uses to cause blood vessels to dilate. Consuming beet juice before exercise increases vasodilatation and blood flow and reduces the oxygen cost of exercise. These — Matt Fitzgerald

According to the brain-centered model of exercise performance, a runner achieves his race goal when his brain calculates that achieving the race goal is possible without catastrophic self-harm. — Matt Fitzgerald

effects of a ten-day high-fat diet followed by three days of carbohydrate loading on the fat-burning capacity and performance of trained cyclists. Her hypothesis was that fat loading would increase reliance on fat and decrease reliance on glycogen as exercise fuel, while subsequent carbo loading would maximize glycogen stores without negating the effect of fat loading. With more glycogen available and less glycogen being used, the cyclists would be less likely to hit the wall and their performance would improve. — Matt Fitzgerald

Refined grains (regular old spaghetti being an example), fatty meats (hard salami), sweets (blueberry pie), and fried foods (bacon) are not poisonous. They are foods that just happen to be less wholesome than some other foods. There — Matt Fitzgerald

Who is ultimately stronger? The answer is undetermined. — Matt Fitzgerald

What's more, your body also must be accelerated forward with every stride because it loses momentum upon each foot landing. The — Matt Fitzgerald

There's a difference between nutrition knowledge and food knowledge. — Matt Fitzgerald

For every runner who hits the wall because of his or her failure to consume enough carbohydrate during the race, there are several who hit the wall because of their failure to consume enough carbs in their everyday training diet. To — Matt Fitzgerald

It appears, then, that the approach to training — Matt Fitzgerald

The vast majority of runners, however, seldom train at a truly comfortable intensity. Instead, they push themselves a little day after day, often without realizing it. If the typical elite runner does four easy runs for every hard run, the average recreationally competitive runner - and odds are, you're one of them - does just one easy run for every hard run. Simply put: Running too hard too often is the single most common and detrimental mistake in the sport. — Matt Fitzgerald