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The endurance diet

How athletes feed themselves during extreme sporting events.

When you’re competing in a round-the-world race and you have to take all your food with you, what do you bring and how do you cook it?

If you’re scrambling up and down mountains for days on end, or swimming across an entire ocean, how do you find the time to eat, and what can you stomach?

Tamasin Ford speaks to three extreme endurance athletes about the planning, practicalities and monotony of these gruelling events. Is food simply fuel, or can it power competitors in other ways?

Producer: Simon Tulett

Contributors:

Dee Caffari;
Billy White;
Benoit Lecomte

If you would like to get in touch with the show please email [email protected]

(Picture: A runner in the 2019 Marathon des Sables race. Credit: Erik Sampers/Gamma-Rapho/Getty/ BBC)

Available now

28 minutes

Last on

Sun 4 Jul 202107:32GMT

Broadcasts

  • Thu 1 Jul 202103:32GMT
  • Thu 1 Jul 202104:32GMT
  • Thu 1 Jul 202110:32GMT
  • Thu 1 Jul 202121:32GMT
  • Thu 1 Jul 202122:32GMT
  • Sun 4 Jul 202107:32GMT

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