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)
Last on
More episodes
Broadcasts
- Thu 1 Jul 202103:32GMTBBC World Service except Australasia, East Asia & South Asia
- Thu 1 Jul 202104:32GMTBBC World Service Australasia, South Asia & East Asia only
- Thu 1 Jul 202110:32GMTBBC World Service
- Thu 1 Jul 202121:32GMTBBC World Service except Europe and the Middle East
- Thu 1 Jul 202122:32GMTBBC World Service Europe and the Middle East
- Sun 4 Jul 202107:32GMTBBC World Service except Europe and the Middle East
Podcast
![]()
The Food Chain
Examining what it takes to put food on your plate


