Triathletes guide to nutrition with Kate Waugh

Words by Andy Waterman. Photography by Orbital Studio.

Good health is the foundation of athletic performance, and for leading multisport athletes like British triathlete Kate Waugh, good health is closely tied to proper nutrition. 

Waugh took two world titles–first in the mixed relay in Hamburg, and then as an individual in Abu Dhabi–in 2022, the overall Super League title in 2023. She took the podium again at Supertri Toulouse in October 2024. At just 25-years-old, Waugh has a remarkably mature approach to training, nutrition and race strategy that puts her on par with more experienced elites.

Back at the start of 2023, Waugh and her partner, British triathlete Max Stapley, switched their training base from the esteemed–but rainy–Leeds Performance Centre, UK to Portugal, where Waugh joined renowned coach Dr Paulo Sousa’s squad. There are always athletes to train with, an organized schedule of sessions, and the better weather allows for greater consistency of training throughout the year.  

On high-output days that start early in the pool, and finish in the evening in the gym, taking on nutrition during and in-between sessions keeps energy levels steady and plays a role in optimal recovery. “Fueling during my sessions so that I'm not depleted before the next session is crucial,” says Waugh.

Sousa’s training approach reflects the changing seasons, but he always advocates for simplicity and the power of consistency at every level for longer-term success, “My personality is doing a bit of work today and getting rewards down the line. Delivering consistently for a long time is important,” he explained in 2023 on Inside Tri Show. This measured coaching ethos Sousa reflects the balance needed when it comes to the nutritional needs of endurance athletes.

And that balance is key. The only metric that matters on race days is how fast you go. 

When you get to a certain level of training maturity, it’s ingrained deep in the psyches of many athletes that the only way to improve further is to reduce body weight. On one level it makes sense: if you maintain your strength and reduce weight, race day speed should improve. And yet, as explained by Olav Aleksander Bu, sports scientist and coach to leading On-supported triathletes Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden, data shows that when his athletes intentionally lost weight, their absolute and relative VO2 max (the measure of aerobic capacity) began to come down. For Bu, therefore, focusing on weight doesn’t make sense; instead, he focuses on training that leads to faster race performances, and the nutrition that allows that. "There is no speed without power, and there's no power without calories," he says.

The learning here is that focus should be on performance and fueling training to maximize velocity, not reduce weight. Put simply: When you focus on reducing weight, you reduce your body’s ability to do a whole bunch of stuff, including top the podium. Consuming too few calories or ‘under-fueling’ can negatively impact endurance athletes especially, who can be at risk of Relative Energy Deficiency (RED-S). 

While it sounds like a simple instruction to ‘consume enough calories to fuel training and good health,’ the practicalities of training for three sports, means it’s actually anything but easy. Not only do triathletes need to fuel the training they do, they also need to avoid gastrointestinal (GI)  distress so that they can make the most of that training.

On a broad level, good nutrition is about balancing the right amounts of macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) that support optimal performance and recovery.

With such a huge training volume and such tight turnarounds between sessions, consuming enough calories to truly perform and recover day-in, day-out, can be difficult. For Waugh, it’s all about keeping the calories topped up during sessions. “You constantly try to look ahead, like, okay, I'm going to take this [energy] bar, even if it's in the last half an hour of my bike ride, because I've got a run in an hour's time and I need to be fueled ahead for that. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking, ‘I'm nearly home, I'll just eat when I get home,’ even if it's 40 minutes away.”

Waugh explains that the fueling and nutrition balance of a triathlete hangs in taking in enough calories to fuel the work at hand, while timing and eating the right things to avoid GI distress. To negate that, Waugh purposely focuses on low fiber, easily digestible food during the day before loading up on real nutrition in the evening when the training day is done: “I eat quite plain foods for breakfast and lunch around key sessions to make sure I’m not upsetting my stomach. So I tend to just stick to basic things like toast before and maybe have a protein shake set up for after the session. I’m a big fan of chocolate milk around the big sessions too. And then we try to get all our food groups [macronutrients] in in the evening, making sure we have a good amount of vegetables and fruit to make sure we're on top of that.”

In terms of supplements, it’s just fuel for training, a multivitamin and some magnesium before bed: “that's really helped with my sleep and recovery,” says Waugh. 

“I wouldn't be able to get through the hours of training that I do unless I was fueling properly. It's so important. Ultimately, underfueling can lead to injury and illness and inconsistencies and just not hitting your potential. So yeah, it is a huge priority.”

Not everyone has the capacity or the need to train as hard or as long as a professional triathlete, but in many ways, these athletes are shaping the way we think about nutrition for long-term health and high performance. A holistic, balanced approach to your individual fueling and nutrition needs will support your ability to train well, recover fast and more consistently show up full of energy again, for that next session.