Today we introduce the newest member of our RMA family and writing team, Sophie Brown. Sophie is an experienced and accredited Running Dietitian and Exercise Physiologist, hails from Sydney where she works at her business Energise and Exercise, and in her spare time excels on the trails!. We are excited to have Sophie on board sharing with us her expertise on running nutrition, some insight into her running journey and how the right nutrition has helped her to achieve amazing results. Sophie will share with us how you can also improve your performance with the right advice when it comes to nutrition for runners. But first, a little bit about Sophie!
Hello to all the running mums out there!
When Nicole asked me to come on board with RMA to talk food and running, I couldn’t have been more excited. It is a privilege to be able to share my experiences and knowledge on my two favourite things with a bunch of running, health nuts like myself.
To begin, I should introduce myself. In two words, I am a running Dietitian.
My hobby (obsession is probably more accurate) is trail running, and I have my brother to thank. It’s been six years since Zak asked if I wanted to run “off-road”, out the back of our place on the Northern Beaches in Sydney. My brother is two years older and very rarely asks me to do anything with him, so there was no way I was going to pass him up. I thought it was a silly idea at the time. Why wouldn’t you just run on the road? How naive of me.
Without wanting to miss out, I tagged along for a couple of years as big bro entered some local orienteering and obstacle-course events which usualy involved lots of mud. Initially daunted by getting dirty, wet feet and having to climb, jump and tip-toe around rocks, these obstacles eventually became the attraction of trail running. It was in 2012 when I did my first trail run, The Glow Worm Half Marathon, at Newnes. That year I ran four half marathons on the trails and it just went up from there.
Hunter Valley Half Marathon, July 2015. Fuelling on race day.
Fast-forward to today and I have completed 20+ half marathons, one marathon and three ultra-marathons, all on trails. My longest race was 63 km i.e. the Alpine Challenge in November 2015 (1st female). Most recently was the Six Foot Track Marathon, March 2016 (3rd female), Buffalo Stampede Sky26er, April 2016 (1st female) and the Ultra-Trail Australia 50 km just a few weeks ago (2nd female).
Ultratrail Australia 2015. Happiest on the trails
Another ‘passion’ of mine, which I am fortunate to say is also my profession, is sports nutrition. After completing the combined degree in Exercise and Sports Science and Nutrition, I became an accredited Dietitian (and Exercise Physiologist) and have a special interest in nutrition for endurance athletes. Through my own journey to becoming a competitive runner, I get pleasure in putting the theory and science into practice, and I understand that there is often a large gap between the two.
Over the coming months, you will see various articles about nutrition, food, running and all sorts of combinations of these. I will reflect on my experiences as an endurance athlete whilst offering my professional opinion as a sports Dietitian. There may be recipes, product reviews, race reports and articles about various nutrition topics. If you have specific questions, or want to share recipes or your experience with sports nutrition, please send it through so I can cover the things of most interest to you.
SB.
For more information on Sophie, or how she can help you with your running nutrition advice head to:
website: www.diethealthfitness.com.au
facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/
would love an article on avoiding upset tummy on long runs, many a run has been derailed… not sure why!