Hi,
Matt here. Ultra Running sensation and all around performance expert David Roche's Saturday Email Series continues, we hope you laugh and learn as much as we do from him.
I have a favorite thought experiment that might change your athletic life forever. Imagine you’re running (or biking or swimming or scootering) for 2 hours at a moderate effort.
The next day, you have an all-out 20 minute race. And let’s make the stakes high--you either set a new PR, or you’re never going to be allowed to race again.
What do you do?
The correct answer is that you fuel with high carb during the 2 hour session, then you follow it up immediately with a carb/protein drink. That’s the only chance you have to be your best self the next day.
That’s not a hypothetical. Every single day of hard training looks just like that thought experiment. My challenge to athletes I coach is simple: how do you fuel if your athletic life is on the line?
Do that every day and you find out how deep the rabbit hole of your potential actually goes.
SiS Beta Recovery is for athletes who want to see what’s truly possible. To start, call me Usher in 2004 because I have several confessions.
For the first decade of my athletic life, I always struggled with proper post-exercise carb and protein intake. I liked to finish a run, upload my Strava with a cringe caption, and wait for the joy of a luxurious meal. I failed the thought experiment over and over again.
Eventually, I was hit over the side of the head with enough science to come around.
A 2025 review study summarized the tsunami of literature on the subject: “in comparison to delayed supplementation, protein and carbohydrate supplementation right after exercise dramatically expedited muscle recovery, glycogen recovery, and decreased tiredness.”
We all know that intuitively, right? Even the no-carb dinosaurs probably admit it, and they’re the type of people who think the moon landing was fake and Skittles cause herpes.
For me, the epiphany related to aging. I was gifted with fast recovery rates, and even with that, the gears slowed down in my 30s. In elite athletics, it’s adapt or die. And I was dying--limping down the stairs in the morning, needing 48 hours after hard efforts, just getting slower. Do I accept the slow fading of the light? Or do I live every day like it’s that thought experiment?
I went with Door 2. Every day after training, I guzzle a carb/protein drink, and I ask that all of the athletes I coach do the same. SiS Beta Recovery takes the normal post-exercise drink and turns the volume up to 11 for longer or harder training. It’s what you take if your life is on the line the next day.
The key stats:
- 56 grams of carbs in a 1:1 ratio
- 30 grams of protein from whey
- 302 mg of sodium for hydration
- Probiotics because why the f*** not?!
The day before the Javelina 100 Mile, I finished my shakeout run and went straight to my new secret weapon, which I first purchased after being influenced by one of Matt’s emails. 2 hours later, I had a proper, luxurious lunch. The next day, I went 27 minutes faster than my win in 2024, for a 2nd place finish and the option for a Golden Ticket to Western States.
It might not feel like your athletic life is on the line. But every day of hard training, it is.
Adapt or die. SiS Beta Recovery is life.
-David from The Feed.
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