Fuel, Recover, and Evolve

In the final part of this series, we turn to two topics that often get the least attention but make the biggest difference; fuelling, and building a sustainable training lifestyle.

It’s easy to obsess over sessions, metrics, and outcomes. But if the engine doesn’t have fuel, and the schedule doesn’t work with your life, the wheels fall off quickly.

Maxim 5: Fuel and Hydrate Your Work

Whether it’s a 45-minute tempo or a 3-hour long ride, fuelling isn’t optional, it’s part of the training.

I teach athletes to:

• Take in 60–120g of carbs per hour, depending on session length and intensity.

• Use simple, cost-effective solutions (glucose + fructose mixes often work just as well as branded gels).

• Train the gut as intentionally as the legs, because poor fuelling on race day is often a training problem, not a nutritional one.

• Use electrolytes proactively, especially in hot or humid conditions.

• Leverage caffeine smartly, it’s one of the most studied and proven legal performance aids, when used with intent.

Pre- and post-session nutrition also matters. The body is most receptive to nutrient uptake within 30–60 minutes after training. This isn’t about “optimizing every gram”, it’s about giving your body what it needs to rebuild, not just break down.

Dixon’s Alignment: Fuel Is Part of Training

Dixon doesn’t see nutrition as a separate category, it’s fully integrated into how he coaches performance: “If you don’t fuel, you don’t recover. If you don’t recover, you don’t adapt.”

He encourages athletes to treat post-session fuelling as a habit, a reflex. Not something optional. Like you, he focuses on simple and repeatable practices, not elaborate supplement stacks.

Both of us advocate gut training, hydration planning, and respecting the energy demands of the sport, not just the physical ones.

Maxim 6: Make Training Fit Your Life, Not the Other Way Around

I only had five maxims. This one was bundled in Maxim 1 - Process Over Perfection, but this probably demands its own one straight from the Dixon playbook.

Too many athletes build a “dream” training week, then try to cram it into a full-time job, kids’ schedules, travel, and stress. And when it doesn’t fit? They blame themselves.

That’s not sustainable. And it’s not smart.

Instead, start with life:

• What days are busiest?

• When do you have the most energy?

• Where are the pressure points in your week?

Then build your training around that. Not in conflict with it.

Dixon calls this the “Sunday Special” a 20-minute planning ritual where athletes align their workouts with the reality of their upcoming week. “When you fit training into life, not on top of it, it becomes sustainable and powerful.”

This is how you build long-term consistency. It’s not just about making your body strong. It’s about creating a life structure that lets training succeed.

But let’s be clear, making training fit your life doesn’t mean giving up when things get busy, or giving you a ready made excuse to skip sessions. It means designing a plan that holds up when life is busy. There’s a difference between adjusting your week with intention, and letting life become an excuse to opt out entirely.

Yes, work gets intense. Yes, kids get sick. Yes, fatigue builds. But the athletes who keep moving forward are the ones who ask: “What can I do today that fits my reality, even if it’s less than ideal?”

That mindset, flexible but committed, is what makes training sustainable and effective.

Habits Make the Athlete

All three newsletters in this series have pointed to the same truth - success isn’t built on extraordinary effort. It’s built on good systems, good decisions, and good habits, repeated over time.

Fuel well. Recover smart. Plan realistically. That’s the path to evolution.

Your Take Away - Start at the End

• Look at your next “big week.” Reverse-engineer your training around your actual life schedule.

• Pick one fuelling upgrade (e.g. pre-load carbs, fuel the work, better post-session refuel, adding electrolytes) and apply it.

• Make training fit your life, not the other way around.

Your New 2025 Training Manifesto

Across these three newsletters, we’ve looked at what really drives long-term progress, and it’s not complexity, perfection, or volume. It’s rhythm, systems and sustainability.

So as you look toward the season ahead, here’s your Training Manifesto for 2025, built from the ground up:

1. Build Rhythm, Not Perfection

• Use a Sunday Checkpoint to plan each week.

• Anchor your training with 1–3 key sessions.

• Let the rest flex, and let go of guilt.

Training isn’t about winning the week. It’s about winning the month.

2. Build Systems That Support the Work

• Dial in your foundations; sleep, strength, recovery, post-session fuel.

• Audit one habit at a time, and upgrade it.

• You don’t need more willpower. You need better systems.

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

3. Start at the End

Before you add training, map your real life:

• What’s fixed? What’s flexible? Where’s the friction?

• Then build your sessions to fit that week, not to fight it.

Make training fit your life, not the other way around. This isn’t just endurance training. It's a life-aware performance development.

If you carry these ideas into the rest of 2025, anchor your weeks, support your habits, and plan around reality, you’ll be a more consistent, resilient, and adaptable athlete. One who makes progress, year after year.