5 favourite recipe books for athletes

There’s plenty of choice when it comes to sports nutrition recipe books, so, as a triathlete, where do you even begin?

For a start, it helps if the author is either a qualified sports nutritionist, triathlete coach/triathlete or professional chef. (Or, ideally, a combination of those attributes!)

Next, you need quick and easy recipes that cover every mealtime.

And finally, you need the UK’s biggest-selling triathlon mag to do the trawling for you and pick out their top five.

Et voila! Below you’ll find our favourite recipe books for the active triathlete, who not only enjoys their food but also recognises its importance in their weekly training schedule.

A couple are more single-sport focussed, but all provide plenty of nutritionally-balanced inspiration to help optimise your swim, bike and run training and racing.

Five of our favourite athlete recipe books

The Cycling Chef: Recipes for Performance and Pleasure

Alan Murchison

Designed for cyclists of all levels and written by Alan Murchison – a Michelin-starred chef and champion athlete who now cooks for British Cycling’s elite athletes – The Cycling Chef features more than 65 recipes.

They include breakfasts, salads, main meals, desserts and snacks, as well as vegetarian and vegan dishes.

Each nutritionally-balanced recipe is designed to give you the nutrition you need to fuel your lifestyle and are created with busy cyclists in mind, so are all quick and easy to prepare and, importantly, tasty.

Gordon Ramsay Ultimate Fit Food: Mouth-watering recipes to fuel you for life

Gordon Ramsay

Another Michelin-starred chef and committed (amateur) athlete, Gordon Ramsay’s fitness-focussed recipe book is divided into three sections, each one offering breakfasts, lunches, suppers, sides and snacks with different health-boosting benefits.

The ‘Healthy’ section consists of recipes for general wellbeing; the ‘Lean’ recipes encourage healthy weight loss; and the ‘Fit’ section features pre- and post-workout dishes to build strength and energise.

The book has over 1,000 good reviews on Amazon which, combined with the chef’s popularity, suggests there’ll be some tasty options in between the covers.

Feed Zone Table: Family-Style Meals to Nourish Life and Sport (The Feed Zone Series)

Chef Biju Thomas and Dr. Allen Lim

£20.99

In their third cookbook, Feed Zone Table, Chef Biju Thomas and Dr Allen Lim offer 100 all-new recipes designed to bring friends and family to the table in a way that nourishes life and sport. Feed Zone Table aims to inspire family-style dinners with a line up of drinks, starters, main courses, side dishes, fresh sauces, and desserts, with easy techniques for making meals that are fun to prepare and share.

Dr Lim saw the benefits of enjoying dinnertime with others first-hand while working with professional athletes and shares new research on how social meals benefit everyone. Lim reveals why it matters – what science has to say about food, camaraderie, performance, and the pivotal role that the dinner table can play in an athlete’s preparation.

The Runner’s Cookbook: More than 100 delicious recipes to fuel your running

Anita Bean

• £11.47

Anita Bean BSc, RNutr is an award-winning registered nutritionist, who specialises in sport and exercise nutrition. She’s also worked with the British Olympic Association and Swim England, as well as with numerous teams, clubs and individuals in a diverse range of sports, from swimming and bodybuilding to running, triathlon and cycling.

Bean’s nutrition guide and cookbook for runners is packed with more than 100 easy-to-prepare recipes, including breakfasts, salads, main meals, vegetarian main meals, desserts and snacks, all designed to help you go the extra mile and achieve your running goals, whatever your distance. There’s also additional guidance on hydration, supplements and how to optimise recovery from injury.

The Endurance Training Diet & Cookbook: The How, When, and What for Fueling Runners and Triathletes to Improve Performance

Jesse Kropelnicki

• £16.34

Written by one of the world’s leading triathlon coaches, The Endurance Training Diet & Cookbook’s main aim is to boost your performance and help you reach your personal best.

Kropelnicki, who himself has completed over 150 triathlons, understands that fuelling your body is just as important as training it, but that different phases of training and racing require different combinations of nutrients. Cue over 70 recipes to tailor to each of these phases.

You can also find more tasty recipes in our recipe section. Get cooking!