How to fuel triathlon training with a vegan diet

Thai noodle soup in a bowl — Credit: The Happy Pear 20

Considering trying Veganuary in 2025? It can be tricky to know what to eat to fuel yourself correctly as a triathlete. Here’s some advice from David and Stephen Flynn, keen athletes and authors of new vegan cookbook The Happy Pear 20.

Training and racing on a plant-based diet is possible, but there are things you can do to make it easier. Here’s all the tips you need plus visit this article for four great recipe s to try…

Whether you follow a plant-based diet already or are trying it out during Veganuary, it’s important to get the right nutrients to fuel your training (and racing, if you continue beyond the first month of the year!).

To help, we turned to David and Stephen Flynn, authors of The Happy Pear 20 which celebrates 20 years since they opened their own fruit and veg shop with a dream of “creating a happier, healthier world and building community”.

Since then the duo have expanded to add a coffee roastery, two organic farms, a cookery app and six cook books… Not only that, but they are keen endurance athletes so know a thing or two about fuelling and recovering with plants!

In this article we ask them some questions to help you get things right – plus in this article they share four recipes from their new book that you can try at home.

Can anyone who is very active benefit from a vegan diet?

Absolutely. I think one of the keys here is, rather than focusing on a vegan diet, it’s to focus on eating a whole food, plant based diet.

Nine in 10 people in the UK and Ireland are deficient in fibre; you’ll get fibre in fruit, veg, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds and whole grains. So what we really recommend is, rather than a vegan diet, a diet that’s focused predominantly in whole plant foods.

What are the benefits you see from trying to be vegan for just one month?

Again, the key here is to focus on eating whole foods, rather than being vegan, so you’ll be upping your fibre intake significantly. Every human has a microbiome, which is in their large intestine, within your microbiome, 70% of your immune cells exist.

By eating fibre rich foods, you’ll be bringing in what’s known as a prebiotic which will help feed the microbes in your gut to proliferate more of the healthy strains.

So some of the benefits you’ll find from a diet focussed on plants and whole foods is that you’ll naturally eat more fibre rich foods, which improves your gut health and your immune system.

There’s also been an association between the gut and the brain, via the vagus nerve, that it can improve your mental health. So I think eating more plant based will make you feel lighter and healthier, plus it’s better for the planet!

While following a vegan diet, try to eat a diversity of plant based foods, and ensure you’re eating enough calories, because when you are eating more whole plant foods they don’t contain the refined fats or sugars, so you’ll have to eat more food.

And listen to your body. If you’re hungry, eat more. Typically, if someone does eat a whole plant food diet, they can eat so much!

I think this is the key that many people often just don’t eat enough calories because they get fed up chewing. Things like nuts and nut butters are great if you’re craving higher calorie dense foods.

Check out this nut butter porridge recipe by 220 nutritionist Kate Percy.

What are the best foods to fuel training?

Green vegetables are one of the most nutritious foods you can possibly eat. And if you’re someone that’s trying to increase your protein intake, beans and legumes are wonderful. They’re predominantly based on carbohydrates but they do have, typically anywhere from 15 to 20% protein content, and they’re really high in fibre.

So beans are incredible. And if you’re someone that’s not used to beans, hummus is also great as it’s made from chickpeas and tahini, which both have a high protein content and provide a source of fat to fuel recovery.

Protein is an important one too, you need to get enough so think nuts, tahini, nut butters and beans and pulses. Refried beans in a simple breakfast burrito is something we often have, smashed with some tofu.

We’ll put it with some turmeric, which is good for reducing inflammation, and some calinamic which is known as Black sulphur salt to give it an egg-like flavour.

We’ll often serve it then with avocado and tomato and some pickled onions, and just put it in a whole food wrap. It’s a wonderful, simple and delicious meal.

We recently ran a 130 kilometre endurance race, and one of the things we were eating were dates with almond butter, and we’d slightly cover them in chocolate, so it felt indulgent, but provided us with immediate energy.

Or try bananas dipped in tahini, we also ate a lot of avocados! We tried to avoid gels or caffeine jellies, and instead focused predominantly on real food.

We found it really helped in terms of when we were having a carb drink, we used tailwind, which was nice, but we did make our own natural Gatorade, a recipe you can find on our instagram page.

What recipe is your favourite after activity?

I tend to listen to my body, but I think hummus and some cucumber and carrot sticks is a great one. Coconut yogurt is also brilliant. We’ve an organic farm, so I try to use as much greens from that, because I think greens are one of the most nutritious foods you can have.

Why should triathletes try these recipes?

Based on research from the American good project, diversity is one of the keys to good health, and trying to eat in season, eating local, organic foods that are high in nutrition is just going to benefit your body in so many different ways and ultimately benefit your performance.

But even beyond that, it’ll help you feel more connected to the landscape, and it will help your mental health.

Here are four free recipes from The Happy Pear 20 for you to try now.

The Happy Pear 20: Recipes and Learnings from the first 20 years, is on sale from 31st October, priced £23.99. Published by Gill Books.

About

Helen has been 220's Editor since July 2013, when she made the switch from marathons to multisport. She's usually found open-water swimming and has competed in several swimruns as well as the ÖtillÖ World Series. Helen is a qualified Level 2 Open-Water Swim Coach focusing on open-water confidence and runs regular workshops at the South West Maritime Academy near Bristol. She is also an RLSS UK Open Water Lifeguard trainer/assessor.