the picture.White bread, white pasta and white rice have been stripped of their outer bran coating and inner germ, and therefore also much of their nutritional content. Eat a bowl of spaghetti and you'll enjoy energy and calories, which are vital when you

If transition is triathlon's fourth discipline, nutrition should be the fifth. Making fuelling mistakes could mean your race ends in disaster. And the longer the event, the more critical your food and drink strategy becomes. But it's not easy

. "Training rides are prime opportunities to practise race-time eating and drinking strategies," says Eberle. Once you discover a winning formula, you'll approach your next triathlon with a foolproof plan.Change it: Test new foods on shorter rides before

-hour ride or two-hour run will burn more carbs than a long recreational ride or even a one-hour race. Consume about one gram of carbohydrate per 400g of body weight. The harder you ride, the more glycogen (carbs) you require."You need plenty of energy

When you're sidelined by injury your natural reaction should be to cut back on calories until it's time to return to training - and burning energy. But the healing process demands fuel, too. "It's like fixing a house," says sports dietitian Cynthia

With three disciplines to consider, it's easy to make mistakes when you're eating and drinking during training and racing. That's the bad news. The good news is that it's easy to avoid triathlon's common nutritional pitfalls if you plan ahead

If broccoli and spinach are the rock stars of the vegetable world, then celery and lettuce are the stage-hands, working hard out of the limelight. For years we've dismissed these pale staples as nutritionally barren, focusing our attention

free radicals, those unstable molecules that race around the body looking to inflict cell damage. Red peppers also contain lycopene, which may offer protection from some cancers. Peppers of all colours are a good source of dietary fibre

also offer protection against some cancers.Red PotatoesThe humble - and let's be honest, it's not much to look at - potato has had a bad reputation in terms of nutrition because we have a habit of frying it in fat, covering it with cheese or mixing

Q. I want to practise my nutrition for race day but my trainer says I should wait until a few weeks before the race so I get the maximum benefit - is he right?A. It's imperative that you experiment during training to find out what will work best