🚴 Tour de France Edition: What Three Weeks in the Saddle Teach Us About Fueling, Pacing, and Grit
The Warm up
Endurance Is the Skill Nobody Puts on the Highlight Reel
The Tour de France has spent the last two weeks doing what it does best: rewarding the athletes who can suffer the longest. Slovenia's Tadej Pogacar rode into the final week holding the yellow jersey and chasing a record-equalling fifth title, after shredding the field in the Massif Central to win Stage 10 and soloing away on the Col du Haag for Stage 14. Then came the drama every Grand Tour seems to save up: on Stage 15's brutal summit finish at Plateau de Solaison, Belgium's Remco Evenepoel outclimbed Pogacar to take the stage, while pre-race favorite Jonas Vingegaard crashed out and abandoned the race entirely. Heading into this week's Alpine stages and Sunday's finish in Paris, Pogacar leads Evenepoel by five minutes.
It has been a loaded few weeks across the sports calendar. Two Sundays ago, Spain capped a month-long World Cup by beating Argentina 1-0 in extra time to lift the trophy, the last kick of a tournament that started with 104 matches and dozens of teams back in June. In lacrosse, the Boston Cannons showed what refusing to quit looks like, erasing a six-goal deficit to beat the New York Atlas 15-13. And in baseball, the Yankees' Ben Rice launched a game-tying three-run homer, his 30th of the year, keeping his team alive late. Back at the Tour, Mexico's 21-year-old Isaac del Toro has ridden all the way onto the overall podium, sitting third behind Pogacar and Evenepoel with the finish in sight, all of it in heat that pushed past 40°C in southern France.
Different sports, same thread. Spain did not win in 90 minutes, they won across a month of matches and 120 grueling minutes in the final. The Cannons did not fold when they went down six goals, they clawed back one possession at a time. Endurance, pacing, and staying in it wear a different jersey in every sport, but it is always the same skill underneath.
Here is the thing about the Tour that never makes the highlight reel. These riders are not winning on one heroic afternoon. They are winning because they ate correctly at kilometer 40 of a five-hour stage, drank before they felt thirsty, and paced an effort they could not see the end of. The Tour is not a test of who is fastest on one day. It is a test of who fuels, paces, and stays mentally in it the longest, and every one of those skills is teachable to your young athlete right now.
The Lead Off
The Three Trainable Habits Behind Endurance
THE SCIENCE:
Endurance is not just a gift some kids are born with. It is built on three trainable habits, and the research on each is clear.
Fueling long efforts. Once exercise runs past about an hour, the body starts running low on its stored carbohydrate. Studies summarized in Sports Medicine show that taking in carbohydrate during endurance exercise longer than two hours prevents that energy crash, keeps the body burning fuel efficiently, and measurably improves endurance capacity compared to going without. For adults the guidelines land around 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour of sustained effort. Your 12-year-old is not riding a five-hour mountain stage, but the principle scales down: a long tournament day or a two-a-day practice block needs fuel partway through, not just a big breakfast and hope.
Hydrating in the heat. Kids are not just small adults when it comes to heat. Children have a higher surface-area-to-mass ratio, produce more heat per pound during exercise, and sweat less efficiently, which means they heat up faster and cool down slower. The American Academy of Pediatrics stresses that young athletes should start activity well-hydrated and drink on a schedule rather than waiting for thirst, because thirst lags behind actual fluid loss. In the heat of summer, this is not optional.
Pacing and perseverance. The riders who blow up on a climb are usually the ones who went too hard too early. Learning to hold something back is a skill, and so is the mental grit to keep going when it hurts. Research on athletes finds that grit, defined as perseverance of effort, is strongly predicted by a task-focused mindset, one centered on personal improvement rather than beating everyone else. A study of collegiate athletes found that a task-involving climate explained roughly 65% of the variance in their perseverance scores. In youth soccer, grit has even been shown to help explain skill development over time.
TRANSLATE IT TO YOUR SPORT:
The Tour is the obvious endurance test, but these levers show up everywhere. A soccer player grinding through 90-plus minutes and a bracket of World Cup games is fueling and pacing. A hockey player shifting on and off the ice all game is doing climb repeats on skates. A baseball player standing through a doubleheader in July heat is fighting the same hydration battle. Even a tennis player in a three-set match is pacing an effort they cannot see the end of.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOUR ATHLETE:
Endurance is coachable, no matter the sport. This week, pick one of the three levers. Add a mid-activity snack to long practice or tournament days, build a drink-on-a-schedule habit before the heat forces the issue, or start talking about effort and pacing as a skill your athlete is training, not a personality trait they either have or don't.
The Fuel Station
The Mid-Stage Energy Bites
Tour riders eat constantly on the bike, and a lot of it is small, portable, easy-to-digest fuel they can grab mid-stage. Your athlete needs the youth version: something that survives a gear bag and gives real energy partway through a long day.
THE PLAYERS (makes about 20 bites):
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup nut or seed butter (peanut, almond, or sunflower for nut-free)
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips or chopped dried tart cherries
2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
THE BUILD:
Stir everything together in one bowl until it holds together. Add a splash of water or milk if it is too crumbly.
Chill 20 minutes so it firms up.
Roll into tablespoon-sized bites. Store in the fridge up to a week, or freeze.
THE GOAL:
These are your mid-day fuel, not a pre-game meal. Pack 2 or 3 to eat between games at a tournament, at halftime of a long session, or in the car on the way to a late practice. Serve a full balanced meal 2 to 3 hours before the day starts, then use these to top off the tank.
WHY IT WORKS:
Oats and honey deliver the exact thing endurance research points to: accessible carbohydrate to keep energy from crashing during efforts that run long.
Nut or seed butter adds protein and staying power so the energy lasts, not spikes and drops.
The pinch of salt replaces sodium lost in sweat, which matters more than most parents realize in the heat, especially for kids who lose fluid quickly .
Tart cherries (if you use them) bring a little antioxidant support that some research links to recovery, and they taste great.
The Lab
Three Drills to Build a Repeat-Effort Engine
This week's Lab is built around the multi-sport theme. Instead of sport-specific drills, these three focus on the foundational movement skills that carry over from one sport to the next. They are also all new territory for this newsletter: no repeats from prior issues.
THE PLAY:
The Tour is won by riders who can repeat a hard effort, recover, and go again, all while pacing themselves over hours. These three drills build that same repeat-effort engine and, just as importantly, teach your athlete to feel the difference between "all out" and "controlled." All three are new this week and need nothing but a driveway and a watch.
DRILL 1: The Negative Split
Setup: Mark a start line and a turnaround about 40 yards out (driveway, sidewalk, or backyard).
The drill: Your athlete runs out and back twice. The rule: the second lap must be as fast or faster than the first. Time both.
Progression: Add a third lap that has to be the fastest of all. This forces holding energy in reserve early.
Why it works: Negative splitting is exactly how smart Tour riders climb, easing in and finishing strong. It trains pacing and self-regulation, the same effort-monitoring that research ties to endurance performance.
DRILL 2: Climb Repeats
Setup: Find any incline nearby, a hill, a ramp, or a set of stairs.
The drill: Sprint or hard-jog up, walk down to recover, repeat 6 to 8 times.
Progression: Shorten the walk-down recovery over a few weeks so the efforts stack closer together.
Why it works: This is the youth version of a mountain stage, building the ability to produce repeated hard efforts with limited recovery, which is the backbone of endurance in almost every field sport.
DRILL 3: The Talk-Test Jog
Setup: Any open, flat stretch. No stopwatch needed.
The drill: Your athlete jogs at a pace where they can still say a full sentence out loud. If they can't talk, they slow down. Hold it for 8 to 10 minutes.
Progression: Extend by two minutes each week toward 20 minutes of steady, conversational effort.
Why it works: It teaches sustainable aerobic pace by feel, the foundation that lets kids go longer without redlining, and it doubles as a built-in check that they aren't overheating.
TRANSLATE IT TO YOUR SPORT:
These carry across the board. Negative splits map to a soccer player who is still dangerous in the 85th minute or a hockey player whose third period looks like the first. Climb repeats mirror the stop-and-go bursts of hockey shifts, basketball fast breaks, and chasing down a fly ball. The talk-test builds the aerobic base under all of it, no matter which field your athlete plays on.
Parent Playbook
Coach the Effort, Not the Scoreboard
THE STRATEGY:
When Vingegaard crashed out of this Tour after two weeks of effort, no result changed the fact that he showed up and emptied the tank. That is the frame worth borrowing. The research on grit is encouraging for parents because it points to something you can actually shape: perseverance grows in a task-involving climate, one where effort and personal improvement are what get noticed, not just winning. Kids who learn to measure themselves against their own last effort, rather than the scoreboard, are the ones who keep pushing when a season gets long.
THE PLAY:
After the next hard practice or game, resist leading with "Did you win?" or "How many goals?" Instead, praise one specific effort you actually saw: "You kept chasing back on defense even when you were gassed." You are reinforcing the exact mindset the research links to perseverance.
THE CONVERSATION STARTER:
"When did you feel the most tired out there today, and what did you do to keep going?"
TRANSLATE IT TO YOUR SPORT:
The effort-over-outcome frame fits every sideline. Swap the cycling example for whatever your family watched: Spain outlasting Argentina over 120 minutes, or the Cannons clawing back from six goals down. The point is the same in soccer, hockey, baseball, or tennis. Praise the effort you saw, not just the final score.
🏆 Play of the Week
Watch the Tour Like a Coach
THE PLAY:
Watch a stage of the Tour de France together this week (the Alpine stages and the Sunday finish in Paris are the big ones). Watch it like a coach, not just a fan. Look for three things:
Who is hiding. Point out how the smartest riders sit protected in the pack for hours, saving energy, instead of leading the whole time. Ask your athlete why that might be smart.
The fuel. Watch for riders eating and drinking while racing. Ask: why would they eat during the race instead of just before?
The finish. Notice who has energy left for the final climb or sprint. That rider paced it right.
THE GOAL:
To make pacing and fueling visible. When your athlete sees the best endurance athletes on the planet deliberately holding back and eating mid-effort, the drills from The Lab and the fuel bites from The Fuel Station suddenly make sense. It connects the science to something they just watched with their own eyes, in under 15 minutes of viewing.
TRANSLATE IT TO YOUR SPORT:
The same lesson lives in any endurance moment. Rewatch the World Cup final and point out which players still had legs in extra time, or catch any long baseball or hockey game and track who fades and who finishes strong. The sport does not matter. The skill does.
THE FINAL WHISTLE
The Long Game Is Won One Small Choice at a Time
The riders finishing this Tour in Paris on Sunday are not there because of one perfect day. They are there because of thousands of small, correct choices strung together over three weeks: eating before they were empty, drinking before they were thirsty, and pacing an effort they could not see the end of.
Your athlete's season is their Grand Tour, whatever sport they play. Spain lifted the World Cup after a month of matches. The Cannons clawed back from six goals down one possession at a time. The long game is always won the same way, one fueled practice, one hydrated tournament, one controlled pace at a time. You do not have to teach all of it this week. Pick one lever, the snack, the water bottle, or the way you talk about effort, and start there.
The best fans in youth sports know the finish line is a long way off, and they help their kids get there strong.
See you on the sidelines,
The Seasoned Sidekick Team
We’re refining the roster—which section earned the "First Star" this week?
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Know a family heading into a brutal summer tournament stretch or a long season, wondering how to keep their kid fueled and from burning out? This issue was built for them. Forward it before the next big weekend.
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Medical Disclaimer: The content in The Seasoned Sidekick is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to replace the advice of a licensed physician, registered dietitian, or certified athletic trainer. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your athlete's nutrition, training, or recovery plan. Individual needs vary. The information presented is based on available research and general guidelines for youth athletes.