Episode 56
“These conversations I’m having are not… They’re not about me at this point. They’re about, “Hey, you might want to think about this because I didn’t, and this is where I’m sitting at this point.”
Is taking supplements a part of your daily routine? If you’re an athlete, are you aware if the supplements you take are NSF certified? On this week’s Talk of the T-Town, Joan sits down with Brian Abers, coach and master’s track athlete. They dive deep into Brian’s experience with testing positive for Ibutamoren after a win at Master’s Track Nationals this past fall. Joan and Brian talk about the process with USADA, the risks of supplementing and how to avoid those risks, NSF certifications, and much more. Be sure to check out the links in the show notes for more information about USADA and NSF certified supplements.
USADA Website:
https://www.usada.org/choose-usada
NSF International Certified Products
https://www.nsfsport.com/certified-products/
Brian Abers Coaching
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/brihop_one/
https://www.instagram.com/brihopcoaching/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Brihop-Coaching-200425743308686/
Website:
http://brihopcoaching.com
Thanks to B Braun Medical Inc. for sponsoring the Talk of the T-Town Podcast. BBraun is a global leader in infusion therapy and pain management, B Braun develops, manufactures and markets innovative medical products to the healthcare community. They are also strong believers in supporting the quality of life in the communities where their employees work and live.
Transcript
Joan Hanscom:
Welcome to the talk of the T-Town podcast, where we discuss all things track cycling. Broadcasting from the Valley Preferred Cycling Center, I’m your host and executive director, Joan Hanscom.
Joan Hanscom:
Welcome to the Talk of the T-Town podcast. I’m your host, Joan Hanscom, and I am joined this week by Brian Abers of Brihop Coaching and many other coaching things. His career accolades are long. And we are delighted to have Brian on the show with us today to talk perhaps not strictly about coaching and racing track bikes, but as I’m sure most of our listeners have seen in the news or recently on social media channels, Brian has a story to tell us today, that’s an important one for athletes to hear, about supplement use and positive drug tests in sport.
Joan Hanscom:
I’m delighted that Brian was willing to come on and talk to us about this. It can be a touchy subject for folks. I know it’s not the first time it’s happened in our community. So we thought it would be great to get Brian on and have him talk to us about what happened and how you can avoid the same fate, which I think is important for folks to understand. So, Brian, that was a long, rambling introduction. I said I’ve had six shots of espresso, and I wasn’t joking. Welcome to the podcast.
Brain Abers:
Thank you for having me.
Joan Hanscom:
So Brian, you’re joining us from Colorado Springs. You look like you’re in a room full of stuff behind you, bike-racing things perhaps.
Brain Abers:
Right.
Joan Hanscom:
Tell us about where you’re joining us from.
Brain Abers:
Well, I’m joining you from my apartment in Colorado Springs. So if it looks crowded back there, it’s simply because it’s a small apartment, so everything is just kind of stuffed in. But yeah, there’s a bike back there somewhere. There’s a couple more over around, so you just kind of cram them in where you can get them in.
Joan Hanscom:
I feel that. If you could see not the white wall behind me, you would see much the same in my apartment. So Brian, tell us… Let’s not beat around the bush. Tell us what happened in the last six months of your life, because I know it’s been challenging for you.
Brain Abers:
It’s been a bit of an adventure, one that I would prefer to avoid in the future. But in September, I was racing at T-Town for Masters Nats. I got called in for drug testing. Didn’t think anything about it. I think I waved at the two guys going through the office when I was going in and chatted with a couple people that were already there. It was kind of a routine thing. I’ve probably been tested a dozen times over the last eight racing years maybe, something like that. Did the test. About two or three weeks later, I guess, I get a call from USADA, and it came up on my phone as USADA. And I, as stupid me, didn’t think twice about it. Answered the phone. I was like, “Hey, how’s it going? What can I do for you?” And they informed me that I’d tested positive for a substance called ibutamoren in my system.
Brain Abers:
What had happened was that they detected 0.011 micrograms of the substance in my urine. And that comes out to what? 11 trillionths of a gram, so a very tiny amount. And we started the process of, okay, how do I deal with this? And quite frankly, I thought I was fairly sharp with the whole USADA thing and realized that I had absolutely no idea what I needed to do. Called the USOPC Ombuds, asked their advice. They recommended getting an attorney. Hired an attorney and started that process.
Brain Abers:
The attorney recommended that I take all the supplements I had in my cabinet and send them all down, and I’m thinking, “Okay, well, yeah, I don’t know what the odds of this are. It’s pretty much the same supplements I’ve been taking for decades at this point.” And sent them in. He sent them into a lab to be tested, where they found this substance in the glutamine I was taking. At that point, they sent the glutamine, presumably just the glutamine, to USADA. They tested it, confirmed that there was contamination in the glutamine, and we started the process of… Well, my lawyer started the process of discussing with USADA what the next steps were. Subsequently, USADA offered me a one-year suspension retroactive from the date of notification, which would be August, or I’m sorry, October 6th of this year.
Joan Hanscom:
Let’s take a pause there for folks because certainly everybody I know that does sports at a high level does some sort of supplementation in some way, shape, or form. I mean, I went digging through my countertops today to find, and I’m holding up for everybody, my bottle of complete amino acids. And I guess this is where we sort of stop and say, how do we make sure this doesn’t happen to other people? Because USADA themselves, in your statement when they announced you’re positive, but broadly speaking, always say, “If athletes choose to take the risk of using supplements, it’s on them to make sure that they’re not contaminated,” which is almost an impossible task.
Joan Hanscom:
I’ve worked with a nutritionist for a long time, and when he started prescribing all the supplements that I take, and certainly there was a lot of supplements recommended for women my age who, as we age, you start to not do things like have lean tissue anymore or lean muscle mass. So things like amino acids are important. So how do we make sure that we’re taking something that isn’t going to get us in trouble if we compete? I looked at the notes from my nutritionist, and I saw in the notes from my nutritionist that he was really adamant that I only take supplements that were either informed by Sport Certified or, as USADA says, NSF certified.
Joan Hanscom:
I guess at this point, were you looking out for that as well, or is this just a product you had trusted? Tell us a little bit about that. And then let’s dig into what these certifications mean a little bit for folks. But yeah, I guess that’s the next question. Were the products you were taking either NSF or informed by Sports Certified? Do you not know? Was that something that you weren’t looking out for? Yeah, I guess that’s the next round of questions.
Brain Abers:
That scenario is interesting because I typically got all of my supplements at a major health store retailer, right? So I have records of all the purchases I’ve ever made, which, conveniently enough, was something that I needed to dig into during this process.
Joan Hanscom:
That’s amazing.
Brain Abers:
But it turns out-
Joan Hanscom:
Actually.
Brain Abers:
Yeah. Yeah. I got really lucky with that as well. But it turns out that I actually purchased this product in the T-Town area while I was there during the summer in July. And I’m not sure what happened. It was a product I had used before. This particular product was not NSF certified. And the product I was generally using was a bigger container, and I think that was… And it was NSF certified. And I think that was probably why I was using it, because it was a bigger container and it was NSF certified and it kept me from going to the health food store every 30 days to get another container.
Brain Abers:
So this one was a smaller container. And I’m totally speculating at this point, but one of two scenarios happened at that point. I was out of the supplement, was replacing the supplement. And I either didn’t have the supplement that was the NSF-certified supplement available at the store, or I decided, because this was a small container and I was traveling, that that might be the better way to go. I’d used the product before. I’m reasonably sure I’ve been tested on the product before and really gave it not a lot of thought.
Brain Abers:
The problem… And to go back to your original question, the short answer is you can’t ensure that any product is safe. Even if it’s NSF certified, they’re not required to test every single batch. And one of the things, one of the many things I learned through this process is the mixing process of that, of let’s say creatine… Creatine’s kind of the one I go to because one of the things in my research, I can only find two places in China that actually produce creatine. And my understanding is that it all comes over to the States or over to Europe in these big bags of pure creatine monohydrate, right? The companies that make the supplements purchase the creatine from one of these two labs. And that’s not… That’s my research, and that’s all I’ve been able to find. But to the best of my knowledge, that’s how it works with creatine.
Brain Abers:
They take the creatine… Obviously, the NSF-certified companies test this stuff, but anything they put into it, any fillers, volumizers, whatever, gets mixed into a giant bin. And it’s very easy for chunks of this powder in this powder form to end up in certain places in the bin, but not thoroughly mixed. So even if you… And this is why… This is again speculating, but I’m assuming this is why USADA is very big on preferring you not to supplement at all because you’re always running this risk. Even if you test that, if you test the section that doesn’t have the contamination in it, you don’t necessarily pick up the contamination in what I’m assuming is a pretty massive silo of creatine.
Joan Hanscom:
Right. Right. Yeah. No, it makes sense, and you can see where it would be incredibly easy for this to happen. And I think you’re right. This is why there’s always risk associated with this stuff. And I guess every time I take my little amino acid capsules, I’m taking that same risk. I think we all do it, right? So let’s go back to the USADA process then. Once they’ve tested and found, yes, there was cross-contamination and they worked with you on this reduced sanctioning, how did that work? Were they cooperative? What was the general process like dealing with USADA for folks to understand?
Brain Abers:
Dealing with USADA was fine. I have zero issues with USADA. I’m pretty grateful that… I was looking at a four-year sanction. Getting it reduced to one year by being able to at least show intent was a huge relief for me. USADA was very professional, very easy to work with really. But I think you have to remember that USADA is, for lack of a less harsh way to put it, USADA is not… is going to presume you guilty rather than innocent because that’s their job, right?
Joan Hanscom:
Right.
Brain Abers:
Their whole entire process is to stop doping in sport. So if it’s in your system, they’re going to catch it. I mean, if they can find 11 trillionths of a gram in a milliliter of liquid, then they’re pretty good at being able to spot this stuff. At that point, they seem very willing to work with you and allow you the opportunity to defend your actions. But at the end of the day, their job is to stop doping in sport, not necessarily make sure that Brian Abers gets a reduced sentence or anything along those lines.
Brain Abers:
So if you keep that in mind, it’s not a terrible process. It’s not a pleasant process. I mean, it’s the equivalent of the cop pulling in behind you while you’re driving down the freeway and then wondering if your taillight’s out or if you… You automatically lift your foot off the gas, everything, right? So there’s that part of it. But the process is pretty much up to you and, in my case, my attorneys to figure out how this happened and try to attempt to show that there wasn’t intent to do this intentionally.
Joan Hanscom:
Right. So obviously, a one-year sanction has very real-life ramifications for you, serious real-life ramifications for you other than losing results, which I’m sure feels awful as well, and not being able to compete. But you’re also a pretty high-level coach in the sport. How has this impacted your professional side of life? How is this impacting you in the day-to-day of running your coaching business and working with your athletes? And what is the real-world… The real world, because racing for us at masters age is… I don’t want to say pretend or fun stuff. But how does this impact your day job?
Brain Abers:
Well, it’s had a pretty significant effect with it. I had several riders that were riding with the national team, USOPC, Para, all of the above, and I’ve had to at least temporarily give those riders up. This is what I do for a living, so the income from that went away. I’m not able to do any coaching at any of the races anymore.
Brain Abers:
The upside of that is I’m actually bringing my daughter in as a coach now. She’s a rower for University of Oregon, and I approached her with the idea because I needed a coach to do these things at this point. So it’s been challenging, but obviously trying to make my way through this. And I’ve got another six months of covering coaches’ costs and trying to abide by all of the rules of my sanction. So it’s been challenging. It’s been super frustrating. I’m not thrilled with the idea of going to T-Town for Nats and sitting in the stands and watching the athletes in my coaching program be coached by somebody else and watching them race and having to just basically sit in the stands and twiddle my thumbs and hope everything goes well. So yeah, that’s the part that’s been hard for me.
Brain Abers:
I race my bicycle at this point because I like racing my bicycle. The guys I race with at Nationals and Masters Worlds are why I race my bicycle. And really, I probably race maybe three or four times a year at this point, and everything else is… And I do it because it’s convenient because I happen to be there. Typically, my race days happen to be a pretty light day for everybody else because the coaching takes priority. So that’s not terrible. It’s not great. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m not doing cartwheels in the background here because I can’t race my bicycle. But the coaching side is very much a concern for me.
Joan Hanscom:
So what’s good to hear is that athletes have… You still have athletes that you’re coaching. Even if you can’t be trackside with them, you’re still working with athletes in some capacity. That sounds correct?
Brain Abers:
They’re certainly in the program, and yeah, I’ve got several coaches at this point that are part of my program that are taking over day-to-day stuff, that I’m trying… I’m basically a business owner with a handful of coaches at this point, so…
Joan Hanscom:
Right. So you’re allocating that.
Brain Abers:
Which gets really challenging because they like to get paid too, so…
Joan Hanscom:
Yeah, sure. So six months from now, your coaching license will be restored. You’ll be able to be back on the trackside with your athletes. This experience… And I’m making an assumption here that could be wrong. But the athletes you coach with, I’m sure at some point you were making recommendations for supplements or trying to help your athletes make decisions about how to supplement. How has this experience changed how you’re going to approach that with your athletes, or has it not? Is it just this is a risk we take, or has this changed your approach that you’re going to take with your athletes when you get back to it?
Brain Abers:
Well, certainly, it’s always been a concern having that conversation with my athletes simply because USADA makes it very clear that you’re responsible for what you put into your system. So in my case, I tested positive. That’s completely on me because it was my responsibility to make sure that I didn’t test positive. I always kind of hedge that conversation with you can’t… You’re not going to be able to guarantee, excuse me, absolute guarantee your ability to test clean by taking any supplements at all. The only way you can really guarantee that is to raise your own food, drop an artesian well, and basically live a monk-like existence in the woods somewhere to be able to guarantee that you’re absolutely, absolutely clean.
Brain Abers:
You can mitigate some of the risk with supplementation, and it gets to be a pain in the butt. It is a challenge to do this right because you have to jump through several hoops to be able to supplement and be able to be reasonably confident that you’re going to test clean when you get tested. First of all, is you always have to get an NSF-certified product. And what I would recommend very highly, if you’re planning to supplement, is go on your product, your NSF product’s website, get the batch number that they tested, because they don’t… They’re not required to test every single batch, but they do post the batches that they have tested as part of their NSF certification. Get that batch. Find that batch number. Go to your local health food store, find that batch number, purchase that batch number. Use that because it’s at least been tested, and hopefully, whatever’s in your canister was part of that test substance and not some contamination that got missed at the top of a barrel.
Brain Abers:
But I would recommend taking those little, itty-bitty Ziploc bags that you put vegetables in or whatever, little tiny ones. Take a scoop of everything you purchase. Put it into the bag, label the bag, label the batch number, label the date, label where you got it, take a Sharpie and cover all of that. Throw it into your cupboard. And then what I would recommend as well is, as you’re approaching an event that there’s a possibility that you can get tested for, I would go through that entire same process, but instead of the little baggies full, I would purchase two of the same batch of everything you’re taking. So you have a sealed container sitting in a corner, simply because if you get tested and it shows a positive result, you can very easily go, “This is my sealed container of the same thing. Test that.” And hopefully, that contamination is in that container as well. And USADA is very willing to work with something like that, from everything I’ve dealt with with them. So if I had been able to find a sealed container of the same batch number, there is a very good likelihood that I would’ve had a further reduction in my suspension.
Joan Hanscom:
Wow! That is an intense amount of work to go through for supplementing. Moving forward-
Brain Abers:
Yeah. But I can tell you this, it’s way better than sitting around and watching all your friends and compatriots go race their bicycles while you don’t, so…
Joan Hanscom:
For sure. Do you think… And again, I guess this is a very subjective question. Knowing that, knowing the risk now, having faced the consequences of this whole situation, knowing what it would take to keep supplementing with even less risk, I guess, or the most protection you could possibly have, is this something that you’ll continue to do, but taking these additional steps of plastic baggies in your cupboard and extra sealed containers of the same batches of product? Is this something that you’ll continue to do yourself as an athlete now? I think I wouldn’t. I think I’d be like, “Screw the amino acids. I think I’ll just… I’ll eat more eggs or something.” Is sort of, I think, where I might end up falling out on that side of things, just understanding the level of commitment you have to make to mitigate the risk as best you can. Where are you going to fall out on that, or haven’t you decided yet?
Brain Abers:
Well, I think I’m with you on that. When I got notified of testing, it was like, “Okay, well, we’re done with all this stuff.” I guess there’s still some stuff in the cabinet, but it just sits in the cabinet and takes up space at this point. I think the answer for me is I’m still in the process of doing a bunch of research. And really, I took creatine, beta alanine, glutamine, and protein basically, so like a whey protein. And yeah, I think I’m with you. I’ll eat more eggs. I’ll go and buy some steaks and figure out basically… and try to do this the way that… Because all of those things, aside from the beta alanine, I suppose, but you can get through diet. It’s just a matter of I’m kind of lazy. I don’t like really cooking. I don’t like planning meals. I don’t like… That’s the weak spot in my… Nutrition is the weak spot in my training program because I just… I prefer the convenience. Well, I’m kind of lazy when it comes to cooking. I’d just as soon not have to do it.
Joan Hanscom:
Oh, I’m with you. I’m with you.
Brain Abers:
But yeah.
Joan Hanscom:
Well, I have a pro tip. I’m not paid by Bob’s Red Mill, but if you do want to supplement with whey protein, Bob’s Red Mill whey protein is made in a factory that does things like quinoa and oats. So you can do Bob’s Red Mill protein at lower risk, I think, than say from a big supplement company. Just a pro tip, and it’s cheaper, and it has no extra shit in it. So from a protein perspective, it has no added sugars or flavors or extra crap. You can just get pure whey protein from Bob’s Red Mill, and they have it as a food supplement for baking purposes. So yeah, there’s my pro tip for you. If you want your whey protein, Bob’s Red Mill is the way to go.
Brain Abers:
There you go. Yeah, it’s significantly less likely to-
Joan Hanscom:
And it’s cheaper.
Brain Abers:
Yeah. It’s significantly less likely to be contaminated as well, I would assume.
Joan Hanscom:
Exactly. Yep, exactly. So highly recommend the Bob’s Red Mill. So Brian, what’s next? What is next for the next six months for you while you plow through the rest of your suspension?
Brain Abers:
Well, I just keep trying to hold things together, kind of hunker down. I’m going to continue… I’ve spent, what, 37 years as a bicycle racer, 38 years as a bicycle racer. I’m not quite sure how to stop doing that at this point. So I’m in the gym. I’m on the bike. I’m basically going through my normal routine with, I’ve got to say, a little bit more hunger than I’ve had in recent years in terms of the athlete side of who I am. So kind of looking forward to getting back to racing. It’s one of those things where you don’t know what you had until it’s gone kind of thing.
Brain Abers:
I didn’t give a lot of thought to racing. On race day, I trained. I like to race my bicycle. I like to win. I try to do the things to make that happen. But at the end of the day, it was a couple of races a year. It was Nationals. It was Worlds for me, getting to race Coe, getting to race Diefenbach, getting to race all these guys that I very much enjoyed racing and I’ve been racing with against for decades at this point. That’s the fun part of racing for me. But coming back, I’m actually looking forward to getting in and racing and having a good season next year.
Joan Hanscom:
Speaking of getting back in racing, and this may be a slightly uncomfortable question, so I apologize in advance if it is, what’s the reaction been from your peers to this news and this development? I mean, obviously, you’re incredibly well liked and well respected in the sport. How have your friends and competitors responded to this news? And has everybody been understanding? Because you were able to do the thing that so many people who test positive can’t do, which is prove that there was cross-contamination. What’s the reaction amongst your peer group been?
Brain Abers:
Well, the reaction from my peer group has been overwhelmingly positive, which when USADA made the announcement, I’d had… I basically had prepared my response to the USADA announcement waiting for the USADA announcement to come. And quite frankly, I’ve read some of the comments from people that have… directed towards people that have tested positive. And in all fairness, those thoughts have crossed my mind on a couple of occasions, reading USADA reports as well. But the response from my peers, the people I race with, the people in the cycling community, have been very positive, at least on my social media. Cycle News was… Yeah, it was less positive on Cycle News, but that’s okay as well, right? People are certainly entitled to their opinion and how they want to think about these things.
Brain Abers:
At this point, these conversations I’m having are not… They’re not about me at this point. They’re about, “Hey, you might want to think about this because I didn’t, and this is where I’m sitting at this point.” So that’s kind of the objective for me, is to make sure that people start understanding the stuff that I didn’t know I didn’t know and moving on from there. But yeah, for all intents and purposes, the support from the cycling community that I’m a part of has been very supportive.
Joan Hanscom:
And what about the athletes that you work with? Have they all said, “Ooh, this gives me pause now about what I’m doing for supplements”? Have you had any of those conversations with your athletes who have said, “How do I…” Have they reached out and said, “Yikes, Coach, I don’t want this to happen to me”? Have you had those conversations with folks, or is this process now just beginning?
Brain Abers:
Well, the process is just beginning, as a general rule. I went against legal advice early on in the process and let my riders know that this is the situation I was dealing with, because it didn’t seem fair not to, right? I wanted it to be fully transparent, and I still want it to be fully transparent to everybody. But my riders, that was something they needed to know because, obviously, things are going to be a little bit different for the next six months as we proceed. So I want to make sure that… The important part for me is that it’s as smooth a transition for the next six months as it can be for all of them.
Brain Abers:
But yes, we’ve had several conversations about that. I’ve had several conversations from people I don’t even know that have approached me about that. And I’m happy to give out what advice I have, based on my experience with it. But at the end of the day, you have to do the research. You have to do your due diligence, because at the end of the day, it’s all on you anyway, right? I mean, they can’t go, “Well, Brian said this was perfectly fine,” and USADA is going to go, “Oh, well, if Brian said it was perfectly fine, it’s cool.” That’s not going to happen.
Brain Abers:
So I’ve not discussed specific substances, with that as one of the reasons behind that. It’s like I don’t want to give you a direction or suggest a direction for you, have you go that direction, and end up being out of the frying pan into the fire. If you’re going to supplement at all, you’ve got to do it the way we talked about because that’s your best bet against preventing a situation like this. And the less of those steps that you take, the less research you do, the less focus you put into it, the more likely you are to end up in a situation like mine.
Joan Hanscom:
Right. Yeah. I think it is something that… You made the point earlier, you’re sort of lazy about cooking, or this is the easier way to go. And it’s something that’s very real and that people need to at least have on their radar as something that could happen to them. And you think glucosamine or, like you said, beta-alanine. I take it every day. And certainly, I think that the chances of me being tested are slim to none because I’m not very fast.
Joan Hanscom:
But I think about that sort of thing. Like, oh, what if you are tested? This could have just… I work in the industry, obviously, and it would have an incredibly negative effect on my career. And it’s like this could be the cautionary tale that… Like I said, I’ll eat more eggs just because I don’t think I personally have the bandwidth to do all the steps that you mapped out. It’s a very different thing when you’re an athlete aspiring to go to Paris or to LA in 2028, right? It’s a different animal for me versus those athletes, but it’s certainly something worth balancing and thinking about.
Joan Hanscom:
So yeah, I think it’s incredibly generous of you to come out and sort of talk about this openly and frankly and just candidly, because it’s a process I think so many people think of as scary and intimidating and also sort of secretive. So I applaud you a ton for coming out and talking about what could be uncomfortable for some. And I’m sure, like you said when we were teeing up the conversation before we started, it’s certainly been an uncomfortable past six months for you. So I think you deserve a load of credit for being willing to be so candid about this with the hopes that maybe this doesn’t happen to somebody else. Yeah. Is there anything else you’d like our listeners to know? And we are going to see you at T-Town up in the stands? Is that the truth?
Brain Abers:
Yeah, I’ll be up in the stands. I’ll be up in the stands and hanging out in the stands and observing my daughter’s coaching debut, so…
Joan Hanscom:
That’s amazing actually.
Brain Abers:
Yeah, no, I mean, this is one of the really cool positives that has come out of this, and hopefully… This has not been a fun process, but I think it’s an important one. And if people can think about this in a different way… Because I didn’t, right? I mean, I thought I’d been to the USADA seminars. I’d been… It’s like, okay, I got this, right? And you go into it and you just get a little bit lackadaisical with the whole process. It’s like I’ve been tested seven times with this supplement. I don’t need to worry about this supplement anymore. And it’s like, yeah, you do.
Brain Abers:
And that’s the thing I want to drive home to everybody, is if you’re going to supplement, the only way you can make it kind of, sort of safe is to take those steps that I rattled off. And it’s a pain, right? It’s not something that’s fun, and everybody knows that. I mean, we take these supplements because they’re a benefit to training and racing. That’s why we take them in the first place. But the risk versus reward is something that you have to take a really close look at. And like we talked about earlier, yeah, I think I’m going to learn to cook a little bit better and figure out and basically just take the time and the discipline to go, “Okay, this is the new approach to this, and this is how I’m going to do it.”
Joan Hanscom:
Right, right. Yeah, I know. I think I’m with you on that. And just for our listeners’ sake here, we will provide links in the show notes to USADA’s website referencing supplements. And we’ll also link to the NSF-certified pages for folks who are curious to learn more about batch numbers and what products are and are not NSF certified, so that you are making informed choices with what you put in your body as well.
Joan Hanscom:
And I suggest if you are going to supplement, listen to all the steps that Brian outlined for us earlier in the podcast, so that you understand that your plastic-baggie budget is going to have to go up perhaps. And clear out some space in your cabinet for those samples to be stashed aside because I think this is the world we live in, right? So yeah, if you’re going to take the risks, take the steps so that you learn from Brian’s misfortune here. And otherwise, I highly recommend learning to cook.
Joan Hanscom:
Brian, it’s been great to have you on, and I appreciate, again, your willingness to be so frank and talk to folks and help folks learn from your experience. We wish you all the best, and we’re looking forward to seeing you back out on the track when the time comes. I’m certain you will continue to thrive as an athlete, and we’ll cheer for your daughter coaching, and yeah, it can’t come soon enough. So thank you again for joining us on the Talk of the T-Town podcast. It’s been great to have you on.
Brain Abers:
Well, thank you for having me. And yeah, hopefully, the next time, should there be a next time, is certainly with better circumstances. But I look forward to seeing you guys again, and looking forward to watching the racing at T-Town.
Joan Hanscom:
Super. This has been the Talk of the T-Town podcast with our guest, Brian Abers. If you enjoyed the show, please give us stars, thumbs up, likes, hearts, whatever it is that your podcast provider allows you to rate us with, so that we can keep the pod going and find more listeners. Thanks again. Talk of the T-Town podcast signing out.
Joan Hanscom:
Thank you for listening. This has been the Talk of the T-Town podcast. I’m your host, Joan Hanscom. Thank you for joining us for this week’s episode. Head over to our website at thevelodrome.com, where you can check out the show notes and subscribe, so you’ll never miss an episode.