For the past 2 years or so, I've been playing roller derby on and off. I rejoined my old team this past fall, and now I'm committed to the sport and my goal is to be on our A-team by the end of the season, in November. This season, my team is a WFTDA apprentice team, which is the governing body for the sport, which means a serious level of competition. My team has become more competitive and we are all expected to be working out on our own 5x a week, in addition to the twice-weekly 3 hour practices. Strength training is important, but it's mostly endurance sport. All that skating can be exhausting... Anyway, everything I read or hear about endurance athletics, suggests high carb intake. I understand that those carbs should be the good for you type, vegetables as opposed to pasta and breads. I'm on Atkins induction (again) right now and will probably be for a while, so I'm wondering if I will still be able to tap into my full endurance workout potential, or if I will be hindering myself by limiting my carbs. Are there any athletes out there with advice on this?

I would check out...

"The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance" by Jeff S. Volek, PhD, RD and Stephen D. Phinney, MD, PhD

Also "The Paleo Diet for Athletes" by Loren Cordain, PhD and Joe Friel, MS might be of some use as well...

I'm a marathon runner and Ironman triathlete... I had been using a 40/30/30 approach, but now I'm keeping my carbs at around 20% of my daily calories and that's working well for me and I plan on continuing with that strategy as I train for my next marathon...