Gear Profile: Tailwind
Photos courtesy of Tailwind.
Colorado is home to many endurance-loving athletes who find joy in pushing themselves— and their bodies — to the limit. When Jeff Vierling was training for the Leadville Trail 100MTB, he was tired of dealing with multiple pills, drinks, gels and fluids that often resulted in gut-bomb. The dreaded gut-bomb that many of us know all too well is what motivated Jeff Vierling to experiment with creating his own fuel. After a few months of kitchen chemistry, the early stages of Tailwind Nutrition were born.
LESSONS FROM THE HOME LAB
“I’d always been told you should eat as much as you’re expending. It turns out that your body is always using a combination of what you’re eating and drinking; people should be taking in only 200-300 calories per hour, because that’s as much as they can physiologically process. Taking in too much can cause GI issues,” explains Jenny Vierling.
As Jeff and Jenny Vierling continued to breakdown the seemingly complicated concepts in a relatively simple way, it all began to make sense. The body needs sugar, water and sodium to fuel properly for endurance. All three components complete the endurance fuel circle.
“There are transport mechanisms for glucose and fructose in the small intestine, and they act like pumps,” Jeff Vierling adds. “They require sodium to function, as well as the sugars, and when you have those present with water, the body will actively pump the sugars across the intestinal wall. The sodium attracts water through the pores in the small intestine. So, you get all three things needed for endurance in one swoop.” Conveniently, Tailwind Endurance Fuel completes this chain perfectly with the addition of water.
Once Jeff Vierling believed he dialed in the mix, seeing positive results in his own training, he began sharing the mix with his acquaintances who had dealt with similar fueling issues. This is when the completely innocent, back alley exchanges of Endurance Fuel began.
There were even a few funny anecdotes that came along with the selling of Tailwind in its early stages — both Jenny and Jeff Vierling laughed as they recalled meeting up with friends in dark parking lots appearing to be exchanging substances far more serious than to-be endurance fuel. Jeff Vierling was shocked at the popularity, having never intended to make this something profitable.
“We weren’t thinking about it as a business. This woman I met at Leadville changed that. She had dropped out of seven of the 100-mile races. For a decade, she had been trying to finish a hundred miler, because stomach issues always got in the way,” he recalls. Understanding the struggle himself, “I gave her some Tailwind, and she emailed me a couple months later, sharing with me that she had finished the Shenandoah 100, and she felt great the whole way through.
She broke down in tears as she crossed the finish line. It was a life goal for her; she got to the point where she didn’t think she could do it, and then she could,” Jeff Vierling recounts, beaming in the process.
HELPING OTHERS ACCOMPLISH THEIR GOALS
Being a liquid endurance fuel meant to keep you stable, Tailwind has found its way into the lives of those who may find consuming nutrients in traditional forms more challenging than the traditional endurance athlete.
“There’s one gentleman, and this is out of the scope of what we intended the product for, but he used it for chemotherapy, because it was the only thing he could keep down,” Jenny Vierling reflects. “During COVID, the same thing happened. People who had COVID couldn’t keep things down, and they were using our products in hospitals to help patients keep calories in.”
Helping people accomplish their goals is woven into the mission statement at Tailwind. For some, the goal is to push their body’s limits and complete powerful athletic objectives. For others, the objectives may not be winning a race, but rather the fight for their life.
THE PIVOTAL PUSH
As athletes within Durango and the surrounding areas began to hear about Tailwind, regional legacies, such as the late Ed Zink, began to catch on.
“We were pretty fortunate to have Ed Zinkat Mountain Bike Specialists in Durango invite us in to tell his team what we were up to. At the end of that he was like, ‘Alright I’ll buy $400worth!’ and we were like, ‘Okay we need some packaging!’” explains Jeff Vierling.
Zink, being heavily connected to the cycling community of Durango and having direct involvement with the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic as well as many other endurance-focused events, began connecting the dots in the local endurance sports community.
“He [Zink] let us sample Tailwind there [at the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic] in 2012. That was a crazy day for us, because it was our first launch. People were trying it and buying it, and we were running home and trying to make more to keep it going. That summer we got really good feedback,” Jeff Vierling happily remembers.
Jeff and Jenny Vierling got packaging secured shortly after Zink gave them the local boost they needed. Popularity continued to grow with athletes from Australia and the U.K. looking to get their hands on Tailwind. It was getting picked up by REI, backcountry.com and hundreds of other various brick-and-mortar and online locations across the world.
With Tailwind products being primarily purchased online, it was crucial for the Vierlings to be able to form strong connections with their customer base without the face-to-face connection. They do this in a variety of ways, like collaborating on flavors with local non-profits like Big City Mountaineers, writing the customer’s name on every bag ordered and including handwritten notes with purchase. Little did the Vierlings know, they mattered to their athletes just as much as their athletes mattered to them.
“About two years in, we got pictures from people who saved every single note and bag we sent them with the notes plastered on their fridge. That meant a lot,” says Jenny Vierling, grinning with pride.
DURANGO COMMUNITY
The nutrition company that started out focusing on Endurance Fuel has moved on to a protein powder known as Recovery Mix and a hydration multiplier known as Active Hydration —covering all the bases. As Tailwind continued to grow, they stayed true to their foundation in helping customers achieve their goals and, in the process, started achieving goals of their own. Just last year, the Tailwind team completed a 15,000-square-foot warehouse and production facility in Durango, home to their 26 employees and hands-on approach to quality assurance.
“When we were starting the business, I remember sitting down with an advisor and talking about what we wanted the company to look like and creating local jobs was a big piece of that,” Jenny Vierling shares. “It’s been incredible to see our employees start lives here, build families, buy houses, give back to the community. I see this as a full circle thing; what you give is what you get back.”
Operating a business out of a place like Durango has its limitations. Shipping product all over the world out of a mountainous town comes with expensive logistical challenges. Jeff Vierling reflects on shipping his first pallet of Tailwind internationally out of Durango and being incredibly grateful for the support from companies like Zuke’s Naturals who were familiar with the process.
“To be honest, financially, it would probably be better off doing it [Tailwind] somewhere else, but we would lose those advantages of being true to who we are. I think for Jenny, me and our advisors who have worked on this, it’s all about the meaning of the business and contributing to our community,” Jeff Vierling explains.
The Vierlings will be the first to tell you Tailwind isn’t leaving Durango any time soon. As someone who supported the brand before having the chance to write about them, I can assure you their fuel is as good as the ethos of the company is wholesome.
If you’re interested in learning more fueling tips from the Tailwind team, want to support their goals or want a reliable fuel that will help you accomplish your own, check out tailwindnutrition.com for more info.
Originally published in the Summer 2023 issue of Spoke+Blossom.