Western States® 100-Mile Endurance Run

Dan relied on Flow Gel and PF 30 Caffeine Gels for the majority of his planned ~90 grams of carb per hour, and he supplemented this with soft flasks of PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix. This split meant he ‘decoupled’ his fueling and hydration enough so he wasn’t ever solely relying on drinks to hit his carb numbers, and could increase either his fluid or fuel intake independently. Dan’s dedication to training his gut to tolerate high amounts of carb was evident at Western States as he averaged >90g per hour for the fifth time since he’s been working with Raff from the PF&H Sports Science Team. Importantly, this was the longest race in which we’ve analysed his intake, and Dan experienced no GI discomfort; an impressive outcome considering the intensity, duration and temperatures of this gruelling event.

Whilst Dan knows his sweat sodium losses aren’t excessive, he recognised that he’d still need to replace a significant proportion of his losses in California given the duration of the race and the hot conditions. To combat this, he took soft flasks from his crew loaded with PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix to essentially ‘sprinkle’ some sodium into his hydration plan, without having to rely on Electrolyte Capsules or ‘sodium-only’ drinks. This was a perfect execution of his ‘dry-run’ at Bryce Canyon 50km six weeks before Western States, and shows his trial-and-error approach to hydration is paying dividends.

Dan used caffeine strategically during the race, taking a total of four PF 30 Caffeine Gels spaced evenly from Olympic Valley to Auburn. Weighing his gels pre- and post-consumption, PF&H COO Jonny, who was helping Dan’s crew team, could assess how much of each gel Dan actually had. Interestingly, after handing back the ‘empty’ Caffeine Gels, there was more than a full gel remaining across the four wrappers, so squeezing as much out of the packet as possible is something for him to bear in mind when trying to hit specific carb and caffeine targets.