IRONMAN® Texas

Danielle tackled IRONMAN® Texas with two fuel bottles on the bike with her homemade energy drink mix plus several PF 30 Gels and one PF 30 Caffeine Gel. This allowed her average carb intake on the bike to show significant improvement from her IRONMAN® Arizona appearance where she averaged ~30g/h less. Danielle pre-mixed bottles for the run in an attempt to continue her fueling, but with the ‘sloshing’ she felt in her stomach, she only felt comfortable enough to finish one and a quarter of these bottles. Subsequently, her carb intake noticeably dropped from bike to run, which she felt the impact of as fatigue built up in her legs. Going forward, Danielle can work on tolerating a higher carb intake in warm conditions when fluid requirements are also high, and therefore minimising the drop off from bike to run in order to maintain energy levels and fuel her all the way to the finish.

With temperatures north of 20 ºC (68 ºF) out on course, it was important for Danielle to replace her above average fluid and sodium losses. On the run, Danielle was frustrated to feel some nausea (largely due to the sloshing feeling), but grateful that it wasn’t to the same extent as last year. To avoid this in future, Danielle will aim to spread her fluid intake out more evenly with small, frequent sips. In practice, she could carry her PH 1500 with her rather than trying to finish the bottle during T2. Although her hydration strategy didn’t replace as much as it could have, it was still an 82% increase from last year. Danielle’s main electrolyte intake was in the form of gummies which contained ~50mg of sodium each. Despite taking eight of them, she still wasn’t matching her sweat sodium concentration. Using Electrolyte Capsules instead may be an easier way to get more sodium in to account for her high fluid needs and salty sweat. It’s likely that improving this concentration to better match her losses could help with the sloshing feeling as well.

Danielle was on the lower end of the general performance recommendations for caffeine. Since the stimulant can help with focus and reducing perceived effort, we’d suggest trying to incorporate another PF 30 Caffeine Gel into her plan to provide an extra boost during the race.