T100 Las Vegas

This is Jason’s 10th case study since his first one from IRONMAN 70.3® Augusta back in 2022. It’s also the highest hourly carb intake he’s hit since working with us, plus his best finishing position in the new T100 format. Jason’s well-practised fueling strategy on both the bike and run consists of two parts: PF 30 Gels in his tri suit pockets, and PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix in his bottles. This enables him to keep the carbohydrate concentration of his drinks hypotonic, allowing for easy absorption into the stomach, whilst still getting a high amount of carb from the additional gels.

Pre-race Hydration: Jason has some room to improve his pre-race hydration strategy to ensure he’s starting optimally hydrated, even though at first glance, it looks like he did the right thing by consuming electrolytes. However, drinking ~2.5L of water with a mixture of PH 1000 and ¾ strength PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix on the morning of the race meant he consumed a lower-than-ideal concentration of sodium overall, likely leaving some performance gains on the table. Past research has highlighted the benefits of high concentration sodium drinks in bolstering blood plasma volume before exercise. These effects are only observable after consuming drinks containing >1,380mg of sodium per litre. Therefore, it would be advantageous for Jason to reduce the amount of total fluid consumed in the morning before his next race, and instead stick to the higher concentration PH 1500 which is designed to stimulate the performance enhancing benefits of preloading.

Race Hydration: After analysing Jason’s previous race intakes, searching for incidences of diaphragm cramps, there appears to be a trend between the race day temperatures (and therefore sweat rates), the average concentration of sodium Jason consumes on the bike, and the likelihood of diaphragm cramps. Jason didn’t experience diaphragm cramps in any of the races where temperatures exceeded 25℃ (77℉) and he consumed >1,100mg/L on the bike (PTO European Open 2023, CLASH Miami 2023 and IRONMAN 70.3® Augusta 2022). He has, however, experienced diaphragm cramps in three out of the four races in hot conditions where his concentration of sodium on the bike was <820mg/L. Even though Jason’s sweat sodium concentration is just 512mg/L, with a sweat rate exceeding 2.5L/h during the bike in hot conditions, he could be losing >1,500mg of sodium per hour. It is likely, therefore, that the higher sodium concentration is replacing a higher proportion of his sodium losses, even if his total fluid volume intake cannot match his very high sweat volume losses. Some athletes can tolerate larger amounts of sodium depletion than others, and Jason seems to respond positively to slightly higher concentrations during the bike, limiting the disturbance of his circulating sodium concentration.