World Triathlon Long Distance Championships

After chatting to the Sports Science Team, Julie decided to rely mostly on PF Carb Only Drink Mix for her fueling strategy, plus a few PF 30 Gels and fruit paste for flavour and texture variety. She practised this in training and was able to hit higher carb numbers than she had prior, achieving ~108g/h on the bike and ~72g/h on the run on race day. While she only experienced minor GI discomfort moving from bike to run, likely due to the ‘jostling’ nature of running after consuming lots of carb, she had significantly worse stomach issues after the race for the remainder of the evening. Since this race was the first time she’d followed her fueling plan to a T, it could have been that her body was not used to consuming so much carb, sodium and fluid in the heat and humidity of tropical north Queensland at race intensity. Continuing to train her gut will be helpful to make sure the stomach issues do not occur during a race next time, nor in the hours afterwards.

Julie has struggled with some cramping in the past, but thankfully staved them off this time around, which she credits to preloading the night before and the morning of with PH 1500. During the race, she used PH 1000 on the bike in her carb bottles, but didn’t take on any sodium when running, meaning her relative sodium concentration dropped off significantly. However, her fluid intake was solid and the electrolytes she consumed on the bike likely replaced enough of her losses to keep cramping at bay. In the future, she could increase her sodium intake to more closely match her sweat sodium concentration to make sure cramping doesn’t occur, especially in longer races. Practically, she could achieve this by carrying Electrolyte Capsules or adding PH 1000 to her soft flasks on the run.

The two PF 30 Caffeine Gels Julie used in her strategy put her just in the recommended range for a performance benefit based on bodyweight. Taking the first one just before the swim gave her a boost going into T1, as caffeine can take ~45 minutes to peak in the bloodstream, while the second made sure she continued to have circulating levels of the stimulant in her system for the remainder of the race.