IRONMAN 70.3® World Championship

Despite a decent carb intake, Line has room to increase this towards the current 90g/h recommendations as evidence suggests a higher consumption would be optimal for performance and recovery. If she isn’t used to taking on more carb whilst racing, it’ll be helpful to incorporate gut training into her plan to make sure she can practice this fueling in harder training sessions to adapt to a higher intake.

Before the race, Line should preload with the higher strength PH 1500 instead of PH 1000 to start optimally hydrated with maximal blood volume. Considering we don’t know Line’s sweat sodium concentration, it’s hard to determine if she was replacing an adequate amount of her losses. Her intake fell on the low-to-moderate side of what we see, so as a first step we’d recommend increasing her sodium intake slightly (especially in warm or hot conditions) simply by mixing each tablet in 500ml of water to avoid diluting the relative sodium concentration of the electrolytes she is consuming. We are hoping to Sweat Test Line later this year which will help dial in this aspect of her intake. Additionally, her fluid consumption could have been slightly reduced, as she did mention there were portions of the run where she felt she had lots of fluid on board. Decreasing her overall fluid intake by taking on less plain water would further increase the relative sodium concentration she is consuming.

Line took a moderate dose of caffeine which she spread out across the race, with slightly more on the bike than the run. Overall this fell within and slightly toward the top end of the recommended range, delivering ergogenic benefits we see associated with the stimulant in the scientific literature.