IRONMAN® World Championships

Becs had spent a considerable amount of time chatting through her plan with Sport Scientist Tash to ensure she had it dialled in for her A race of the year. The morning of, she had her usual carb-rich breakfast and topped up her glucose levels with a PF 30 Chew and PF 30 Gel in the last 30 minutes before the start. Annoyingly, Becs struggled to get the gel out of her fuel bottle during the bike leg, and only managed to drink two thirds of the ~300g she’d planned. Even after picking up an on course energy gel, she was still below her target carb intake of 90g/h, consuming just ~70g/h. Becs thankfully had an additional fuel bottle on the bike, which held a combination of PF Carb Only Drink Mix and PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix, but she didn’t consume all of it by the time she reached T2. Given the lower than ideal carb intake, her energy levels plummeted and even consistently fueling the run wasn’t able to prevent the bonk she experienced. To avoid the logistical challenges of gels getting stuck in a bottle in the future, she could try using Flow Gel instead, as it was designed for this exact reason!

Becs has a low sweat sodium concentration so can afford a slightly lower sodium intake when racing compared to her saltier competitors. Fortunately, the conditions in Nice were fairly temperate, which meant her sweat rate and total losses were lower than she is used to in Australia and therefore more manageable. Becs relied on a bit of PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix and mostly PH 1000 in her bottles on the bike and in cups from the aid stations on the run to keep on top of her sweat sodium losses. She incorporated some plain water and cola into her intake during both legs to ensure she was diluting the sodium concentration down slightly to better match her individual losses, as well as to mix up the taste to avoid flavour fatigue.

Becs often aims slightly above the recommended guidelines for caffeine intake during exercise, as she finds this works well with her high tolerance and doesn’t cause any negative symptoms for her. After starting her morning off with a coffee, she had planned to consume three PF 30 Caffeine Gels, but since these essentially got ‘stuck’ in her fuel bottle on the bike, she only managed to get a small proportion of this. On the run, she increased her caffeine intake using another two and a half PF 30 Caffeine Gels and several cups of cola. Even though she didn’t reach her carbohydrate goals during the race, the caffeine likely still helped to mask some of the fatigue she was feeling and kept her moving all the way across the finish line with a very solid marathon time.