Race Nutrition 101 - For those who want to know

Focus: Race nutrition for long course + ultra endurance (anything over 2-4 hours in length where the body can’t sustain an effort without exogenous (outside sources)).
 
Race day overview:
Pre-race brekky:

• Big meal 3+ hours from race start.
• Within that time <3 hours, go for smaller meals i.e. toast, small bowl of oats, something small/light.
• The closer to race start, the smaller the portion or the more liquid the source.
• Practice in training, particularly big days.

Fluids:

• To thirst. Avoid overdoing it, but at the same time, don’t forget it.
• With meal is good.
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During race:

• Research tells us:
  • ~60g/hr from glucose source
  • 90g/hr with a 2:1 ratio of glucose:fructose (60g glucose:30g fructose)  – some anecdotal reports say you can get in more with practice
• The higher the intensity, the less blood flow goes to the gut, therefore making it harder to digest anything solid. Hence why most nutrition products are based around gels, bloks, chews, liquid nutrition… it’s easier to digest.
• Conversely to above, the lower the intensity, the more solids we can handle.
• The more we practice this in training, the easier race day becomes.
• Trial and error… reserved for training and B/C races. Think of your gut like any other muscle in the body. It needs to be trained, under stress and/or race simulations are even better.
• Create a steady flow of nutrition from as soon into the race as possible. We are aiming to minimise losses. We can’t physically match the input of energy from fuel sources to the amount going out, but we can minimise the shortfall.
  • Set and use a timer:
    • Every 15-20 mins eat and drink
    • Stay with it. The more you nail it… the more vanilla/smooth sailing the day, generally speaking, the better the end result. We ideally want to have a steady, consistent effort throughout the race, married to steady, consistently applied nutrition and hydration.
• The fitter you are, the faster you can go for the least amount of effort = efficiency. And, the more you practice this in training, the more efficient your gut will be at handling the stress of processing everything you throw down, whilst trying to keep you travelling forward as fast as you can.
• Hydration v fuel = keeping them separate is good.
  • Liquid fuel sources are good, but it’s also good to practice keeping the two separate especially in the heat.
• Avoid trialling new products on a whim on race day, particularly an A race or Ironman event. You spend hours training for a big race, not to mention thousands of hard earned dollars, and this is one thing under your control, so invest some time and energy into it and make it count.

 
We talk regularly about the things within our control for any given race.
Nutrition is one of those main controllables and should be well practiced. Going into a race knowing you have dialled things in practice can help both physically (your gut and body know what to expect) and mentally… peace of mind knowing you have practiced and dialled this in for the last few months goes a long way in keeping the mind at peace on race day. There’s enough to focus on already!
 
Control your controllables and leave the rest for the triathlon gods… whoever they might be 😉
 
Have fun!
SF

Head Coach Scotty Farrell
Bachelor of Nutrition