• Alan Murchison is a former Michelin-starred chef who creates bespoke nutrition and food plans for athletes at the highest levels. He is also a committed amateur cyclist himself and applies his professional knowledge to his own cycling performance
• With that said, it was not surprising that Alan’s personal fueling and hydration strategy was A-class and well-refined based on his own experiences and needs
• Back in 2019, Alan competed in the East District 100 mile time trial just seven days after competing in the National 100 mile TT where he finished 14th (in 3 hours 56 minutes). Despite this, he had a great day out, finishing in an impressive fourth place in a time of 3 hours 36 minutes; a personal best over this distance
• Following the race he mentioned recovering really well; ‘I find if I follow this strategy I don’t suffer any DOMS and recover very quickly. Just three days following the race, I rode a power and course personal best over 10 miles’
• Alan has carefully refined his race strategy over time, adjusting it slightly for different circumstances, and so despite being a retrospective case study, we have very good confidence in the accuracy of these numbers

Hydration

• Alan made sure to include sodium in his race strategy after suffering from muscle cramps at the Nationals the week before, from ~1 hour 40 minutes onwards. This drove home the importance of including enough sodium in his plan
• To do this, Alan preloaded the night before and the morning of the race with 500ml (16oz) x PH 1500 to ensure he started the time trial well-hydrated and with an optimal sodium/fluid balance
• On top of this, Alan added PH 1500 (Tablets) to the bottles he was already carrying containing his carb energy drink mix. We often get asked if athletes can, or should, do this and the answer is ‘it depends’. Context matters and so we wrote a blog to help athletes decide for themselves
• It was effective for Alan who drank an average of ~569ml/hr (~19oz/hr) across the race, which is a moderate and sensible intake for the intensity and duration of the race, and the milder than expected conditions on the day. Given that Alan was relying on his fluids for a big proportion of his carbohydrate and sodium intake it was important that he was drinking enough
• Taking into account the volume of fluid Alan consumed and his sodium intake, the relative sodium concentration of his bottles was ~1,300mg/L. Without Alan’s sweat sodium concentration or exact sweat rate it’s difficult to know whether he was under or over-doing his sodium intake, but we do know that Alan is an athlete who is susceptible to muscle cramping in high-intensity, prolonged races. Given he didn’t suffer with any cramp in this race, that’s a very strong indicator that Alan dialed in his intake very well

Fueling

Conclusions

• Alan had a fantastic race at the East District time trial event, riding a 100 mile personal best time despite carrying some residual fatigue from the 100 mile Nationals event the week before
• In the Nationals, he used the same fueling strategy but neglected to add any additional electrolytes to his bottles or preload. Consequently he suffered severe muscle cramps before the halfway mark of the race and “a huge tail-off in power”
• In this event, the East District 100 miler, he commented that “the only thing I changed was the addition of Precision Hydration electrolytes into my protocol; in theory I should have been fatigued with two hard 100s in seven days, however I actually performed better in the second race”
• Alan expertly dialed in his carb, fluid and sodium needs to match the race’s intensity, duration, conditions and his own personal needs - a wonderful example of when things go right!