Hayley Simmonds
UCI Gravel La Indomable
Hayley's headline numbers
Hayley's strategy
Fueling
Carbohydrate is the main fuel you burn when racing. Failing to fuel properly is a leading cause of underperformance in longer races.
Both the men’s and women’s races started at the same time, creating a bit of a frenzied environment, with many athletes taking off at top speed. Hayley struggled with energy levels at this time, but soon recovered and strategically took a PF 30 Caffeine Gel to prepare for an early climb. To prevent flavour fatigue, she uses PF 30 Chews during training and switches to PF 30 Gels on race day. Hayley describes her gut as being fairly ‘robust’ for single-day races, so going forward, it’d be worth taking advantage of this and pushing her carb intake higher to increase overall energy availability. As part of this, she could add a gel 10-15 minutes before the gun to boost carbohydrate availability in the blood and spare her stored carb for later in the race.
Hydration
Taking on board an appropriate amount of fluid and sodium is essential to maintaining blood volume and supporting the cardiovascular effort needed to perform on race day.
Whilst the absolute amount of sodium and fluid consumed per hour is important, it’s critical to consider these in relation to each other. This is known as 'relative sodium concentration' and it’s expressed in milligrams per litre (mg/L). How much sodium you’re taking in per litre of fluid is more important than the absolute amount taken in per hour.
Sweat sodium concentration (mg/L) is largely genetically determined and remains relatively stable. Knowing how salty your sweat is enables you to replace a good proportion of your sweat losses, which can range from 200-2,000mg/L.
Given Hayley’s losses are High (1,167mg/L), nailing her hydration strategy remains important, even when it’s Mild.
Learn moreCompared to many of Hayley’s other races, this was slightly shorter, so she didn’t have to stop and refill her bottles at any point. Her average fluid intake was within the recommended range, based on her subjective feedback and on her sweat rate in these conditions. Her sodium intake was quite low compared to her losses, which led to a relative sodium concentration that may cause problems for her in longer or hotter races. The weather was relatively mild though, and the toughest climb was early on in the race, before it got warmer. Because of these two factors, she was able to mitigate any dehydration related symptoms with her total fluid intake. However, she may have been just below her individual threshold for dehydration considering her lower sodium intake and would need to increase this for longer/hotter races to more closely match her specific losses.
Caffeine
Beyond the Three Levers of Performance (carb, sodium and fluid), caffeine is one of only a few substances that is proven to improve performance for most endurance athletes as it can help stave off mental and physical fatigue.
Hayley’s caffeine intake fell on the lower end of the recommended range and she noted she wasn’t sure if she felt enough of an impact from the stimulant. Since she tolerates caffeine very well and doesn’t have any adverse effects from it while racing, she should increase her caffeine intake to be on the higher end of the recommended range in the future.
How Hayley hit her numbers
Here's everything that Hayley ate and drank on the day...
Hayley's weapons of choice
Final thoughts
PF&HHayley's full stats
Data Confidence?
There is good confidence in the accuracy of the data reported. An athlete feels that the numbers closely reflect what they consumed despite a couple of estimations which may carry some degree of error. The majority of what was consumed is recorded to a high level of specificity (most volumes are known through the use of bottles brands quantities flavours). The numbers are very plausible and align with previous data recordings (if an athlete has collected data previously).