• The 2022 Belgian Waffle Ride California was widely considered to be the most challenging edition of the famous invitation-only event yet, with riders negotiating a brutal 11,000 feet of climbing during the 212km race
• Two-time World Gravels Champion John Borstelmann produced a battling performance to finish in the top-10 despite suffering a mechanical after ~64km that scuppered his chances of sticking with the leading group. As a result, John spent more than three hours riding on his own - as he eloquently put it, “I was solo into the headwind, Simba in the elephant graveyard”
• Whilst John had hopes of challenging for the podium before the race, there were still plenty of positives to take away from the result and how he executed his fueling strategy, not least the fact he hit more than 100g of carbohydrate per hour with no ill-effects

Hydration

• As we’ve seen from case studies of John’s previous races, he tends to consume quite a high volume of fluid in the morning. He preloaded with PH 1500 in 1 litre (~32oz) of water to help ensure he was topped up on sodium, which meant he was boosting his blood plasma volume and aiming to start optimally hydrated
• In future, John might want to consider dialling back his overall pre-race fluid intake slightly and focus on mixing his PH 1500 with ~500ml (16oz) of water. This will help maintain the relative sodium concentration of the PH 1500, which contains 1,500mg of sodium per litre (~32oz) when mixed as directed
• Starting hydrated in California was always going to be important for John as temperatures averaged 24℃/75.2°F, with ~76% humidity on the day, and he did a good job of hitting impressive sodium and fluid numbers during the near-7 hour contest
• Indeed, John has honed his hydration strategy over the last 12 months and has found that he gets good results from using PF 30 Drink Mix and PH 1000 tablets in separate bottles. This provided a large proportion of his sodium intake, with John consuming 1,129mg of sodium per hour at the Belgian Waffle Ride
• John drank ~957ml (~32oz) of fluid per hour and the fact he only had to pee once (while a mechanic spent the best part of 4 minutes fixing John’s broken derailleur ~2 hours into the race) suggests he did a good job of staying hydrated. We’d encourage John to collect some sweat rate data during training so we can get a better idea of his overall losses and optimal level of replacement in different conditions
• Taking into account his overall fluid intake of ~6.65L (225oz), the relative sodium concentration of everything John consumed was ~1,180mg/L. We know from his Advanced Sweat Test results that John loses 1,310mg of sodium per litre of sweat, so he did a solid job of replacing a large proportion of his overall losses in California
• Having said that, John did experience some twinges of cramp during the last mile (“after a punchy technical section and a long coasting descent in the super tuck position, there was one small climb and I felt a twinge of cramp when I tried to go hard to see what I had left”). There are a couple of theories as to why athletes cramp and further testing will be needed to help us try to understand whether John’s cramps are a result of sodium-depletion, muscular fatigue or a combination of the two

Fueling

Conclusions

• John had this to say when reflecting on his mechanical-affected race: “I stayed motivated, pedalled hard and brought back several really fast dudes and eventually finished 8th. Top-10 at such a stacked race is a great result, but I knew I could have picked off at least a couple more spots had the mechanical situation been different. Live and learn, I guess.”
• Despite the adversity of his derailleur breaking, John did a great job of maintaining his focus to produce a battling performance and execute a fine fueling plan
• For future races, John might want to dial back his overall fluid intake and focus on preloading with PH 1500 in ~500ml (16oz) of water