Marlies Mejias Garcia
Tucson Bicycle Classic Stage 4
Marlies' headline numbers
Marlies' strategy
Fueling
Carbohydrate is the main fuel you burn when racing. Failing to fuel properly is a leading cause of underperformance in longer races.
As we saw in her previous race, Marlies prefers to maximise her fueling in the final 30 minutes before the gun goes off. Usually, we would only recommend ~30g of carb as a pre-race top up, but Marlies obviously managed this impressive ~120g of carb well, with no GI discomfort. Furthermore, it set her up for hitting a solid overall carb intake during the ride.
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.
Marlies didn’t report any symptoms of dehydration in this race, indicating her hydration strategy was overall appropriate for the day. However, we would suggest implementing some sodium into her plan, especially for longer and/or hotter races where sweat rate is higher and net fluid and sodium losses can build up. Practically, she could accomplish this by adding a tablet of PH 1000 to both of her bottles to help her hit the average sodium losses we see in athletes. As races heat up this summer, hydration will become increasingly important so Marlies will need to ensure she’s accounting for her sodium requirements, as well as drinking enough fluid to match her sweat rate.
How Marlies hit her numbers
Here's everything that Marlies ate and drank on the day...
Marlies' weapons of choice
Final thoughts
Marlies
PF&HMarlies' full stats
Data Confidence?
There is an adequate level of accuracy in the data collected and the numbers reported. The athlete manages to recall what they ate and drank including most specifics (brands flavours quantities plausible estimations of volumes). However there are estimations made within the data which affect the overall confidence level in the data reported.