ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Championship

With a 6am start, Chipper kept his pre-race intake simple; porridge with honey and nuts, a banana and a coffee. He then had a final dose of carbs with a PF 30 Caffeine Gel ~15 minutes before the gun. His carb-rich breakfast and final gel meant he got a solid carb intake to top up his glycogen stores ahead 11 hours of racing. Across the 23 runs and 21 swims, Chip got the majority of his carb intake from PF 90 Gels. He topped these up with some caffeinated gels, chews, a carb-rich energy drink and some real food picked up on course. He consumed almost 800g of carb (~72g/h) which was in line with the recommended intake for a race of this mode, duration and intensity. However, he trains with a high carb intake of over 90g/h on his trail runs, meaning he left some of his capacity out on course. He has already done the gut training to handle more than 90g/h, so the gap here is about getting the fuel in, not about what his gut can tolerate. Swimrun makes it hard to eat on the move because you are swimming half the time! His energy dips suggest his intake slipped at points before he got back on top of it. A more rigid plan built around the run sections would help him close the gap towards the ~95g/h he achieved in his previous world championship race to better support his performance.

Chipper started well by preloading with 500ml of PH 1500. During the race, he continued to use PH 1500 Drink Mix, plain water and Electrolyte Capsules to bring the relative sodium concentration of his intake to ~868mg of sodium per litre of fluid - just outside the range we recommend for his sweat sodium concentration (we know from his Sweat Test that he loses 1,085mg/L). His fluid intake was higher than at his World Championship effort in 2022, but there is still room for improvement. Drinking ~333ml an hour when working at a high intensity for 11 hours in a wetsuit meant he likely didn’t replace an adequate proportion of his sweat losses, and dehydration may have impacted his performance negatively. Subjectively, he said he fell behind his hydration plan before the first aid station. Next time, he could work on getting his hydration in earlier, perhaps by having a 500ml soft flask of PH 1500 early then topping up his intake throughout the race.

Chipper reported suffering with cramp, which can be caused by a multitude of factors. In future races, he may want to consider increasing his sodium and fluid intake as electrolyte imbalance has been linked with incidences of cramping, so this would be one area to refine.