• Chris Douglas and his Low Tide Boyz podcast co-host Chipper performed well at Odyssey Swimrun Orcas Island to finish 7th overall (4th men’s team) in the Long Course team event, completing the race in a time of 6 hours 33 minutes
• PH founder and Sports Scientist Andy had appeared on their podcast to talk all things hydration for swimrun previously, so we reached out to Chris before his race to see if he’d be interested in helping us to expand our swimrun case studies
• In terms of his hydration and fueling for the race, Chris said “I followed Andy’s hydration protocols and made sure that I drank PH 1500 the night before and again the morning of the race. I was consistently taking on hydration and fueling at regular intervals and I don’t think I would change anything”
• Unfortunately Chipper had picked up an injury in the run up to the race, so they knew they weren’t at the top of their game going into the event and that it was going to be a tough one. Nonetheless, they gritted it out and had lots of fun doing so

Hydration

• Chris drank a total of ~2.07L/70oz over the course of the race which equates to ~316ml/hr (11oz/hr). On the surface this may seem like a low amount compared to what we see in other races of this length, but you have to consider the intricacies of swimrun. There are large proportions of the race (i.e. when swimming) when you cannot get any fluid on board and you’re reliant on the available aid stations
• Although we don’t have data on Chris’ sweat rate, the conditions were cold and wet so his sweat rate will have been lower compared to warmer races. Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that he was replacing a moderate amount of his losses and the fact that he peed 4 times during the race would suggest he didn't massively under hydrate
• Chris had PH 1000 in all of the fluid he picked up from aid stations on course. He also got a moderate dose of sodium from some of his energy gels. This meant in total, Chris took on ~417mg of sodium per hour
• In relation to the fluid he drank, the relative sodium concentration of Chris’ intake was ~1,319mg/L. When comparing his intake to his sweat sodium concentration of 1,719mg/L, we can see he will have been replacing a good proportion of his sweat sodium losses during the race
• Chris didn't cramp at all during the race and was happy with his hydration strategy. He said “I had Andy Blow’s voice in my head reminding me to take advantage of hydrating at the aid stations since running in a wetsuit causes a lot of sweating and I made sure to get over 8oz/237ml of PH at every opportunity”

Fueling

Conclusions

• Chris enjoyed a solid race at Odyssey Swimrun Orcas Island and really enjoyed the event; he rated his race satisfaction as a 9 out of 10. His race partner Chipper struggled and thought that he ended up “bonking” because of “not taking enough in and being slightly dehydrated”
• In contrast, Chris hit solid numbers throughout the race despite the logistical challenges of swimrun. In future races, Chris could try to increase his carb intake to ~60g carb per hour to see if that further benefits his performance