• During the build up to the Canoe Marathon World Cup, Mads worked closely with the PF&H team to adjust his current nutrition plan over the course of a run of brilliant results. This helped him to secure another 1st place, this time at the World Cup, in a time of 2 hours 7 minutes
• After winning the short course race (3.5km) the day before, Mads managed to execute another impressive performance on the Sunday, breaking away from the rest of the field at ~10km and managing to knock nearly 2 minutes off the course record!
• Taking on fluid and fuel whilst paddling is practically very difficult as your hands are holding the paddles at all times, Mads used drink bags (which hang around the neck) to take on board his nutrition and had a strategy that involved collecting new, full drink bags whilst running through feed lanes on the portages of the lap course

Hydration

• Mads knew that if he wanted to perform well in his second, and longest, race of the weekend then he would need to rehydrate from his first race effectively. To achieve this, Mads drank PH 1500 after his short course race, and repeated that throughout the morning of his marathon race to make sure he was starting optimally hydrated
• During the race, Mads took fluid onboard through his drinks bags (~500ml/18oz each) that each had a long straw attached. In total he had two and a half of these bags, each containing PF 30 Drink Mix, which he picked up at portages during the race. This provided him with ~1.25 liters (~44oz) in total; this averaged ~591ml per hour which was slightly more than we saw him drink at the Amsterdam Waterlands Marathon (479ml/16oz per hour)
• Although we don’t have data on Mads’s sweat rate, he does describe himself as being a heavy sweater, and considering the difficulties of taking on fluid during his race, this was a suitable hourly fluid intake which would likely have replaced a decent amount of his losses
• Mads was more proactive with his sodium replacement during this race compared to his previous race at the Amsterdam Waterland Marathon (which he also won!). We advised him to take on some additional PF 30 Drink Mix this time out which increased his hourly sodium intake (in addition to his carb intake) to ~591mg/h, compared to ~479mg/h in Amsterdam -Using Drink Mix throughout the race in Norway meant the relative sodium concentration of fluid Mads drank was ~1,000mg/L. When we first started working with Mads, his original plan delivered a relative sodium intake of ~240mg/L which was substantially less than what he is losing when racing at these high intensities. Another great improvement this time out, Mads

Fueling

Conclusions

• Mads has been very interested in learning more about the science of fueling and hydrating effectively and has taken on board the advice from the team at PF&H. Together we were able to make some substantial improvements in the build up to the World Cup where he smashed the course record and could really feel the benefits of his new strategy
• Working hard on training his gut, Mads was able to tolerate a much higher carb intake than he had managed in previous races, and suffered no ill effects in terms of stomach discomfort. This is a great improvement, and something he should continue to do due to the positive trend between carb intake and performance
• We look forward to seeing how Mads performs in his upcoming races with his optimized fueling and hydration plan, as he continues to build towards the World Championships later this year