ECA Canoe Marathon European Championships

Ahead of the afternoon race start, Mads made sure to consume two carb-rich meals throughout the morning to top up his glycogen stores. Since working with the Sports Science team, Mads has been gradually increasing his carbohydrate intake during training and races to support higher intensity efforts. In this race, he hit his highest intake yet at ~58g/h. This was a big step forward, made possible by upping his consumption of PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix to ~1.5L. Not only did he tolerate the higher intake with zero stomach issues, but he also reported very high energy levels across the race, proving the strategy was a successful and needed move. Mads originally planned to take his third and final bag of PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix at the fourth portage, but mid-race dynamics changed as he started to pull away from the group. Fortunately, he reached the fifth stop ahead of schedule, allowing him to grab the final bag and stay on track with his fueling strategy.

Mads adopted a similar strategy to the Canoe Marathon World Cup two months prior to this race. He picked up 500ml drink bags of PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix from on-course portages, illustrating his coupled approach to fuel and hydration. Because of the 8℃ warmer weather in Denmark compared to the World Cup in Prague, Mads increased his fluid intake by finishing all three of these bags compared to two and a half previously. Finishing his third bag meant he took on a greater total amount of sodium, but because he used PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix, he kept the relative sodium concentration of this fluid inline with the average sweat sodium concentration we see in our Sweat Test database to replace a decent proportion of his losses over the two hour race.

Mads had a caffeine shot containing 100mg of caffeine two hours before the start, and then a PF 30 Caffeine Gel in the final 30 minutes pre-race, achieving the level of caffeine in his blood to ~2.3mg/kg at the time of starting. This will have provided some performance benefits by reducing perceived fatigue, increasing mental alertness and improving muscle force output, but evidence suggests these effects could be optimised by further increasing his dosage to 3-6mg/kg.