Kepler Challenge

Dan once again showed his ability to tolerate a large carb intake whilst running at high intensities. He cleverly used the slightly different format of his gels to his advantage on this course which involved lots of elevation changes. On the more technical trails during the first section of the race he took his smaller PF 30 Gels which meant he felt more nimble and had the option of caffeine, before having the bigger PF 90 Gels when he was rolling along the flatter and less technically challenging terrain.

Although this race was tricky for Dan to get his hydration on board logistically, he was able to execute his pre-planned strategy very well. He was even able to time his drinking so that his soft flasks were a bit lighter once he got to the tougher uphill efforts. Dan did experience a stitch in the last 10km of the race, which he thought may be due to the sheer volume of fuel he’d taken up until that point. A large contributing factor to stitches or ‘Exercise-Related Transient Abdominal Pain’ (ETAP) is actually dehydration reducing blood flow around the gut, which in combination with his aggressive fueling strategy, is likely to have been the leading cause of his discomfort in Te Anau. Dan’s hydration strategy relied on him picking up some plain water from aid stations to achieve a relative sodium concentration close to his sweat losses. As it played out, this didn’t happen which meant he slightly ‘over-salted’ relative to how much he needed to drink in the mild temperature.

Just as he thought about the most tactically advantageous way to get his fuel on board, Dan showed his racing nous by adjusting the timing of his caffeine intake based on the course topography, to elicit maximal performance benefits during the sections of the race when he needed it most. This meant that he took his first PF 30 Caffeine Gel shortly before 30 minutes of running, so that it would peak in his bloodstream at the same time as he was reaching the toughest part of the first climb.