• After receiving some advice from our very own Sweat Expert James Phillips, Dan went into the Loch Ness Marathon with an excellent plan and kitted up with lots of PH products. Dan said ‘the advice was spot on and kept me going until the end’
• Overall, Dan had an excellent marathon performance finishing in a time of 2 hours 52 minutes (a 22 minute PB!). He was aiming for under 3 hours and was delighted with his time saying that ‘to get 2:52:46 was like dreamland’
• Dan rated his race satisfaction as 9 out of 10 because although ‘I would have bitten your hand off if you had offered me that time beforehand’, he believes there is still room for improvement in terms of ‘nutrition, being free from niggles and prepping with a few long runs’

Hydration

• Dan consumed around ~366ml/hr (~13oz/hr) fluid during the marathon which was ~1.05L/36oz of water in total. This was made up of drinking ~150ml plain water at each aid station which is a decent amount within what we would expect to see for these mild conditions
• Although ~366ml/hr (~13oz/hr) will have replaced part of what he was losing, this quantity could have been higher. However, he mentioned he didn’t want to stop to pee therefore didn’t push his fluid intake
• In terms of sodium, Dan had planned to take two PH Electrolyte Capsules for every 500ml/16oz of fluid he drank. However, Dan forgot to take the capsules until around 2 hours in. At this point he took three on board and then one half an hour later. Ideally he would have stuck to his plan to consume sodium throughout the race as he was losing it in his sweat, instead of playing catch up on sodium losses in the second half of the race
• Considering our Online Sweat Test portrayed Dan as a high salty sweater, then replacing his sweat losses will have been important and may have played a bigger part in longer hotter races. He did not cramp but did say that in the middle of the race he experienced a really hard section where his ‘niggle felt worse’ and his ‘mindset was low’ and believed this could be down to neglecting the salt tablets up to that point

Fueling

Conclusions

• Dan had a solid performance at the Loch Ness Marathon on the 3rd October. Sticking pretty closely to a planned hydration and fuelling strategy, Dan hit good numbers throughout to get a 22 minute marathon PB!
• After first using PF 30 Gels in the run up to the race, he felt confident and used them effectively throughout to achieve a great carb intake. He did forget to take his planned PH Electrolyte Capsules until the second half of the race so in future races this is definitely important to remember considering our Online Sweat Test classified him as a salty sweater and he believes this could be linked to him struggling in the middle of the race