Boston Marathon

After a 20 minute call with a member from our Sports Science team, Francois felt well-prepared to race the Boston Marathon. Unfortunately an injury meant his original predicted finish wasn’t on the cards this time around. He still managed to fuel consistently throughout, consuming five PF 30 Gels along with a few caffeinated energy gels to reach a carb intake of ~51 grams per hour. This intake falls slightly below the general recommendations for a race of this duration and intensity. Although Francois rated his GI comfort as ten out of ten, it would be beneficial to perform some structured gut training, particularly when aiming for higher carb intakes, to ensure he has no issues whilst doing this at race-pace.

Francois' relative sodium intake almost directly matched his sweat sodium concentration of 1024mg/L. Combined with the temperate conditions on race day, it’s likely that the cramps he experienced towards the latter part of the race was not due to his sodium intake, but more a combination of injury and neuromuscular fatigue. Francois’ fluid intake during the marathon was suitable for the conditions and race itself, but moving forward, we would recommend him to do some sweat rate testing to get a more precise indication of his fluid losses during exercise to precisely dial in his fluid intake. A higher sweat rate would suggest he could have mis-matched his fluid intake to his sweat losses during this race, contributing to the colour of his pee and perhaps influence the cramping he experienced.

Francois’ caffeine intake fell slightly below the scientific recommendations for performance benefits during a race of this distance and intensity. While he regularly drinks coffee and is accustomed to using the stimulant, we would suggest he trials using an increased dose during his training sessions to see how he responds to hopefully reap more of the ergogenic benefits.