• James is a seriously fast sub-elite athlete, who achieved several PB’s in 2023 using PF&H products. Our sports science team caught up with him after his 2:22:45 personal best marathon in the Spanish city of Seville
• While there are a couple of minor things James can optimise his strategy with, specifically around the timing of caffeine and carb intake, he essentially nailed his fueling and hydration on his way to the finish line. This meant he could happily report his race satisfaction as a 10 (out of 10)

Hydration

• James, who comes from Brighton in England, was slightly apprehensive of racing in the hotter Spanish environment in Barcelona. To combat this, he had several sauna sessions to acclimate to the heat and also ‘preloaded’ on the morning of the race, using a strong electrolyte drink (PH1500) to ensure he started optimally hydrated, giving his body the best ability to regulate his temperature effectively on the course
• After finishing a 500ml (16oz) bottle of PF 60 Energy Drink mix that he sipped on throughout the morning of his race, James relied on cups of water from aid stations for his fluid intake. This resulted in him drinking ~279ml (9oz) of fluid per hour, with an average sodium content of ~455mg/L (mg/32oz)
• James admits that he is a pretty ‘heavy’ sweater, but thinks that this sweat is fairly low in sodium having never had white marks on his running kit, and his sweat doesn’t particularly sting his eyes
• This would suggest that he replaced a good proportion of the sodium that he lost during the race, especially considering the PH 1500 he had with breakfast. His fluid intake is also in line with what we see during a marathon distance race. Despite his suspected high sweat rate, his body has the ability to tolerate a certain amount of dehydration, and so it would have been inappropriate to try and replace 100% of his losses
• James also utilised the performance benefits of caffeine, taking on 400mg during the race, as well as a black coffee with breakfast. Interestingly, because caffeine takes 45-60 minutes to peak in the bloodstream, he wouldn’t have felt the full effect of the 100mg from his final PF30 Caffeine Gel, which he took just 20 minutes before the finish line
• In future races It’s likely James will ‘frontload’ his caffeine intake to the first 100 minutes of his race, in the knowledge that its 4-5 hour ‘half life’ means he will still have the vast majority of it in his system when he crosses the finish line

Fueling

Conclusions

• Overall, James had a great race in Seville all but nailing his fuel and hydration strategy in a warmer environment that he’s used to, on his way to a marathon PB
• Going forwards in his training, James is going to experiment with the timing of his carb and caffeine to see if there’s any further improvements to be exploited ahead of his next races