Lake Traverse 100

With the help of the Sports Science Team, Joanna navigated the conflicting online advice about what you should and shouldn’t eat during an ultra to create an efficient, simple strategy that met her energy requirements. She used both solid and semi-solid foods to reach the recommended 60g/h, taking on ~30g of carb in the form of a gel (PF 300 Flow Gel, PF 30 Caffeine Gel, or a different flavour gel) and ~20g of solid carb, such as bars, sandwiches, rice cakes or banana, each hour. Alongside this, she had carbs in her ~5L of PH 1000 (Drink Mix) which contributed to hitting her fueling target. Using different forms of carbohydrate interchangeably across the ~18 hours of racing helped her to avoid flavour fatigue whilst maintaining a constant stream of fuel to keep her energy levels up, and impressively avoided any gut discomfort in doing so.

Joanna’s first 100km race in July 2024 didn’t quite go to plan, partially due to her hydration strategy, where she reported frequent peeing and nausea early on. In the build-up to her second 100km race, she was keen to nail her fluid and sodium replacement plan and practice it so she had everything in place for round two. Concluding her sodium intake was too low last time, the biggest change for Joanna came from drinking PH 1500 (Drink Mix) in her soft flask continually, only alternating from this when she chose to have some cola after the halfway point. This meant Joanna took on a strong relative sodium concentration, averaging ~1282mg/L across the race, to replace her sweat sodium losses. She aimed to drink at least 300ml per hour, but listened to her body and the conditions to adjust this throughout based on her losses. With a 10 out of 10 rating, we’d say she definitely demonstrated massive improvements from her previous attempt!

Joanna had a coffee and pre-race PF 30 Caffeine Gel before the 7:30am start, and then spread five caffeine gels across her fuel intake as well as consuming plenty of cola in the second half of the run. As a result, her caffeine intake exceeded the generic recommendations, but given the long duration of her race (~18 hours) and her high caffeine tolerance, a higher intake was appropriate to maintain her alertness, fight circadian rhythms and reduce her perceived levels of fatigue.