Lakes in a Day

Robyn was able to comfortably reach the ultra-endurance fueling recommendations to consume the highest intake we’ve seen her achieve yet, with the help of both PF 300 Flow Gel and PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix. This is testament to her trialling both this quantity and types of carbohydrate in her training sessions, to increase the amount her gut can absorb comfortably. When Robyn was exposed to harsh conditions between ~30-45km, she went off track with her fuel and hydration by not taking anything on board for around 30 minutes. Upon realisation that things had started to go a little wrong including a slight energy dip, Robyn kept her composure getting back on track to eat and drink roughly every 20 minutes. Over a race of this duration, it’s common to see dips and troughs in energy and consistency of carbohydrate intake is key to avoid major lows; getting back into routine allowed Robyn’s energy levels to pick back up so she could finish strong.

Robyn used PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix in her two 500ml soft flasks along with some plain water and cola from later checkpoints. This is a subtle change to her previous longer races where she has ‘decoupled’ her fuel and hydration by predominantly using PH 1000 for hydration, and relying on gels for her carb intake. For this shorter race duration, this strategy allowed her to continue to get the same relative sodium concentration of drinks, to effectively match her sweat losses, whilst getting more carbohydrate from her fluid too. Other than the small section of the race where she didn’t stick to her planned intake, Robyn continually refilled her soft flasks to drink an average of ~302ml per hour. Whilst this is on the lower end of what we’ve seen from Robyn in previous races and lower than the ~550ml/h fluid average that we’ve seen across our Ultra-running Case Studies, Robyn likely met the demands of her lower than usual sweat rate in what were cold race conditions.