Spartathlon

After consuming ~115g of carb per hour when finishing 1st male at the Badwater 135 earlier in 2023, Simen set himself the lofty target of 105g/h during the Spartathlon. Unfortunately, an unorthodox sardine breakfast - which Simen blamed for a "bubbling stomach" and diarrhoea - inevitably slowed him somewhat and reduced his gastrointestinal comfort significantly. His intake dropped from ~105g of carb per hour through PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix and PF 30 Gels in the first half of the race, to closer to 30g per hour when he could only stomach one PF 30 Chew an hour, often holding them in his mouth for a while until he could swallow it.

Simen has had a Sweat Test and understands that he loses 1,310mg of sodium per litre of sweat. He used this information, alongside an estimate of his sweat rate in the Greek conditions having trained there two weeks prior the race, to design his hydration strategy. Initially, he was aiming to drink 1.5L of fluid and 2,000mg of sodium per hour in order to replace a good proportion of his losses. This worked incredibly well during the hotter start of the race, but as darkness fell the temperature halved and Simen’s need for replacement followed suit. At this point, the relative sodium concentration of Simen’s drinks would have been too high had he continued consuming 2,000mg of sodium per hour, so we lowered this accordingly (and may have gone slightly too low for a brief period of time as Simen found it harder to retain fluid as he had been). Happily, this was resolved at a similar time to his GI distress improving which allowed Simen to run a really strong finish during the most isolated and quiet hours of the night.

Simen typically has a very high caffeine intake day to day, drinking up to a litre of coffee every morning! Having completed this race twice before, he decided to abstain from his usual habits, saving caffeine for the very end where he felt it would have the most benefit on his mood and performance. He only consumed two PF 30 Caffeine Gels and got the rest of his caffeine from cola, however this still put him just within the general recommended amount of caffeine for optimal performance. Had Simen’s stomach felt more robust during the second half of the race, we would've introduced caffeine gels slightly earlier - however we felt it was best to let his gut settle for a while before finishing strong with an added ergogenic boost.