IRONMAN® Western Australia

Bike fueling

As with anyone taking on their first IRONMAN®, Alex wanted to prepare for the worst case scenario. He’d done ample gut training to prepare his stomach and avoid the most common pitfall of GI distress when fueling 9 hours of endurance exercise. Alex aimed to be self-sufficient from a nutrition perspective by carrying ~500g of carb from PF 300 Flow Gel (🤯) from the start. He also avoided any flavour fatigue from relying solely on gel by carrying a “top tube full of jelly snakes” to tuck into as he desired.

Run fueling

“The back half of an IRONMAN® marathon is brutal, hey!” was the message Alex sent to Sports Scientist Minty after this race as he found new limits. Similar to the bike, Alex relied solely on his own provisions of carbs to cross the finish line, although this began to unfold slightly after the half marathon point. He found it hard to consume anymore gels, so he slowed down and even walked some aid stations to pick up some cola which seemed to revive him and still provide some carbohydrates.

Alex came to the PF&H Headquarters for his Sweat Test after winning a competition on Instagram earlier in 2024. Following this, he’d been dialling in his hydration strategy in preparation for the hot and humid race, where his sweat losses were likely to be higher than usual. He started the bike with two 1L bottles mixed to a relative sodium concentration of 1,500mg/L which helped him front-load his electrolyte replacement in the first couple of hours. Once those bottles were empty, he switched to Electrolyle Capsules and plain water picked up from the aid stations for the remainder of the ride. The run was a similar story: he left T2 with a Soft Flask of PH 1000, and used the personal needs aid station halfway to pick up a second. The last 12km of the run was where Alex started to deviate from his self-sufficient hydration plan, as he found himself craving cola at every opportunity. Thankfully by this point his electrolyte strategy had been faultless, and his average intake was almost spot-on for his known sweat sodium concentration.

Three Caffeine Gels and a plethora of cups of cola saw Alex crush the ‘caffeine lever’ of his nutrition plan. It’s no secret that caffeine can be used to enhance endurance performance, and as Alex had an optimally high concentration circulating in his bloodstream for most of the race, he’ll certainly have reaped these benefits. Sadly, caffeine can only reduce an athlete's perception of effort though, not eliminate it entirely. So, despite taking an optimal dose for a race of this intensity and duration, it couldn’t protect Alex from the fatiguing effect of an IRONMAN® marathon completely.