Danielle Lewis
IRONMAN® Lake Placid
Danielle's headline numbers
Danielle's strategy
Fueling
Carbohydrate is the main fuel you burn when racing. Failing to fuel properly is a leading cause of underperformance in longer races.
After racing through GI distress earlier in the season, Danielle has consistently been gut training and fine-tuning her nutrition strategy to figure out the best combination for her. She consumes most of her fuel through high carb drink mixes and tops off with PF 30 Gels, which partially splits up her carbohydrate and fluid strategy to give her independent control over her nutrition and hydration levers. Although she noticed a few small dips in energy at Lake Placid, she thought the hilly course was most likely the culprit, rather than lack of fuel. Since her stomach is handling her high carbohydrate intake seamlessly now, she has the flexibility to incorporate an additional backup gel when needed.
Hydration
Taking on board an appropriate amount of fluid and sodium is essential to maintaining blood volume and supporting the cardiovascular effort needed to perform on race day.
Whilst the absolute amount of sodium and fluid consumed per hour is important, it’s critical to consider these in relation to each other. This is known as 'relative sodium concentration' and it’s expressed in milligrams per litre (mg/L). How much sodium you’re taking in per litre of fluid is more important than the absolute amount taken in per hour.
Sweat sodium concentration (mg/L) is largely genetically determined and remains relatively stable. Knowing how salty your sweat is enables you to replace a good proportion of your sweat losses, which can range from 200-2,000mg/L.
Given Danielle’s losses are High (1,310mg/L), nailing her hydration strategy remains important, even when it’s Mild.
Learn moreDanielle’s crash on the bike cost her some sodium when her capsules went flying, and then on the run she struggled to get them out of the tube she stored them in. This resulted in her achieving a lower relative sodium concentration than her Sweat Test result, which may have played a role in her minor cramping. With the warm weather conditions, she was fairly thirsty and appropriately consumed ample fluid on the bike. Her fluid intake dropped by ~54% on the run compared to the bike, but on average she remained in her recommended range for a race of this duration, intensity and environmental conditions. Going forward, increasing the concentration of sodium in her Soft Flask on the run could be a way to keep her electrolyte replenishment on track; or she could try Floris Gierman’s hack of taping Electrolyte Capsules to gels to account for the plain water she picks up at aid stations.
Caffeine
Beyond the Three Levers of Performance (carb, sodium and fluid), caffeine is one of only a few substances that is proven to improve performance for most endurance athletes as it can help stave off mental and physical fatigue.
Using a larger than typically recommended dose of caffeine worked for Danielle at her previous race in Roth, so she kept the same strategy this time out. While she had a PF 30 Caffeine Gel in the last 15 minutes before the race, she only had one additional dose on the bike and took the majority of her caffeine on the run. Her total intake exceeded the scientific recommendations for an acute dose based on her body weight, but considering her tolerance to caffeine and lack of negative side effects, it was most likely appropriate.
How Danielle hit her numbers
Here's everything that Danielle ate and drank on the day...
Danielle's weapons of choice
Final thoughts
Danielle
PF&HDanielle's full stats
Data Confidence?
There is an adequate level of accuracy in the data collected and the numbers reported. The athlete manages to recall what they ate and drank including most specifics (brands flavours quantities plausible estimations of volumes). However there are estimations made within the data which affect the overall confidence level in the data reported.