• Danielle returned to IRONMAN Texas in 2023 with a real focus on her fueling and hydration strategy, after the tough conditions and some mis-steps got the better of her at the same race in 2022
• She was confident in her plan this time around after locking it down with the PF&H Sports Science team, even posting a video on instagram to answer some pre-race nutrition questions from her followers
• Danielle successfully consumed more carb and almost 2500mg more sodium than in similar conditions the year before, but still experienced some nausea

Hydration

• At IRONMAN Texas 2022, Danielle suffered from nausea and vomiting during the run, with some serious fatigue to put the cherry on top. In 2023, the first thing she did to combat this was ensure she arrived at the race start optimally hydrated having pre-loaded with PH 1500 both the night before and with her pre-race breakfast
• With temperatures north of 20ºC (68ºF) out on course, it was important for Danielle to replace her above average fluid and sodium losses. She knows from experience that she has a high sweat rate and her Sweat Test shows she loses 1,310mg of sodium per litre of sweat
• Danielle did this during the race using a ‘between the arms’ (BTA) bottle mount for easy access, which she refilled from aidstations to provide ~3.7L (130oz) of water during her 4:38:19 bike
• Danielle also got small amounts of fluid from her ‘fuel bottles’ which meant across the bike she had an average intake of just over 1.1L (37oz) per hour
• On the run, Danielle was frustrated to feel some nausea, but grateful that it wasn’t to the same extent as the same race last year. Part of this problem was ‘sloshing’ of fluid in her stomach
• To avoid this sensation in future, Danielle will aim to spread her fluid intake out more evenly. An easy win is to carry her PH 1500 with her rather than trying to finish it during transition two
• Danielle only did this to increase her sodium intake dramatically from the year prior, where she got just ~3000mg in the entire race. While her intake was still not replacing as big a proportion of what she lost through her sweat (1,310mg/L) as we’d like, it was an 82% increase to ~5,463mg, which worked out to be a relative concentration of ~644mg/L (mg/32oz)
• On the run Danielle’s main electrolyte intake was in the form of ‘gummies’ which only contained ~50mg of sodium each. Despite taking eight of them, she still wasn’t replacing as much sodium as she would have been losing in her sweat
• In future, Danielle needs to find a suitable alternative which contains more sodium, possibly using something like Electrolyte Capsules which have five times the sodium (250mg each) of the gummies she was using. This, alongside a reduced fluid intake may help mitigate her nausea

Fueling

Conclusions

• Despite still experiencing some discomfort while running, Danielle was extremely pleased to secure 5th place, which qualified her for the 2023 IRONMAN World Championships in Hawaii
• We observed a large improvement in Danielle’s electrolyte replenishment when compared to her strategy at the same race the year before, which, alongside a more robust fueling strategy may have contributed to the improved performance
• Going forwards, Danielle still has some areas to work on such as taking more electrolytes which she can tolerate while running, and practising the greater fluid intakes required during hot races