IRONMAN® World Championships

Dougal was one of the ten age-group athletes who won the opportunity to get their race nutrition numbers crunched following his race at the IRONMAN® World Championships in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. To achieve his intake, just shy of the 90g/h recommendations, Dougal consumed a variety of carbohydrate sources, including some solid (real foods and energy bars), semi-solid (gels), and liquid (drink mixes) to ensure he was not only meeting his fueling requirements, but also avoiding flavour fatigue across the event. Despite the trend often observed in triathletes' strategies, whereby they consume a greater volume of carbohydrates on the bike than the run, Dougal actually consumed a slightly higher average in the latter part of the race, on the run. The consistency of his fueling no doubt played a key role to support his energy levels. His tried and tested strategy using a variety of products ensured that he suffered little to no gastrointestinal discomfort across the race - a concern for many athletes racing in the heat - where digestion is often impaired due to the intensity and heat stress.

Despite being a beautiful race location, Kona is well-known for its demanding and debilitating race conditions; with high temperatures and humidity, in addition to strong headwinds, the race places considerable pressure on an athlete's fluid intake to ensure they are able to get round the course safely. Dougal was well aware of this, and made a conscious effort to consistently drink fluids, averaging nearly one litre per hour (a total of 12 litres across the race). Whilst this might seem a lot, athletes racing in these conditions will likely be losing more than this, between 1-2L/h, sometimes more, depending on their sweat rate. That being said, Dougal’s feedback, and frequent urination suggest that although he was drinking enough fluids, his sodium intake of 370mg per litre of fluid was insufficient to replace his sweat losses of 921mg/L. The relative sodium concentration of the fluids he consumed was less than half his sweat sodium concentration, discouraging the absorption and retention of water. When racing in warm conditions in the future, he should look to increase his sodium intake, possibly by using a stronger electrolyte drink such as PH 1500 to better hydrate and stay in line with his sweat losses.

Dougal's caffeine intake was significantly higher than the recommendations of 3-6mg/kg, but given the intensity and duration of the race, and his lack of unwanted side effects, we wouldn’t suggest any changes to this for him.