IRONMAN 70.3® World Championships

We tend to recommend that athletes should decouple their fuel from their hydration during a triathlon by relying on their bottles for fluid and electrolytes, and use ‘solids’ (like gels and chews) for fuel, as this allows them to adapt their strategy ‘on-the-fly’. This was Emma’s downfall in this race; as a result of the lower temperatures, she felt she didn’t need to drink as much fluid as originally planned. With a combined strategy, her carbs were ‘locked in’ to the fluid she was carrying and subsequently, her fuel intake suffered. Whilst this is significantly below the recommendations for a middle-distance triathlon, it’s likely that Emma’s extensive carb-loading ahead of the race allowed her to draw on large amounts of stored energy from her muscles and liver to produce another stellar performance. But, she noticed that her recovery post-race was the worst she’s ever experienced, with painful Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), which is a key side-effect of underfueling. In future, Emma should look to reduce her reliance on liquid carbohydrates, and instead transfer to incorporating some solid or semi-solid energy sources such as gels or chews to prevent situations like this again.

Despite matching her sodium losses well, Emma mentioned it took several hours and a lot of water until she could produce a urine sample for drug testing post-race, indicating how dehydrated she was. It’s likely this was due to her lower than ideal fluid intake, even though the conditions were cool. To rectify this, Emma tried to get as much fluid in as possible on the run course, and increased her average intake from 124ml/h on the bike to a much improved ~701ml/h on the run.