IM Western Australia

Fenella executed her pre-race fuel plan perfectly and left nothing to chance. She carried all of her carbs from start to finish, frontloading her intake like she usually does using bottles of plain water and Flow Gel. After this she dropped her carb consumption by ~26% during the marathon, which was still enough to sustain her effort. Fenella’s average intake was very similar to her strategy at the 2023 Challenge Roth, where she finished within four minutes of her overall time here in Western Australia, so it’s clearly working well for her.

As you can see from the graphic above, Fenella loses a high amount of sodium in her sweat, so replacing this requires some proactivity. She did this by drinking just under 1L of water from her bottles on the bike, and taking between 3-4 Electrolyte Capsules alongside. This meant that the relative sodium concentration of her intake was impressively close to her sweat sodium losses (1,316mg/L vs 1,331mg/L), so will have replaced a high proportion of what she lost through sweating. Being able to pick up two Soft Flasks of PH 1500 made this electrolyte replacement during the run much easier than normal, and is something Fenella’s implemented successfully several times before.

Once again, Fenella crushed her caffeine intake at all points of race-day, to reap maximum benefit from the stimulant. She’s a frequent coffee drinker, and suffers no ill effects from higher-than-average doses of caffeine, so hitting just over the general guidelines is likely appropriate for her and we wouldn’t recommend changing anything at this point.