Jana's headline numbers
Jana'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.
Jana has faced sickness and bloating during some of her previous IRONMAN® distance races, so has been focusing on training her gut to tolerate greater amounts of carb whilst working at a higher intensity. On race day, she seamlessly hit her carb intake on the bike using a mixture of energy drink mix and PF 30 Gels. The first half of the run also went well, but then the nausea and GI distress struck again. As Jana still averaged an intake within the recommended range for a race of this duration and intensity and has familiarised her system with the products and quantities she consumed on the day, the GI issues are unlikely to be caused by her carbohydrate intake. Instead, it may have come from dehydration, as she learned in the medical tent post-race.
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.
Whilst Jana’s losses are on the moderate side, getting her hydration strategy right is still crucial when it’s hot and/or humid as her higher sweat rate in these conditions can result in significant net losses over the duration of a race.
Learn moreJana kept things simple on the bike, relying on bottles of water and energy drink mix, whilst swallowing Electrolyte Capsules every 30 minutes to stay on top of her sodium concentration. Whilst this worked well in practice, she likely underestimated her fluid requirements as she began to feel nauseous and struggled to consume anything by the second half of the marathon. After crossing the finish line, she was admitted to the medical tent with severe dehydration. Interestingly, Jana actually drank slightly more fluid per hour whilst running compared to on the bike, indicating it was the earlier portion of the race where her hydration strategy fell behind and reached a threshold of dehydration that impacted her performance. In the future, undergoing sweat rate testing to determine her fluid losses in specific conditions would help her fine tune this part of her strategy.
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.
Jana had a substantial quantity of caffeine during the race, through PF 30 Caffeine Gels and energy drink mix, overall sitting within the recommended range. This allowed her to reap the ergogenic benefits that the stimulant provides, and since she’s used to tolerating this amount of caffeine, it’s unlikely it was a factor in her nausea.
How Jana hit her numbers
Here's everything that Jana ate and drank on the day...
Jana's weapons of choice
Final thoughts
PF&HJana'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.