• Jane is a practising dentist and serial IRONMAN World Championships competitor. Making several appearances in the event previously, Jane was looking to use her knowledge of the island course to her advantage this year
• Alongside her husband Martin, who won his age group at the 2022 World Championships, Jane has been working with the PF&H Sports Science team to develop her fuel and hydration strategies ahead of this event
• Jane did extremely well to run down the red carpet in 5th place in her age group, with a time of 13:00:57

Hydration

• Jane was conscious of her hydration in the days before the event, drinking plenty of water in an attempt to hydrate. However, we’d recommend in future she drinks ~500ml (16oz) of PH 1500 both the night before and the morning of the race in order to top up her blood plasma volume and start optimally hydrated
• On the bike, Jane relied heavily on refilling her hydration system using aid station water pick ups. To maintain a relative sodium concentration of ~1,288milligrams per litre (mg/32oz) during this leg of the race she had two PH 1500 Tablets and 11 Electrolyte Capsules
• In a race in which we frequently saw athletes with intakes of over ~1L (32oz) of fluid per hour on the bike, Jane had an average intake of just ~512ml/h (16oz/h). However, the fact that she still went for a pee in T2 and perceived her hydration on the day as a 9 (out of 10) suggests she wasn’t overly dehydrated and that this is potentially a reflection of a low individual sweat rate
• On the run, Jane again relied on aid stations for water and estimated that she picked up ~65 cups of various fluids on her way to a 4:45:53 marathon. This gave her an average intake of ~1.21L (42oz) fluid per hour, however this estimate includes a fairly large amount of uncertainty due to the compounding error that cup estimates create
• As someone with a Sweat Test score of 941mg/L (mg/32oz), Jane falls into the ‘moderate’ sodium loss category, and so it would appear that her intake fell some way short of replacing these losses
• Interestingly, Jane reported suffering cramping during the marathon, which could have potentially been due to electrolyte imbalance. In future events she could experiment with carrying a Soft Flask of PH 1500 or PF Energy Drink Mix, instead of flat Coca Cola. This would frontload her sodium intake for the run somewhat and provide a potential line of defence against cramp onset

Fueling

Conclusions

• Jane did extremely well to run her way down the IRONMAN World Championships red carpet in a time of 13:00:57 making her the 5th fastest woman in her age group. While she was ‘slightly disappointed’ with her time on the day, she undoubtedly can be very proud of the overall outcome
• Jane’s fueling was a really strong aspect of her race this time around, managing an average intake of ~72g of carb per hour. In future, to avoid the lower perceived energy she felt on the run, it is worth considering carrying an additional PF 90 Gel with a Bite valve for frequent top ups of glucose that aren’t coming from energy drinks
• In terms of hydration, Jane’s main development will be to find a way of controlling cramp on the run. The significant drop in relative sodium intake from bike (~1288mg/L) to run (~173mg/L) could be a potential cause for this, which can easily be avoided through the use of additional Electrolyte Capsules or the addition of sodium to the soft flask she ran out of T2 with