• Joel raced hard at IRONMAN, Western Australia in Busselton to secure 10th place overall with a time of 8:32:52 in what was only his second ever full distance triathlon
• With a robust race-day strategy, Joel was able to perceive his GI comfort afterwards as a 9 and energy levels as an 8 (out of 10), suggesting he was pretty close to nailing his nutrition plan
• Joel, at just north of 20 years old, showed an impressive intuitive ability to start adapting his hydration strategy on the fly, in reaction to milder than expected temperatures. This flexibility to environmental change is something that he can work on refining in future races

Hydration

• Joel gave himself the best chance of a good race, by starting it optimally hydrated. In future, to ensure this ‘preload’ is as effective as possible, we’d recommend using a slightly stronger electrolyte drink like PH 1500 to stimulate the desired increase in blood plasma volume
• When out of the water and onto the bike, Joel drank a mixture of pre-mixed bottles containing PH 1000 (Drink Mix), sports drink and plain water he picked up from the aid stations. This gave him an average fluid intake of ~703ml (22oz) per hour.
• He had initially set out to drink 800ml-1000ml of fluid per hour, but with cooler temperatures than expected tried to adapt and reduce this somewhat
• Joel admitted that he had to pee several times while cycling, which may suggest that he could have dialled this intake down even further. However, an average relative sodium concentration here of just 555mg/L (mg/32oz) potentially contributed to him retaining less of the fluid he was drinking too
• Going through transition two, Joel forgot to pick up the Electrolyte Capsules that he had planned to take, which meant his sodium intake fell even lower on the run course to somewhere between 103-135mg/L (mg/32oz). Given the lowest Sweat Test result we’ve ever recorded was ~200mg/L (mg/32oz), this level certainly would likely have fallen below the optimal dose to replace Joel’s losses here
• Due to solely relying on aid stations for his fluid and electrolytes on the run, there’s a significant room for error in estimating the volumes Joel actually drank. To address this, we used a low and high estimates to produce the 398-1074ml per hour (13-33oz per hour) range which he could have consumed
• Based on the fact that (like on the bike), Joel had to pee several times when running, and had clear pee straight after this race, it’s safe to assume his real intake was on the higher end of this range

Fueling

Conclusions

• Overall, Joel had a strong race at IRONMAN Busselton, with a solid fuel and hydration plan, which he was able to start to adapt on the fly given unexpected environmental conditions
• Joel has the chance going forwards to increase his carb intake on the back half of long runs, which may help to mitigate energy dips late in the race
• He also should be mindful of the relative sodium concentration of his fluid intake in future, especially when competing in warmer environments where dehydration and sodium depletion may play bigger roles

Note: Overall numerical values shown are median averages of the low-high estimate range