• After enjoying a strong 2022 season that saw her finish 2nd at Challenge Puerto Varas, 7th at the IRONMAN World Championships in Utah and 4th at Challenge Roth, Laura was looking to replicate her good form in Hawaii
• During the race, Laura arrived at the swim exit feeling “pretty chuffed” with the pack she came out as part of, although she ended up riding the full 180km bike leg almost completely solo. This gave Laura the opportunity to focus on nailing her pre-planned race nutrition strategy, which she'd worked on with guidance from Clinical Dietitian Claire Fudge at 4th Discipline
• Off the bike and into the run with a transition time of 2:28, Laura ‘started conservatively’ before having to battle through the latter stages to the finish line with a run time of 3:17:34. In doing so, she claimed her second top-10 spot at an IRONMAN World Championships for the year with a time of 9:07:49

Hydration

• Laura followed her usual pre-race plan by pre-loading with PH 1500 (Tablets) the night before and the morning of her race, to ensure she started optimally hydrated, with a topped up blood plasma volume
• Laura had prepared bottles of PH 1500 (Tablets) to drink on the bike, alongside water that she could pick up from aid stations. As well as drinking from these water bottles, she dumped some on her head to keep cool as the temperatures soared
• Her average fluid intake on the bike came to ~1.26L (42oz) per hour, while maintaining a relative sodium concentration of ~458mg/L (mg/32oz) with the use of Electrolyte Capsules
• Coming off the bike in 12th place, Laura had a quick transition and got back out on course, where she would drink cups of water and Coca Cola from each aid station, as well as utilise the six pro aid station bottles she had access to
• As you can see in this video on Laura’s Instagram page, the intake of fluid from aid stations is hard to approximate when running at such high speeds. We’ve worked out that she’d have had around ~4.1L (139oz) total fluid on the run, which breaks down into ~1.25L (42oz) per hour
• Her intake of ~4.1L (139oz) in Hawaii represents a ~48% increase on what she drank during the run at Challenge Roth. This can largely be attributed to the more extreme temperatures in Kona causing Laura to have a higher sweat rate, which in turn meant that she increased her intake to account for her higher fluid losses.
• This is more than we'd typically expect to see an athlete drink during the marathon of an IRONMAN but it's worth re-emphasising that the heat that the athletes were exposed to on race day was extreme (and Laura's intake wasn't dissimilar to what fellow top-10 finishers like Leon Chevalier and Fenella Langridge drank).
• She boosted her electrolyte intake using Electrolyte Capsules, as well as a small 200ml (7oz) flask containing a PH 1500 (Tablet). This allowed her to achieve a relative sodium concentration of ~305mg/L (mg/32oz) for this leg of the race as she fought hard to claim 10th position overall
• Laura knows that she has a low sweat sodium concentration of 614mg/L (mg/32oz) after taking a Sweat Test at 4th Discipline
• This means that despite achieving an average relative sodium concentration of ~396mg/L (mg/32oz) for the race, which would be potentially problematic for a lot of athletes, she was happy to report absolutely no cramping and an 8 (out of 10) rating for her hydration on the day

Fueling

Conclusions

• Laura has now competed in four IRONMAN World Championships hosted in Kona, and the 42-year-old is only getting quicker with age, beating her previous best split on the bike course by a significant 8 minutes this time around
• Laura executed a very effective fuel and hydration strategy, with plenty of energy to get around the course, and appropriate volumes of fluid and electrolyte to avoid feeling the effects of dehydration. This helped her avoid joining the high DNF rate on race day despite the harsh environmental conditions, with nearly one-third of the starting female pros failing to make it to the finish chute
• She reported her race satisfaction as an 8 (out of 10), whilst identifying some areas that she’d hoped could have gone better to reflect the hard work she’s been putting in during training. Overall, she was extremely happy with securing a top-ten in Kona, something which she said she “never thought would happen”