• Line had a tough day out at her last race of the season - IM 70.3 Indian Wells. She unfortunately picked up a bad stomach bug in the days leading up to the race, but she pushed through sickness to finish the course in a time of 4 hours and 32 minutes
• It was a race of two halves for Line, with a good swim and great bike performance, she led for part of the race. However, the run was a different story; she threw up multiple times, due to the stomach bug and the nature of running meaning her stomach was moving more than on the bike
• Sadly for Line, she didn’t get the outcome she was looking for, but we applaud her for pushing on to still cross the line. Even though she was ill, she stuck to her solid hydration and fueling plan up until the run, where she couldn’t take anything on board without being sick

Hydration

• On the bike, Line drank a 1.5L/51oz bottle containing both PH 1000 and PH 1500 along with a 600ml/20oz bottle of plain water. On the run, she could only stomach two sips of Coca Cola, Red Bull and water, where she would have usually aimed for over ~10 sips of each, similar to what she had at the 70.3 World Champs in Utah where she finished 19th in only her second start inpro middle-distance racing
• Line drank a total of 2.28L/77oz of fluid during the race, which equates to an average of ~502ml/hr (16oz/hr). However, her run intake was greatly affected by being sick, so focusing on her bike intake alone she consumed an average of ~907ml/hr (31oz/hr). Despite being a higher fluid intake than we see from many triathletes, this is similar to what we saw Line do at the World Champs (~853ml/hr / ~29oz/hr)
• Line has recently been collating some sweat rate data, which shows her to have a moderate-to-high sweat rate, as she estimated she would lose just under 1.4L/hr (47oz/hr) during the bike leg. Therefore, this high intake is justified to try to replace a good volume of her losses
• It’s also worth bearing in mind that on top of her sweat losses, Line’s sickness will have contributed to a significant proportion of her body fluids losses too
• Line came into the office a month prior to IM 70.3 Indian Wells for an Advanced Sweat Test to get a better handle on her sweat sodium losses. She has a moderate sweat sodium concentration of 798mg/L and got sodium onboard from both PH 1000 and PH 1500
• During the bike leg, Line consumed ~1,098mg of sodium per litre of fluid. Using her estimated sweat rate losses (1.4L/47oz per hour), this would have been a really good strategy during what was a warm race (high of 28°C/82°F), to replace a very high proportion of what she was losing in her sweat (1,101mg/hr)
• Line rated her hydration strategy as 5 out of 10 saying that it was “good throughout most of the bike but my stomach felt full on the run so I couldn’t drink or eat much”. She mostly stuck to her plan on the bike but had aimed to pick up a couple of bottles of plain water on top of what she had in her bottles. This may have been beneficial to slightly dilute the relative sodium concentration of her intake on the bike 1,211mg/L, but she was still able to get a solid fluid intake without it

Fueling

Conclusions

• Line rated her race satisfaction as a low 2 out of 10 due to not reaching the goals she was aiming for, including qualifying for the World Champs next year. Due to picking up a nasty stomach bug that left her ill for a few days after the race too, Line couldn’t perform as she had hoped to on the run
• Now Line has a good idea of her losses (she has had an Advanced Sweat Test and collected some sweat rate data) we have dialled in her hydration and fueling strategy and we are looking forward to seeing what she can achieve as she continues to develop and use this data next season