Pierre Stieremans' scorecard
IRONMAN® Frankfurt
Sunday 2nd July, 2023
Within recommended ranges
Just outside recommended ranges
Significantly outside recommended ranges
- 85gCarb per hour
- 257mgSodium per hour
- 343mlFluid per hour
- 750mg/LRelative sodium concentration
- 500mgTotal caffeine
How Pierre hit those numbers
Before race (>30mins)
1 x Sports Cake
500ml x Plain Water
Pre-race (<30mins)
1 x PF 30 Caffeine Gel
Race - Swim
*** Try to avoid drinking too much at this point in the race!
Race - Bike
1.5L x PH 1000 (Drink Mix)
13 x PF 30 Gel
2 x PF 30 Caffeine Gel
500ml x Plain water
Race - Run
500ml x PH 1500 (Tablets)
5 x PF 30 Gel
2 x PF 30 Caffeine Gel
500ml x Plain water
- In his 4th year competing in triathlons, Pierre has had some extremely honourable results including a top 10 spot at IRONMAN Nice in 2021, which secured him qualification for the IRONMAN World Championships in Hawaii
- Despite suffering a fracture pelvis during his build-up to IRONMAN Frankfurt, he recovered well and finished in a speedy 8:45:40 to finish 3rd in his age group (M30-34), and 7th place overall
- He implemented a solid fuel and hydration strategy that allowed him to finish strong with a 3:01:40 marathon
Hydration
- Pierre began his race day hydration strategy by drinking 500ml (16oz) of plain water alongside his breakfast. We would recommend that before future races, Pierre adds PH 1500 to this to maximise his blood volume and make sure he is starting optimally hydrated
- Over the bike leg, Pierre drank 2L (64oz) of PH 1000 drink mix which he felt hydrated him well
- Going into his run well hydrated, Pierre felt he wanted to maintain his strong sodium levels throughout the run. Although his fluid intake on the run was slightly lower than we’d expect at 331ml/hr (11oz/hr), the relative sodium concentration of his intake was 750mg/L (32oz) and he reported no hydration-related issues, which suggests he did a solid job of hitting his numbers in relatively mild conditions, 21℃ (70ºF)
Fueling
Quick Carb Calculator Recommendation
30gcarb 30 mins before
60-90gcarb per hour during
- Pierre implemented a classic [carb-loading] (https://www.precisionhydration.com/performance-advice/nutrition/how-to-carb-load-before-a-race/) strategy the day before the race, focusing on eating carb rich foods such as pasta with chicken for lunch, followed by rice and chicken in the evening. Pierre then had a simple carb-rich breakfast for his pre-race meal to top up his glycogen stores before racing
- In the last 30 minutes before his race, Pierre took a PF 30 caffeine gel to elevate his blood glucose before the swim
- Pierre relied solely on PF products to fuel the fire in his race, taking 13 PF 30 gels along with 2 PF 30 caffeine gels during the bike
- It is likely that Pierre has practised using this number of gels and undertaken gut-training in order for his gastrointestinal comfort to still be rated so highly, whilst ingesting this amount of carb
- Pierre then went onto take 5 PF30 gels on his run, along with 2 PF30 caffeine gels to ingest an average of ~70g per hour
- Having had a solid intake of carbs on both the run and the bike, with a slightly lower intake on the run, which is often common considering the shorter distance. He experienced no major gastrointestinal (GI) issues, rating his comfort an 8 (out of 10) with good energy levels throughout the race, rating this a 7 (out of10)
- Although Pierre is doing a great job already, we’d suggest that he looks at increasing from ~80g/h to ~90g/h which may involve some further gut training. This would increase his energy levels even further, which in turn would work to increase his performance overall, maybe even bringing down to a sub 3 hour marathon
Conclusions
- Throughout his race, Pierre implemented a very simple but effective strategy that ticked all three levers of carb, sodium and fluid effectively that allowed him to carry out an outstanding performance, rating his race satisfaction 9 (out of 10)
- To push that little bit further, Pierre could make some slight tweaks to preload more effectively with his hydration and potentially look to increase his hourly carb intake in the future with some gut training
Key info
Pierre Stieremans
Male
Result
Position7th
Overall Time8:45:40
Swim Time0:57:31
Bike Time4:40:35
Run Time3:01:40
Event information
SportTriathlon
DisciplineFull distance
EventIRONMAN® Frankfurt
LocationFrankfurt, Germany
Date2nd July, 2023
Swim Distance3.8km / 2.4mi
Bike Distance180.2km / 112.0mi
Run Distance42.2km / 26.2mi
Total Distance226.2km / 140.6mi
Race conditions
Weather ConditionsHot
PrecipitationNo Rain
Min Temp13°C / 55°F
Max Temp24°C / 75°F
Avg Temp21°C / 70°F
Humidity53%
Athlete feedback
Race Satisfaction9/10
Hydration rating9/10
Energy levels7/10
Toilet stopsNo
GI comfort8/10
Data Confidence
1
2
3
4
5
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.