IRONMAN® Western Australia

Sarah toed the start line with full glycogen stores thanks to a high-carb diet in the days leading up to the race, capped off with a solid carb-rich breakfast to top up her liver glycogen levels. Typically, we recommend consuming simple carbohydrates, like from a PF 30 Caffeine Gel, 15-20 minutes before the start of the swim to boost blood glucose and help conserve glycogen stores for later in the race. While Sarah opted not to implement this strategy this time, it could be beneficial in future races. Throughout the race, Sarah relied on PF 30 Gels and a whole host of on-course nutrition, but fell slightly short of the recommended 90g of carb per hour, consuming less than she did at both IRONMAN® Cairns and Australia, where she also claimed victory. She attributed this shortfall partly to flavour fatigue - a common issue among elite athletes who maintain such high volumes of sports nutrition. However, Sarah felt she wasn’t significantly challenged by her competitors in this race, allowing her to manage with a somewhat lower fuel intake as she wasn’t pushing her performance limits.

With her low sweat sodium concentration and relatively low sweat rate, Sarah typically drinks much less than some of her competitors while still performing exceptionally well. Although she managed to avoid any hydration-related issues during the race, she felt slightly dehydrated afterwards, which she puts down to the extremely windy conditions, which made it challenging and somewhat risky to grab extra fluids from aid stations. Sarah’s bottles consumed a slightly higher relative sodium concentration than in her earlier-season races, likely due to missing out on additional water which would have diluted the sodium concentration. Fortunately, the dehydration she experienced didn’t significantly impact her performance, as the human body can generally tolerate 2-4% dehydration during endurance events before performance suffers.

Sarah used a well-planned caffeine strategy, drip feeding caffeinated gels throughout the bike and run to ensure consistent energy levels. Her intake exceeded the recommended 3-6 mg/kg, but since she experienced no negative side effects, she was likely maximising the stimulant's ergogenic benefits.