Solveig Løvseth
IRONMAN® World Championship
Kona8th, FPROSolveig's headline numbers
Solveig's strategy
Fueling
T - 1-4hrs: Ate a carb rich meal (Low in fat & fibre)
T - 15mins: Took in a final dose of carb
"My energy was great all day, I felt well controlled and was able to keep pushing."
As the 2025 IRONMAN® World Champion returning to Hawaii, Solveig was on course to successfully defend her title in the brutally hot and humid conditions, until a dramatic collapse less than 1km from the finish line. Once she’d cooled down, she managed to walk to the finish line to take 8th place, 25 minutes back from the eventual winner, and we’ve crunched her race nutrition data to see how her fuel and hydration plan played out…
Solveig's fueling has been refined race-by-race since she won the World Champs in 2025. Back then it was PF 300 Flow Gel in two bike bottles and five Flow Gel flasks on the run. During her races in 2026, she has experimented with getting more of her carbohydrate intake from carbohydrate drink mix alongside the Flow Gel, which maximises how much carb she can carry in each bottle.
On the bike in Kona, she started with:
▪️ Two 750ml bottles with 150g of Carb Only Drink Mix and a PH 1500 Tablet in each
▪️ One 750ml bottle with a PF 300 Flow Gel and a PH 1500 Tablet
▪️ And two PF 30 Caffeine Gels taken together around two hours in
As planned, she finished all of her carbs on the bike: ~144g/h over the 4 hour and 42-minute bike split, well beyond the 60-90g/h general endurance guideline and close to the ~145g/h she consumed here in 2025, without the stomach trouble she had in Texas when the same carbs went into fewer, more concentrated bottles.
On the run, all of her fuel except two PF 30 Caffeine Gels and one PF 30 Gel - was pre-mixed into eleven 500ml soft flasks across the six pro aid stations:
▪️ Three with 4 scoops (~60g) of Carb Only Drink Mix
▪️ Two with ~60g of Flow Gel
▪️ Six with PH 1500 only
The carb flasks came every 5-6 km from the pro aid-stations, and she finished every one. Had she finished the marathon on pace without needing to stop, Solveig would’ve hit the planned ~130g/h, which is just 9g/h less than her 2025 win, an intentional move to manager her GI comfort.
Hydration
Taking on board an appropriate amount of fluid and sodium is essential to maintaining blood volume and supporting the cardiovascular effort needed to perform on race day.
Whilst the absolute amount of sodium and fluid consumed per hour is important, it’s critical to consider these in relation to each other. This is known as 'relative sodium concentration' and it’s expressed in milligrams per litre (mg/L). How much sodium you’re taking in per litre of fluid is more important than the absolute amount taken in per hour.
Solveig1044mg/L
Solveig has been Sweat Tested to dial in her hydration plan
Sweat sodium concentration (mg/L) is largely genetically determined and remains relatively stable. Knowing how salty your sweat is enables you to replace a good proportion of your sweat losses, which can range from 200-2,000mg/L.
Whilst Solveig's losses are on the moderate side, getting her hydration strategy right is still crucial when it's hot and/or humid as her higher sweat rate in these conditions can result in significant net losses over the duration of a race.
Learn moreT - 60mins: Drank ~500ml of strong electrolyte drink
"I drank a little more than we planned on the bike. I didn't feel thirsty at all getting off the bike, and I felt much cooler going into the run."
Solveig’s fluid targets were based on her predicted sweat rate, which was ~1.3L/h on the bike and ~2.5L/h on the run.
On the bike she went beyond the plan on purpose, adjusting well to the more humid conditions than forecast, taking on ~7.1L (~1.5L/h). The priority with the plain water was for hydration, but once she drank most of each bottle, she’d use the rest to douse herself and stay cool. She came into T2 with no feelings of thirst, having drunk almost 25% more and feeling cooler than in 2025.
On the run, she drank ~5.3L (~1.6 L/h), almost all from her own flasks. We planned for Solveig to get most of her fluid intake from her soft flasks, so that she could focus on cooling when going through the aid stations. For cooling, she put ice in her hat and kit, water over her head, and dunked her hat in ice water.
The relative sodium concentration of her intake was ~740 milligrams of sodium per litre of fluid on the bike and ~680mg/L the run, a close match to her measured sweat sodium, resulting in her replacing a good proportion of her total sweat sodium losses.
We weighed Solveig after the race and found that she’d lost ~3.5% of her body mass (this includes the metabolic mass loss from burned muscle glycogen and fat stores), and so her body water loss was likely ~2.9% (and probably even less than that before the collapse since it took some time to reach the finish). This is well within the acceptable range of dehydration (2-4%) that we see elite athletes tolerate in these conditions and therefore we don't reccomend she change her hydration strategy for future races in similar conditions.
Caffeine
Beyond the Three Levers of Performance (carb, sodium and fluid), caffeine is one of only a few substances that is proven to improve performance for most endurance athletes as it can help stave off mental and physical fatigue.
T - 0-4hrs: Had a final hit of caffeine
Solveig used the same caffeine plan as in every full-distance race since her 2025 win in Kona: two PF 30 Caffeine Gels in the final 30 minutes before the start, two around halfway through the bike, and two about an hour into the run.
At ~8mg/kg over nine hours, she is above the 3-6mg/kg range usually cited for an endurance benefit, but the doses are spread across the day, and she has built up to this level over several seasons.
How Solveig hit her numbers
Here's everything that Solveig ate and drank on the day...
Final thoughts
“I'm still quite content with my race. I felt like I raced better than I expected, except of course for that last kilometre. I went from feeling tired but still in control to not being able to walk in just a few seconds.”
“Solveig led the IRONMAN® World Championship with a mile to go before her body stopped her within sight of the finish. She got up 15 minutes later, walked it in, and finished eighth. Up to the point she collapsed at ~40.7km, she averaged 4:03/km and was on course for a ~2:51 marathon which almost set her up to win for the second consecutive year, with a faster run time. From a fuel and hydration point of view, this was her best execution in a hot race. The cause of her collapse was likely overheating, as her recovery was relatively quick once she cooled down, which is typical of heat illness. Athletes like Solveig are so fit, so well trained and are psychologically able to push themselves to the limit because of those factors; so when racing in the extreme conditions of places like Kona, they can be within a knife's edge of safety. We saw this in 2025 when Solveig won, as she passed Taylor Knibb (the winner of the 2026 edition) who collapsed just 2km from the finish. Working on understanding where Solveig’s heat stress ceiling is will be the focus ahead of her next race in similar conditions, and we’ll be using core temperature readings as a reference, which will help to paint a clearer picture of where the line sits for her.”
PF&HSolveig's full stats
Data Confidence
We rate each of our case studies from 1-5 based on the level of accuracy, and our confidence in the data.
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.