Always practice practice practice in training before racing, NO SURPRISES!

I've been asked on several occasions to provide an insight into my race day nutrition strategy. We all know that failure to plan is planning to fail. For the longer events like Ironman, it is such a critical component to having a great race or a forgettable race. The bonk is the far left in terms of insufficient calories, the GI issues more likely the far right signifying overdosing on calorie consumption or using untested quantities / food sources.

A word of caution, just because this works for me, does not mean that it will work for you. Test it first.

Port Macq 07
During the bike leg, I consumed 450gm of Hi5 Energy Source Neutral for close to a 5h ride time, so that roughly equated to 90g/hr and I did not take in any gels or any other food source with the exception of maybe 2 bidons of Gatorade on course for electrolyte replacement only.

Now on the run, I consumed 240gm of Hi5 Gel (mixed up myself in 2 flasks 120gm / flask). So that equated to 240gm over 3:30, approx. 70g/hr. BUT, I also went cups of Gatorade, from lap 1 as I was cramping in the left hamstring and fighting off cramps in the VMO. After approx. the 15km mark, I went the flat coke too. On the 2nd lap, things got nasty, ravenous hunger set in, I went lollies, cantaloupe, absolutely anything I could get my hands on, not ideal, but my body craved solid food and luckliy, I had NO issues with this approach.

From this experience, I concluded that I need more than 70g/hr on the run which probably meant I was also underdone on the bike too. During training sessions which simulated race day scenarios, I did feel hungry after consuming 450g of CHO in 5h but did not want to push the envelope too far as I ran out of time to trial higher doses of CHO.

This Season - A Modified Approach
I am always dubious of research and results when published by the "manufacturer" (HI5) of the product and the product that comes up trumps just so happens to be from that manufacturer! But I believe it is worth a crack and I will explain why. This is the product Hi5 Super Carbs (Referring to Energy Source Plus with Super Carbs)

Captain CrankIT - aka Julian Wain - has trialled the super carbs, in citris, in large doses, 400g CHO for 3h ride and reported NO GI ISSUES, this is a big statement coming from a man who in the past has suffered GI distress in many races.

This quote from Captain, "I do not think 100gm+ per hour is unrealistic given RACE intensity, we're tapered, caffeined to our eyeballs with adrenalin going INSAINO (VERY different to a 5 hour training ride)."...."Think I'll have 500gm for my KONA bike leg AND 100gms of Gels as backup."

Now, that is a whopping 600g for a 5h bike because CAPTAIN will ride 5h without blinking :), roughly 120g/hr. As a result of Captain's trial of the Hi5 Super Carbs in these large doses, I plan on trialling 100g/hr, if I have no issues, then I will trial 110g/hr and report on the end result in a blog in the near future.

Hey, if it means we can push in 110g/hr of CHO during racing and it contains CAFFEINE, that has to help the cause and allow us to operate at a higher intensity for a longer period of time. I will trial this in the Shep HIM in November 07.

Yes - caffeine should help us process more CHO / hr, awesome! Perfect, I guess to go fast you need to fuel the body, I recall the Dave Scott / Simon Lessing interview (this is it I think) on a podcast talking about 450 calories per hour as a standard, so that is equivalent of 112.5gm CHO/hr. Not far off the mark at all.

Well, watch this space, I will report back on my experiences with this large doses.

P.S. Feel free to add comments below outlining your strategy and what works for you.

Cheers

Komo