@Rich - I am with you for the first three bullets and that is what I do in terms of measuring it out. Not quite sure I'm following your logic on the last bullet with the diluted amount...
@Patrick- so so so agree with this! I HATED gatorade for the longest time, could not stomach it. But force feeding it after a while and I adjusted. I drank ~2 bottles/hr of disgustingly warm gatorade (orange soup, mmm) at IMCDA on the bike and this is my first race ever where I had no GI issues during or after. Hallelujah! I would love to get off of gatorade for many reasons, but the ease of having it on course makes it hard to leave.
I juts don't like that approach to training my body to drink caloric sports drinks during training. It's too many calories when I am using training rides to accomplish body comp objectives. This year, I gone the other way and "trained" my body to run on water and chewable calories. My race rehearsal went off the rails, for many reason, but a key factor was I switched to gatorade for no go reason at mile 50 for a treat. It was a bad idea.
Not hijacking the thread, but want to point out that in the multiple webinars we've done with Core Diet re nutrition, Jesse K talks about the need to train your gut. As in Week 1 I felt sick at hour two...by Week 4 I was good for 4 hours...and by Week 8 I was golden. If you treat your race fueling like you do eating in a new-fangled restaurant (I tried the lobster fondue once, and that was enough!) you are potentially forfeiting what your body NEEDS vs what it LIKES.
FWIW, I drink 2 bottles of GE an hour (3 scoops of the scoop), and on race day I start with IM Perform for first hour (3 bottles)...so across 5 hours I have 11 bottles of sports drink, no water, with a power-gel or 1/2 powerbar every 30'. This gives me just over 500 cals per hour but more importantly tops me off.
How do I drink on race day? I pound the GE until I burp it back up...like 1/3 of a bottle flying out of my mouth onto my bike...then my brain says, hey, I'm full! And I can dial it back to normal hydration levels.
Everyone has their own tolerances, but please please please train your gut people...don't give up after a few tries where every weekend is a different amount, different bars, different paces...your racing self deserves better.
Question for the Team: what cals/hr are people targeting (and succeeding with) on Ironman race day?
Personally, I'm confident I can get in about 300-350/hr, or about 1500-17xx cals across a 5hr bike as a mix of GE, water, and 1-2 gels per hour. And within ^this^ I could drink 2-3 bottles of fluid per hour, as 1x GE + 1.5 - 2x water. But I'm also confident that no way I could do >400hr and I currently feel like GE is literally shutting my stomach down. But I still have many, many long rides until race day so I'm open to continuing down "a" path. Not afraid to experiment on my rides, basically, so we can all continue to learn.
Basically, what I'm after is this: we've had the Core Diet stuff in the house for about 3 seasons that says to do X with regards to cals/hr, sodium/hr, and fluid intake. But I'm curious to hear what people, who have listened to the webinars and worked to implement the guidance, are actually doing and being successful with on race day.
And for the shirtless heavy sweaters...I've recently begun running with one of those yellow micro-fiber cloths. Start the run with it tucked in the back of my shorts, like a yellow tail, and then end up carrying it in loosely in my right hand. Hit my legs with it at lights, wipe my head whenever, etc. The net is that socks and shoes are much less squishy
I have been doing some flavor of this for the past three IM's I have done. Finishing the perform has been the issue - This is generally 4-6 bottles of water as well. For Canada this year, I am going to lower the gatorade and increase some other food to hit the same 250-300 calories per hour. This food plan, for me, has never needed additional supplementation, i.e. salt.
For me it's 1-1 1/2 bottles of Perform per hour depending on temps, plus 3 Clif Blocks every 1/2 hour. Total of 410-515 cal per hour (I'm 165 lbs). I'm lucky to never have problems, but then I eat a huge amount of food and I think that may help me process lots of calories while training and racing.
For IMCDA I did 1.33 bottles/hour of perform which was 230 calories. I did 1 salt tab per hour as well. This time I will do 1.5 bottles/hour of Gatorade for 240 calories and still do the salt cap. This works well for me. I drink no water.
I had 320+ cals/hr over an almost 7 hr split (so much room for improvement!!) at Coeur d'Alene. I mostly targetted 2 bottles/hour of gatorade, but I also had a 250 cal bar at the start of the bike that I wasn't planning to eat all of but was starving, and a gu or 2 later in the bike.
I think it is important to remember that people burn drastically different amounts of calories on bike. You sub-5 hour 300 W people burn a heck of a lot more per hour than someone like me. If I fueled the same amount as Coach P, I'd be replacing more than I lost!
My big gripe with Core Diet (besides the fact that they told me I should only eat 980 cals/day in my consult... but that is a different story) is that they make it seem like there is only one way to skin a cat. I go with Gatorade because of the ease of it on course and was able to adapt. But I think there are many other very different fueling plans that could work very well, as long as you have tested them and they work for you. I saw Andy Pott's nutrition plan after CDA and it was shockingly little liquid, but obviously works for him!
My fueling for long rides has been very similar to Coach P's. I've been drinking 2 bottles an hour of Gatorade Endurance. I take a Power Gel every 30 minutes.
I'll be honest, it has been an adjustment going from Perform to GE. Last year was my first time training/racing with Perform and I used the same amount (2 bottles an hour w/1 power gel every 30 minutes). It took no adjustment period whatsoever for me. This year with the Gatorade I feel like starting around the end of hour 2 my gut just was slowing down and staying TOO full. Over the last couple weeks it has gotten dramatically better to the point where this past Sunday I rode for 4.5 hours. I was actually finishing a bottle every 25 minutes without any problems. I took a powergel every 30 minutes and took a saltstick pill with every gel. For reference, I'm 5'11'' 168-170 lbs and pushed NP 240 for that ride.
My fueling for long rides has been very similar to Coach P's. I've been drinking 2 bottles an hour of Gatorade Endurance. I take a Power Gel every 30 minutes.
I'll be honest, it has been an adjustment going from Perform to GE. Last year was my first time training/racing with Perform and I used the same amount (2 bottles an hour w/1 power gel every 30 minutes). It took no adjustment period whatsoever for me. This year with the Gatorade I feel like starting around the end of hour 2 my gut just was slowing down and staying TOO full. Over the last couple weeks it has gotten dramatically better to the point where this past Sunday I rode for 4.5 hours. I was actually finishing a bottle every 25 minutes without any problems. I took a powergel every 30 minutes and took a saltstick pill with every gel. For reference, I'm 5'11'' 168-170 lbs and pushed NP 240 for that ride.
^This^ is my experience regarding what I feel like after 2hrs. I'll continue to work the problem...but Got Damn that's a lot of calories...
I have a feeling I'm going to settle into the 350-400/hr range while continuing to slam a bottle of water at admin stops to get in the additional fluid
I juts don't like that approach to training my body to drink caloric sports drinks during training. It's too many calories when I am using training rides to accomplish body comp objectives. This year, I gone the other way and "trained" my body to run on water and chewable calories. My race rehearsal went off the rails, for many reason, but a key factor was I switched to gatorade for no go reason at mile 50 for a treat. It was a bad idea.
I get what you're saying about the volume of sports drinks, etc. However, I think it's counter productive to use the venue of a bike ride as a calorie restricting activity to achieve weight loss gains. It's better to pay attention to diet before and after the ride vs during the ride.
I juts don't like that approach to training my body to drink caloric sports drinks during training. It's too many calories when I am using training rides to accomplish body comp objectives. This year, I gone the other way and "trained" my body to run on water and chewable calories. My race rehearsal went off the rails, for many reason, but a key factor was I switched to gatorade for no go reason at mile 50 for a treat. It was a bad idea.
I get what you're saying about the volume of sports drinks, etc. However, I think it's counter productive to use the venue of a bike ride as a calorie restricting activity to achieve weight loss gains. It's better to pay attention to diet before and after the ride vs during the ride.
I hear what you are saying. Fuel a ride for a better workout. And, I have. 95% of training was with water and chewable calories. I typically felt great. No bonks or weakness. It just worked better for me. For my caloric dollar, I would rather drink bottles of easy to digest water, cause I need that liquid, rather than drink 6 bottles of gatorade cause I need the liquid and the calories come along for the ride... and the stomach issues.
For instance, in training, if conditions and your super human sweat rate required 11 bottles, would you do 11 bottles of gatorade for the liquid and just pay the calorie cost?
I would rather drink 11 bottles of water and manage my calories with easy to digest-works-better-for-me-food. I am not trying to under eat I just want to run leaner and avoid the bloat from ALL THAT GATORADE. Water is easier on my stomach. To keep the math SIMPLE. Let's say 11 bottles of Gatorade is 1650 calories. In a 5 hour ride that's about 330 calories of gatorade oder hour. I would rather drink water and manage easy to digest foods for 1000 calories total and better manage the impact on my stomach.
Gatorade is being used to fuel and hydrate. One product with two solves. I like two products specifically solving unique problems. Water for hydration and food for fuel. Then I can mange each up and down without one impacting the other.
I juts don't like that approach to training my body to drink caloric sports drinks during training. It's too many calories when I am using training rides to accomplish body comp objectives. This year, I gone the other way and "trained" my body to run on water and chewable calories. My race rehearsal went off the rails, for many reason, but a key factor was I switched to gatorade for no go reason at mile 50 for a treat. It was a bad idea.
I get what you're saying about the volume of sports drinks, etc. However, I think it's counter productive to use the venue of a bike ride as a calorie restricting activity to achieve weight loss gains. It's better to pay attention to diet before and after the ride vs during the ride.
I hear what you are saying. Fuel a ride for a better workout. And, I have. 95% of training was with water and chewable calories. I typically felt great. No bonks or weakness. It just worked better for me. For my caloric dollar, I would rather drink bottles of easy to digest water, cause I need that liquid, rather than drink 6 bottles of gatorade cause I need the liquid and the calories come along for the ride... and the stomach issues.
For instance, in training, if conditions and your super human sweat rate required 11 bottles, would you do 11 bottles of gatorade for the liquid and just pay the calorie cost?
I would rather drink 11 bottles of water and manage my calories with easy to digest-works-better-for-me-food. I am not trying to under eat I just want to run leaner and avoid the bloat from ALL THAT GATORADE. Water is easier on my stomach. To keep the math SIMPLE. Let's say 11 bottles of Gatorade is 1650 calories. In a 5 hour ride that's about 330 calories of gatorade oder hour. I would rather drink water and manage easy to digest foods for 1000 calories total and better manage the impact on my stomach.
Gatorade is being used to fuel and hydrate. One product with two solves. I like two products specifically solving unique problems. Water for hydration and food for fuel. Then I can mange each up and down without one impacting the other.
A few years ago, I was all on board for using infinit. Loved the simple make-your-own formulas and food-and-hydration premise. After a few years of using it here in Texas, I had to stop. I had to separate my nutrition from hydration, otherwise I'd get too many calories by drinking it, when all I needed was water. My stomach was in full revolt with all that sloshing around! I believe this may be the same case as many have found for GE and training with what will be on course. I'm all for functionality, in the case of training for what you'll have to use and don't have to travel with it, etc. I'm now on nuun-flavored water for hydration and either Lara bars or honey stinger waffles for nutrition, on race day.
@Dino -- I totally get breaking down race day needs into three components - calories, hydration, and sodium/electrolytes - and then using individual components to serve each need so you can dial this one up and that one down as needed. But based on some the experiences here ("At first it made me feel sick but then I got used to it), and the simplicity of taking everything off the course, I'm willing to continue to experiment and see if I can achieve the same adaptations.
One of the admin difficulties I'm having is (1) carrying 4 bottles, (2) committing myself to drinking all four of them in ~2hrs, and (3) planning my rides to include and stopping at water sources to remix/hydrate. Last week I didn't do that -- didn't reload at any parks on the way back up the SGRT and didn't know there wasn't convenient water on the LB path on the way down -- got behind the hydration game and paid for it a bit on the way back up to Encanto.
One of the admin difficulties I'm having is (1) carrying 4 bottles, (2) committing myself to drinking all four of them in ~2hrs, and (3) planning my rides to include and stopping at water sources to remix/hydrate. Last week I didn't do that -- didn't reload at any parks on the way back up the SGRT and didn't know there wasn't convenient water on the LB path on the way down -- got behind the hydration game and paid for it a bit on the way back up to Encanto.
I did a lot of experimenting earlier this summer with fasted rides/runs on both hot and cool days, fluidless rides, etc trying to get an understanding of how long it would take me to bonk, when dehydration started impacting my performance in a measurable way, what my ability was to recover after feeling the symptoms, etc. The biggest thing that I learned was that the hydration is a much much more critical element than the calories, especially as it affects the run. My performance starts to deteriorate after about two hours or so without calories. It is more like 30 minutes without the fluids. Running on a hit day, I perform much much better if I carry something and sip continuously rather than hydrating every 10-15 minutes. On hot days, I can drink and process much more liquid that isn't sweet than I can sweet liquids.
All of this has moved me towards low-calorie drinks - like Skratch - and supplementing with chewables. I am looking at the rice cakes etc now to see if they work for me on the bike. I need about 250-300 calories per hour and my run is best if I take in about 24 oz of liquid each hour.
The admin of the chewables is really not a problem. The admin of the Skratch is a problem. I have a Shiv with the bladder - I get about 32 oz in mine - and a single bottle holder. I am looking at mixing a concentrated Skratch solution to squirt into my Shiv bladder as to mix with straight water. I'm thinking of carrying the solution is a soft flask. Not sure how this will work, but am going to try on this weekend's ride.
The key for me is to keep the fluid levels high and not too sweet.
I don't have any medical studies and only an n=1, but I use to sweat a lot...like @Rich describes. Then this past Feb, I significantly cut back on my gluten intake, and after about a week I was significantly sweating less on rides and runs. And my sinus congestion and nasal drainage during exercise decreased (and much less shooting of snot rockets!). I have noticed that on days when I eat gluten, I sweat more that day and the next. Just my personal experience.
@Dino -- I totally get breaking down race day needs into three components - calories, hydration, and sodium/electrolytes - and then using individual components to serve each need so you can dial this one up and that one down as needed. But based on some the experiences here ("At first it made me feel sick but then I got used to it), and the simplicity of taking everything off the course, I'm willing to continue to experiment and see if I can achieve the same adaptations.
One of the admin difficulties I'm having is (1) carrying 4 bottles, (2) committing myself to drinking all four of them in ~2hrs, and (3) planning my rides to include and stopping at water sources to remix/hydrate. Last week I didn't do that -- didn't reload at any parks on the way back up the SGRT and didn't know there wasn't convenient water on the LB path on the way down -- got behind the hydration game and paid for it a bit on the way back up to Encanto.
It's a puzzle - piecing together the hydration stops. There are some good liquid stops off the SGRT. The Rio Hondo is a desert.
I agree with living off the land on Race day. The chewable stuff I want travels well and is pretty common on the course. I will have things in my top tube bag and that is about it. Water will go between my arms (I don't like mix slashing on me up there), Gatorade on the down tube and likely another water bottle in my pocket for the climb back to T2. I am going to wear a cycling top over my singlet, so I will have extra pockets. Goal is probably going to be 3 or 4 water bottles gulped to each each gatorade sipped.
Comments
@Patrick- so so so agree with this! I HATED gatorade for the longest time, could not stomach it. But force feeding it after a while and I adjusted. I drank ~2 bottles/hr of disgustingly warm gatorade (orange soup, mmm) at IMCDA on the bike and this is my first race ever where I had no GI issues during or after. Hallelujah! I would love to get off of gatorade for many reasons, but the ease of having it on course makes it hard to leave.
Question for the Team: what cals/hr are people targeting (and succeeding with) on Ironman race day?
Personally, I'm confident I can get in about 300-350/hr, or about 1500-17xx cals across a 5hr bike as a mix of GE, water, and 1-2 gels per hour. And within ^this^ I could drink 2-3 bottles of fluid per hour, as 1x GE + 1.5 - 2x water. But I'm also confident that no way I could do >400hr and I currently feel like GE is literally shutting my stomach down. But I still have many, many long rides until race day so I'm open to continuing down "a" path. Not afraid to experiment on my rides, basically, so we can all continue to learn.
Basically, what I'm after is this: we've had the Core Diet stuff in the house for about 3 seasons that says to do X with regards to cals/hr, sodium/hr, and fluid intake. But I'm curious to hear what people, who have listened to the webinars and worked to implement the guidance, are actually doing and being successful with on race day.
And for the shirtless heavy sweaters...I've recently begun running with one of those yellow micro-fiber cloths. Start the run with it tucked in the back of my shorts, like a yellow tail, and then end up carrying it in loosely in my right hand. Hit my legs with it at lights, wipe my head whenever, etc. The net is that socks and shoes are much less squishy
For me it's 1-1 1/2 bottles of Perform per hour depending on temps, plus 3 Clif Blocks every 1/2 hour. Total of 410-515 cal per hour (I'm 165 lbs). I'm lucky to never have problems, but then I eat a huge amount of food and I think that may help me process lots of calories while training and racing.
I think it is important to remember that people burn drastically different amounts of calories on bike. You sub-5 hour 300 W people burn a heck of a lot more per hour than someone like me. If I fueled the same amount as Coach P, I'd be replacing more than I lost!
My big gripe with Core Diet (besides the fact that they told me I should only eat 980 cals/day in my consult... but that is a different story) is that they make it seem like there is only one way to skin a cat. I go with Gatorade because of the ease of it on course and was able to adapt. But I think there are many other very different fueling plans that could work very well, as long as you have tested them and they work for you. I saw Andy Pott's nutrition plan after CDA and it was shockingly little liquid, but obviously works for him!
My fueling for long rides has been very similar to Coach P's. I've been drinking 2 bottles an hour of Gatorade Endurance. I take a Power Gel every 30 minutes.
I'll be honest, it has been an adjustment going from Perform to GE. Last year was my first time training/racing with Perform and I used the same amount (2 bottles an hour w/1 power gel every 30 minutes). It took no adjustment period whatsoever for me. This year with the Gatorade I feel like starting around the end of hour 2 my gut just was slowing down and staying TOO full. Over the last couple weeks it has gotten dramatically better to the point where this past Sunday I rode for 4.5 hours. I was actually finishing a bottle every 25 minutes without any problems. I took a powergel every 30 minutes and took a saltstick pill with every gel. For reference, I'm 5'11'' 168-170 lbs and pushed NP 240 for that ride.
That's 48 oz fluid, 540 cal/hour, 1410 mg sodium, 446 mg potassium
^This^ is my experience regarding what I feel like after 2hrs. I'll continue to work the problem...but Got Damn that's a lot of calories...
I have a feeling I'm going to settle into the 350-400/hr range while continuing to slam a bottle of water at admin stops to get in the additional fluid
I get what you're saying about the volume of sports drinks, etc. However, I think it's counter productive to use the venue of a bike ride as a calorie restricting activity to achieve weight loss gains. It's better to pay attention to diet before and after the ride vs during the ride.
I hear what you are saying. Fuel a ride for a better workout. And, I have. 95% of training was with water and chewable calories. I typically felt great. No bonks or weakness. It just worked better for me. For my caloric dollar, I would rather drink bottles of easy to digest water, cause I need that liquid, rather than drink 6 bottles of gatorade cause I need the liquid and the calories come along for the ride... and the stomach issues.
For instance, in training, if conditions and your super human sweat rate required 11 bottles, would you do 11 bottles of gatorade for the liquid and just pay the calorie cost?
I would rather drink 11 bottles of water and manage my calories with easy to digest-works-better-for-me-food. I am not trying to under eat I just want to run leaner and avoid the bloat from ALL THAT GATORADE. Water is easier on my stomach. To keep the math SIMPLE. Let's say 11 bottles of Gatorade is 1650 calories. In a 5 hour ride that's about 330 calories of gatorade oder hour. I would rather drink water and manage easy to digest foods for 1000 calories total and better manage the impact on my stomach.
Gatorade is being used to fuel and hydrate. One product with two solves. I like two products specifically solving unique problems. Water for hydration and food for fuel. Then I can mange each up and down without one impacting the other.
A few years ago, I was all on board for using infinit. Loved the simple make-your-own formulas and food-and-hydration premise. After a few years of using it here in Texas, I had to stop. I had to separate my nutrition from hydration, otherwise I'd get too many calories by drinking it, when all I needed was water. My stomach was in full revolt with all that sloshing around!
I believe this may be the same case as many have found for GE and training with what will be on course. I'm all for functionality, in the case of training for what you'll have to use and don't have to travel with it, etc.
I'm now on nuun-flavored water for hydration and either Lara bars or honey stinger waffles for nutrition, on race day.
@Dino -- I totally get breaking down race day needs into three components - calories, hydration, and sodium/electrolytes - and then using individual components to serve each need so you can dial this one up and that one down as needed. But based on some the experiences here ("At first it made me feel sick but then I got used to it), and the simplicity of taking everything off the course, I'm willing to continue to experiment and see if I can achieve the same adaptations.
One of the admin difficulties I'm having is (1) carrying 4 bottles, (2) committing myself to drinking all four of them in ~2hrs, and (3) planning my rides to include and stopping at water sources to remix/hydrate. Last week I didn't do that -- didn't reload at any parks on the way back up the SGRT and didn't know there wasn't convenient water on the LB path on the way down -- got behind the hydration game and paid for it a bit on the way back up to Encanto.
I did a lot of experimenting earlier this summer with fasted rides/runs on both hot and cool days, fluidless rides, etc trying to get an understanding of how long it would take me to bonk, when dehydration started impacting my performance in a measurable way, what my ability was to recover after feeling the symptoms, etc. The biggest thing that I learned was that the hydration is a much much more critical element than the calories, especially as it affects the run. My performance starts to deteriorate after about two hours or so without calories. It is more like 30 minutes without the fluids. Running on a hit day, I perform much much better if I carry something and sip continuously rather than hydrating every 10-15 minutes. On hot days, I can drink and process much more liquid that isn't sweet than I can sweet liquids.
All of this has moved me towards low-calorie drinks - like Skratch - and supplementing with chewables. I am looking at the rice cakes etc now to see if they work for me on the bike. I need about 250-300 calories per hour and my run is best if I take in about 24 oz of liquid each hour.
The admin of the chewables is really not a problem. The admin of the Skratch is a problem. I have a Shiv with the bladder - I get about 32 oz in mine - and a single bottle holder. I am looking at mixing a concentrated Skratch solution to squirt into my Shiv bladder as to mix with straight water. I'm thinking of carrying the solution is a soft flask. Not sure how this will work, but am going to try on this weekend's ride.
The key for me is to keep the fluid levels high and not too sweet.
It's a puzzle - piecing together the hydration stops. There are some good liquid stops off the SGRT. The Rio Hondo is a desert.
I agree with living off the land on Race day. The chewable stuff I want travels well and is pretty common on the course. I will have things in my top tube bag and that is about it. Water will go between my arms (I don't like mix slashing on me up there), Gatorade on the down tube and likely another water bottle in my pocket for the climb back to T2. I am going to wear a cycling top over my singlet, so I will have extra pockets. Goal is probably going to be 3 or 4 water bottles gulped to each each gatorade sipped.