The #1 Thing About EN has NOTHING to do with the 2 Coaches....
...it's the 400+ members. Case in point, this email hit my inbox today...on a Sunday.
Please, please, PLEASE tell me where else in the triathlon space you will find this goodness.
Of course, this goes next to Matt S's heat pace prognosticator, our running with pace protocol, our renown racing with power system and more. Man, this team rocks!
"Hello Coaches,
Is it that I'm just noticing or was there a carnage on our team at IMWI with puking, dehydration, and Jim Hansen with hyponatremia? It was a bit warmer and drier than forecasted on race day, but not to the tune of Tarzan/IMLou/Kona weather.
As I carry the dubious title of Sodium Nazi in Da Haus, I've been thinking about executing race day nutrition plan alot lately. Hasan Baydoun and I have been emailing and geeking out with all the physiology and research of IM hydration and serum sodium levels. We're going to put together a SIMPLE plan that anyone can follow---cuz there's no point in having a nutrition plan if you can't absorb it. I'm planning on having Michele Cellai's husband, Max, look at it too. He's an ICU doc and has to be way smarter than 2 surgeons cooking up a race day plan to monitor one's hydration. 
I'm hoping to have a finished product for you within 2 weeks and would like see what you think...
Kitima"
Comments
Awesome! There is nothing more painful than watching 2 surgeons perseverating over physiology.
Fantastic - thanks Kitima, Hasan + Max!
Kitima knows I've been banging my head about sodium and S-caps here for years--a few takers, not many. The sodium thing is critical, and thank gawd there will finally be docs here backing this up and presenting a plan. I hope people will really take heed. It can make ALL the difference.
As one of those people at IMWI with dehydration issues I can't wait to learn from this.
Thanks Kit, Hasan and Max!! I know Max is not on here, but maybe we could make him an honary member...because this is gonna help a whole lot of peeps! wow are we blessed in this haus or what
Awesome! And let us know if you want sodium/fluid intake data for IMWI.
Although my achilles was my "achilles" @ ; IMWI, the one thing I really focused on was sodium intake & I think this helped me overall. I took in a minimum of 500mg/hr.
More info on this can do nothing but help folks out more. Thanks for the geekness !!
Hi Ben,
I think it is best to take the paragraph in the spirit of "we, collection of team members, saw noticed something odd in race execution that happened to multiple people. So, we decided to use our awesome powers of medical nerdery and work on it."
That's the cool part.
And, no, my triathlon plan all by itself has never given me food poisoning/caused me to puke/etc. In fact, the past advice from these same people about sweat trials, salt caps, monitoring fluid intake led me to have a pretty awesome day, nutritionwise. When the med types have nutrition issues, the rest of us know there's something bigger going on.
So, I expect what will happen is a pretty amazing guide to troubleshooting race nutrition problems, and probably research on lake water effect on people. Like did I have a better day because I rinsed my sinses (I know, gross) with saline before the race and didn't spend the day with Lake Monona up my nose?
Beth is right - please keep in mind the spirit that the original message was trying to convey. We all knew the conditions at IMWI just were not all that bad. But we also noticed what seemed to us to be an unusually high percentage of folks with GI issues (compared with other races where the team has raced). The outcome of having so many folks end up with GI issues (compared to other races) left us all kinda scratching our heads. The kind docs are trying to help us all figure out why that might have occured and come up with a tool so we don't have a repeat.
We could sit around here and just ignore the issues or hide our heads in the sand. But that's not the kind of team we are. We work together to figure out how to constantly improve our system. So we are brutally honest about performance and execution.
Beth & Nemo,
Great points. I too had some stomach issues and was a little disappointed with my race. The other 2 guys I went up there with had similar symptoms as well. The 3 of us are still a little perplexed and have no choice, but to write it off as a coincidence and accept a mediocre race. I do like the idea of now putting 100 heads together (many of them pretty good heads, if I understand correctly!) and maybe coming up with some solutions or at least recommendations.
Thanks for your comments
This is exactly what you can do, and what happens, on this team. And often times the LAST doodes you want to get advice from on some topics are PnI. We know what we know, what we don't know, and often defer to the professionals we have on the Team for advice like this.
I can tell you "in my experience this and that" but these folks will back up their recommendations with actual data, medical studies, etc. Eager to see what they come up with!