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Water as hydration on run - own nutrition on race day athlete.

Leslie SedlakLeslie Sedlak
in Races & Places 🏁⛺
I recently listened to @Coach Patricks podcast on racing in the heat.  I am an athlete who races with all of my own nutrition (my gut does not race well with Fructose).  One comment he made was "Water is for on your body, not IN your body".  While on the ride I'm good with this.  I bring my own water bottles full of my electrolytes/calories, and add same to my front water bottle as I add aid station water.  But on the run, I run with my chews/gus/whatever, and then grab sips of water from the aid stations when I add calories.  

Any thoughts on this?  Or ways to do this better?  Or is this OK, since I'm just adding the aid station water to help process the calories?

Note:  For any athletes who have a problem with fructose on race day, I have found nuun for electrolytes, and UCAN works really well.  I don't train with UCAN much because it's so pricey.  Once I found it works on race day, I am typically good with other foods/bars during training.  Also I use the Skratch bites on the run, and sometimes Huma gels (simply less space and less to carry - so easy to bring in case I may need some extra nutrition on race day).  
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    Trish MarshallTrish Marshall
    I have been reworking my nutrition and also use water plus chews, salt tabs.  I am not fast.  I still have gut issues to resolve.  I've been racing for 10 years and still don't have the magic formula so your mileage may vary.  :)

    Hopefully @Sheila Leard will chime in.  I feel  like what works great for one person may wreck someone else!  Mostly because I've tried a lot of stuff others have recommended and not found my way just yet.  

    to your note...I have been trying UCAN once again (tried it in 2013 as well, but am a more fat adapted athlete now) and it still bothers me with bloating and gas.  It is a resistant starch and my gut doesn't seem to love it.  Not the same issues as before, but not smooth sailing either.  I'm now trying EFS pro.  We shall see lol. 
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    Scott AlexanderScott Alexander
    For the first 7 years or so of my "career", I used pre-packaged nutrition, such as Gatorade, Accelerade and Infinit.

    It didn't take long for me to realize, that here in Texas, you need to drink more often without calories. So, about 8 years ago, I switched to Nuun for hydration, Larabars and Honey Stinger for my calories. (disclaimer: I'm sponsored by both Nuun and HS now, but wasn't when I switched). I also use Untapped maple syrup packets for nutrition. Love me some Maple!

    Like Trish said, it's still not a magic formula, but generally has worked well over that time. You have to find what works for you, for taste and caloric needs.


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    Paul HoughPaul Hough
    I depend on water during my runs in the Tampa summer...there aren't a lot of other options on my routes.  But I take gels and salt tabs in addition.  For an IM run, I carry my own Clif Block Chews, Gu, and Salt/Magnesium tabs and use water to take it down.   Later in the race I'll shift to coke.  
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    John WolfeJohn Wolfe
    Leslie, I tend to agree with your plan.  At 180 lbs while racing, I'm usually shooting for about 400 cal/hr on the bike and around 100cal/hr on the run.  My experience has been that I start to get stomach pains if chasing gels/blocks with sports drinks.   Much less distress if I drink small amounts of water after those semi-solids.   I would offer that the first sections of Feed Zone Portables by Allen Lim provides some strong background on our ability to consume and absorb nutrition during races.   Much of his discussion includes the tonicity (concentration) of that nutrition.  In general, concentrated foods/fluids can slow intestinal absorption and cause GI distress.  The goal is to have an approximate 4% concentration in the intestine to maximize uptake of water and calories.  I think straight Gatorade is about 4-5% as an example.  Obviously, gels and blocks or most other solid sports nutrition is more concentrated and if washed down with a sports drink, the intestinal concentration will be much higher.  So I added the water.   Now on a very hot day where sweat loss is greater, sticking with just sports drink might work out well.  But to get to 400 cal/hr, I'd have to drink 2.5 bottles of gatorade/hr.   And on a not so hot day, that would equate to a number of porta-potty visits for me.  

    I understand that having intake with a low tonicity can cause similar GI distress so drinking large quantities of water is likely to cause problems as well.  And, of course, there's no nutrition, let alone the sodium and other electrolytes that we need.  My personal experience seems to support some water after those semi-solid gels and blocks - less GI distress.  

    For the run, I've found that sticking with sports drinks works best for me.   Gels seem to take longer to process and lead to an upset stomach.

    Just my opinion and I've had my share of GI "fails" in the past.  I look forward to more input here.  
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    Leslie SedlakLeslie Sedlak
    Thanks all for the abundant info!!  I'm just finishing up my race plan for 70.3 Boulder - Plan is to front load with UCAN before the swim and on the bike, use NUUN on the bike to get in my electrolytes, then do my typical food on the bike with a little extra that last hour on the bike.  Then going to try a bit more calories during the first three miles of the run while I'm going slower and see how that carries me.  On my run the last two weekends, I have really been able to tell when I needed sugar.  I start to feel my legs and take in 50-80 calories, and by the end of the mile, my HR is down and I'm going faster.  Those instances start happening closer and closer together - which is where I really need to watch it.  If I can keep it to longer than every 3 miles, I'm good to go.  If I have to add nutrition because of fatigued legs any closer together, my tummy doesn't have time to process.  

    Long way of saying, I'm going to stick to skratch gummies on the run and only taking in water when I'm taking in those, unless it's really hot......then all bets are off and it will be a good data point day!

    Thanks all, I'll be posting my race plan in the coming hour!

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    Leslie SedlakLeslie Sedlak
    An Additional note that I've heard people doing - putting all of their gus in a water bottle, with water to dilute it, and marking the bottle with line of how much to take in when drinking.  Just another piece of info to digest - literally :)
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