I asked a nutrition question about endurance triathlons…Wow, did I get some answers.
I’ll sum them up here.
I have been training for endurance length triathlons for a couple of years now. You can see my first four races here (my 5th attempt is next week)
My first one in Sardinia was a disaster even though I completed my goal, which was simply to finish it (These are all half Ironmans, or 70.3 triathlons, I am working up to a full). I wish I had read the article I am currently writing before I did that one. At the end of the bike, I could not down another calorie, my stomach was so upset. I basically walked the run in the 90 degree weather. At the end I collapsed on the ground, every leg muscle cramped up and I could not stand for 30 minutes.
However, race by race you can see I improved, just learning more about accomplishing this thing. I can explain the step down in my last race in Santa Cruz. Jet Blue ‘lost’ my bike (even though they and I knew exactly where it was) and it was not delivered before the race. I broke every rule about “nothing new on race day” down to my swim goggles.
In every single race, I crap out in the run. Less in my race in France, but that was because the temperature was high 60’s and felt great! But I still walked a little bit. So I have come to believe that I am not doing nutrition properly.
I am a salty sweater
After every race, I have a fine powders falling off me. My crotch and butt have white lines like I am trying to smuggle cocaine and the package broke. My eyes sting like fire when sweat falls into them. I am what is known as a salty sweater.
When I improved my sodium intake, my races improved. When I raced with only simple carbs, my racing improved. So I think I am training enough to make me happy, but failing to replace what I lose properly. When I look at my calorie losses from my apple watch, I thought I needed to replace them all. When I looked at the salt I needed to replaced, the amounts were enormous. So I went on reddit (the triathlon subreddit there is excellent and responsive) and asked how the hell everyone was replacing this much stuff.
The short answer is: They aren’t. Everyone weighs less after a race. The goal is to keep your weight loss less than 2%, replenish as much carbohydrates as you can, and take in enough electrolytes. So let’s get into the details.
The Handbook of Sustenance
(or how to do nutrient replacement in a race)
Here is the post (you’ll find my final edit repeated below). I got a lot of great comments, some snark, and some “well you kinda suck” comments which i find easy to ignore or laugh at. I mean, I’m no pro, I’m not winning this thing. I just want to keep doing a little better.
So here is a summary. .
Salty Sweaters
tl;dr salt replacement may not be as important as you may think, especially if you aren’t a salty sweater. Replace 35–65% of your salt loss rate as measured by a lab. This chart is super helpful.
The first part is funny..
Salty sweaters: “Here is how I deal with my salt loss…”
Non salty sweaters: “Salt replacement is a myth”
I don’t think the non-salty sweaters feel our pain. HOWEVER, the myth part is around the idea (which has evidence) that salty sweaters just normally eat more salt, and it comes out in the sweat. If we ate less salt, we wouldn’t be a salty sweater. While this is possible, I am not convinced this is real as I don’t have a high salt intake…but then again, I have not seen a comprehensive study around this where salty sweaters don’t replace their salt to any degree and perform the same (the article above cites something but only in cool temperatures, where even I don’t have much of a problem). Just seems that my body is used to whatever it’s been doing for years, and changing things during an endurance event would never be positive.
Anyway, the way to replace salt is to get your the salt content of your sweat measured, and replace it in your water, but at a lower concentration (35–65%) than your sweat according to this chart.
Carb intake
tl;dr Consume 60–90 grams of carbs per hour unless you have trained yourself for me.
I was trying to replace lost calories. But carb intake has a rate limitation. Seems that normal carb intake is 60–90g per hour. Any more than this and you will be having stomach issues that you do not want in a race (I assume this is what has lead to all my race farting previously). You can train your body to take in up to 120g/hour. I didn’t look into that, because I am not going to do that. I assume it involves increasing your rate little by little. Some people start their day with complex carbs that take more time to break down, and finish their race with only liquid carbs or liquid and gels. So this means about a Maurten 160 gel every 30 minutes or maybe 3 Honey Stingers per hour.
Note on breakfast: I got more than one comment that I was killing myself because I was eating eggs before a race. I got the idea from a GTN video. They have suggested that the morning should be designed around topping up glycogen stores. So complex carbs 2–3 hours before race time. Bread, cereal. use the prior days to get your glycogen stores as high as possible, your job is to allow the depletion to happen a slow as you can, but it will happen, and there is nothing you can do about it.
How do people feel about amino acid pills before and during a 70.3?
Hydration
tl;dr The normal maximum rate of water intake is about 1 liter per hour. If you sweat a lot more than that, replace 70–80% of it to try to keep your race weight loss to 2%.
Hydration is tough, because it is race day dependent. Water loss is different depending on temperature and humidity. I measured my water loss over 35 different training activities (and you can too, but record temperature so you can see its effect), and have a good idea of my water loss vs temp vs intensity. And if it’s hot out…it’s really high. I have measured a water loss rate of 2L/hour and higher multiple times in 80+ degree weather.
The problem is, that hydration rates normally max out at 1L/hour. However according to this site, it seems that the fountains of sweat that some of us are, can take in more, but can not expect to replace all the water loss. We should only expect to replace 70–80% of the loss. So for me, if I am racing in 85 degree weather, I would have to focus on replacing 1.5L/hour and not more. Also, my numbers tell me that I lose more water running than biking.
Happy racing!
(if you think I still have things wrong here, and want to edumacate me even more, feel free to drop a comment! I am always all ears for more information)
