I use whatever is available but I probably have a strong stomach. I think it is very personal so I suggest you try some brands yourselves to see what works for you. I know there is quit a few triathletes/cyclists that cannot tolerate certain brands of nutrition.

Like the poster above, I just go with the course nutrition. One less thing to pack and prepare on race day.

My personal experience has been that my stomach copes fine with pretty much any brand and flavour so long as I'm not pushing the limits on calorie absorption. And this is the case for any distance up to and including 70.3, you can get through those shorter races with a fairly conservative nutrition strategy. I.e. The amount of calories/hour you need to fuel a 70.3 is quite a bit lower than the amount of calories/hour your body is capable of processing. Things get trickier for IM, where the longer race duration means that you need to push much closer to the limit of what your body can absorb per hour. I think this is where you need to test things in training more and check that you can take on enough calories while at race pace (and in race conditions, heat can be a big factor). That's where sensitivities to different brands and types of nutrition come more into play.

What distance? Olympic and shorter shouldn't require anything special.

For me anything upto 4:30 to 5hours gels only with a couple of salt sticks. Don't really get on with energy drink so I don't take any.

Full distance I need to take in solids.

You'll need to figure out what works for you ultimately. But I agree it's always nice having an idea of what others do as nutrition is a massive part of performance perticularly 70.3 and above.

There are a bunch of very informative threads if you search by 'race nutrition' or something like that.
After several experiments I've switched to all-liquid nutrition. I try to use as many 300 calories bottles of Gatorade + 2 scoops of Carbo-Pro as I can.

Marathon: 1 bottle + the second part 2 gels + gatorade if they don't have special needs. If there are special needs then 2 bottles.
70.3: 2 bottles on the bike, 1 on the run
140.6: 4 bottles on the bike, 2 on the run. Half of the supplies are packed in the special needs bags.

on the bike, I've switched to tailwind for my liquid nutrition. I've found it tastes the least foul warm compared to others I've tried. I most carry some gu gels on the bike just in case. If I need more than that, I take whats on the course. On the run, I take whatever is on the course. I start taking in coke pretty quickly. And then gels, chips, pretzels, whatever my body is craving. I've done a handful of halfs but only one full distance. In the full distance, the second half of the run I ate mostly chips and drank coke and water.

I like Carbo-pro too, I mix it with Skratch

I try to keep it simple...this is what I usually do for an IM and assuming its a warm race

Swim....well nothing you're in the water.

Bike...6 bottles of Roctane. 3 on the bike and 3 change out with special needs bag. Shot blocks, one about every 15 min. I have to 2 bags of them. I take them out of the rappers they come in and put them in small bags in my binto box. One bag I consume on the first half the second bag I change out when I change bottles from my special needs bag. I also carry a few GU gels in case I need some extra energy. Also I carry some Salt Lick tabs and use one per bottle of fluid. Easy to carry and helps with electrolytes on the run. If I need more fluid than what I have in 6 bottles I use what's ever at the aid stations which I usually don't need but you never know.

Run: I carry a few GU gels so if I need something in between aid stations I have them. Also carry more Salt tabs because I lose a lot of NACL during the run when its warm/hot. Most aid stations usually have what you need on the run.

I literally do this exact same thing with the same brands!

Having just done one full, I am also experimenting with this.

at that race I used a combination of roctane gels I brought and gatorade endurance from on course for both the bike and run. It worked ok I did feel some GI issues on the run but was able to keep it together.

Been trying out infinti during training and really like it. Doing another full in July and I am entertaining the idea of carrying single serve packs of infinti.

In combination with a speedfil bta, mixing the packets with on course water to fulfill my on bike nutrition. Any body have experience with doing something similar? Haven't tried such a thing but theoretically it seems easy enough and a conservative plan.

the salt will suck the fluid out of the cells, why do that? the electrolytes should be enough?

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Triathlon is hard. We like it that way.

Check out the conversation we just had with Andy Blow (see the link below) the founder of Precision Hydration. He talks a good bit about fueling and personalization to the athlete. Personally, I have not used PH yet, but I have had good success with a mix of bars, gels, EFS-Pro, and Skratch Labs items, depending on the distance and weather of the course.




You can also find the podcast on Spotify, Anchor, or other podcast places if you don’t have time to sit and watch the video.

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https://www.endurancelab.fit
https://www.teamodz.com
https://discuss.endurancelab.fit

My plan went out the window in my 1st Full. Gels got to me by the run. Switched to solids at the aid station and that revived me.

During the back half of the run I had a buffet of Cliff bars and pretzels, bananas - and fig Newtons I brought with me. It was awesome.