Justin,

Thanks so much for the advice. I actually gave it a go this past weekend and had somewhat mixed results. I'm not sure my super concentrated bottles were correctly measured and on top of that, unless the BTA was empty, I had no idea how much to squeeze in. Any add'l specifics you could provide on how you make it work would be very much appreciated.

Also, pretty cool that you responded because I have seen most of your videos.

Thanks again,

Jeff

I started using based on the recommendation from multiple trail runners during a 50 miler. I train with Tropical Buzz caffeinated but will try Colorado Cola next. During long training rides it works well and I don't need as many gels.

That said, I had intended to use Tailwind for IMCdA back in June but just opted to use Gatorade Endurance (which I had used for years). During that long hot ride, I only drank Endurance and no water. It worked fine for me. In addition to Endurance, I ate two gels, one clif bar and one fig bar. No issues.

I've been training to use Tailwind exclusively for calories on the bike, for IM California coming up. I bought three 32 ounce bottles, and plan to have two 2-hour bottles on my bike, with one additional 2-hour bottle in bike special needs bag. I use 7 scoops per bottle, putting me at 350 calories and 16 ounces of fluid. I take an additional ~20 ounces of fresh water from BTA (I sweat a lot, ok!). I also add about .5 tsp of pink salt to get on the higher end of sodium intake. It's been working well for me so far. YMMV.

Cheers.

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"I drank what?!?!" - Socrates
Poor Swimmer. Weak Cyclist. Slow Runner.
TriDot Ambassador / Sacramento Triathlon Club

👋 Small triathlon world. :)

Yeah, I've got lines on my concentrated bottle in thirds, should have clarified that. So a little more detailed, I've found that concentrating more than about 1000 calories / 10 scoops in a bottle gets pretty goopy. 13 scoops would be... probably doable, but not ideal. So if you're going for many hours off of 3 total bottles, you could do something like: setting off with a BTA at 1x concentrate good for one hour, and a BTS bottle with 3 hours of nutrition concetrated. Once the BTA is empty, add 1/3 of your BTS bottle to it and top with water. Repeat the next two hours. So now you're getting 4 hours of nutrition out of two bottles, which will get you to SN at cutoff pace (or juuuuuust before it?) at 333 cals/hour. Could easily stretch another hour out of a 1000cal bottle if you're doing 250/hr or supplementing from the aids. I run an XLab Torpedo which holds 26oz, so if it's empty, you squirt in a third of your bottle of concentrate, and top with water, you're right in line with the Tailwind recommended osmolarity.

EDIT: Regarding "Unless the BTA was empty, didn't know how much to squeeze in..." Valid. I don't have a super specific answer to that, but for nutrition, I like to think more in terms of time than distance. So you know that each hour is going to be one BTA and one 1/3 of your bottle, for instance. This is where I think there's a lot of benefit running two BTA bottles (one concentrate, one water,) because then you're disconnected from the aid station timings.

Then at SN, you can either just take another concentrated bottle or have your concentrate bottle + a 1x to fill your BTA with right away. Protip, buy dollar bottled water for the bottles rather than using actual $10 water bottles for here since you'll have to toss them.

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JustinDoesTriathlon

Owner, FuelRodz Endurance.

Justin,

Wow, thanks so much for the detailed information and the strategy guidance. I will apply your advice this weekend and see how it goes. After trying so many different combos, it seems like Tailwind is the easiest one-stop shop for electrolytes & carbs with the added benefit of no stomach distress. Plus, it's actually palatable.

Also, thanks for your pro-tip on getting the cheapy throwaway bottles.

I switched from Infinit to Tailwind 18 months ago and have had great results. Not too sweet, no stomach distress for me but of course that's an individual preference.

I’ll chime in here too.

Did 4 bottles x 4 scoops of tailwind per bottle at IM Choo + 7 sis/maurten over ~5 hours. Took 1 20 oz bottle off the course each hour to balance out (~10 bottles total).

No issues. Concentrated naked tailwind goes down so easy and also solves for sodium.

How is Tailwind different than Gatorade Endurance? When I look at the labels, they appear to have relatively the same nutritional profile, but I never hear anyone considering GE for 100% of their needs for a race, nor is GE claiming to be enough just on it's own, so what am I missing?

I've always used GE for IM and 70.3 in the past and supplemented with gels throughout, mostly because it's easy. GE is on the course, so I don't have to stress about carrying all my nutrition with me. I used to start the race with 3 bottles of BASE hydro out of T1 and then switch GE when those bottles were done for the remainder of the race and it worked for me, but the last 2 containers of BASE I bought tasted like shit (did they change the formula?), so they went in the trash and I have gone exclusively to GE for the enter ride and my stomach is not happy about it. It has helped starting the ride with Lemon Lime then switching the course provided orange, but it hasn't completely solved the stomach issues. I have been considering going to a similar strategy that used to use with the BASE & GE with the tailwind replacing the BASE, but then I started reading about how much better TW supposedly is and how it can completely replace all nutrition and these questions started popping up in my head.

For me the bidlg difference between tailwind and Gatorade is that Gatorade is sugary sweet.

Tailwind (especially the unflavored variant) much more mild in the flavor department even when concentrated above the 2 scoops/bottle.

I think Gatorade at those concentrations would be too much for me to stomach and at lower concentrations isn't enough calories.

Tailwind explicitly says 1-2 scoops for shorter workouts or 3 for longer which in turn put it a different nutritional value than Gatorade (I presume).

Interesting. I never really considered the new GE formula to be sweet (compared to the older formula), but that may be what's getting me. That was one of the main reasons I started the first 2:15 of my bike with BASE in the past, because it was far less sweet and made using the GE the remainder of the ride much easier. I hate to make changes this close to a race, but I'm feeling desperate at this pint. May have to try TW out on my last longish ride this weekend and then just go with it. At this point, it can't be any worse than the GI issues I'm already having lately.

I never care about the flavor, so I can't give you the answer you want, but Tailwind is definitely better than UCan on the bike. I put concentrated Tailwind with electrolyte powder in a bottle on the downtube, and it taste great and goes down easy. I tried that with UCan once and UCan thickens up and wouldn't come out of the bottle. That was my mistake during 70.3. After that, I use Tailwind only on the bike and drink UCan before the race.

Thanks!

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"see the world as it is not as you want it to be"