I did IM Louisville last weekend and had a small problem that prevented he from having the race of my life and I can’t nail down what was the issue. I went vary easy on the swim and came out of the water in great shape. I did not drink any on the nasty water. I hydrated well and took plenty of calories down on the bike with no problem. I did take 25 e-caps, as I knew the run would be hot. I was a little fatigued coming off the bike. But, I felt good and I quickly got my running legs under me. Then at the 2 mile mark it hit me like a brick and I had to stop at the pot-a-jon. I felt much better and was right back on pace. Then at mile 6 it hit me again, then again and again. I slowed down, drank more water, cooled by body with ice water, nothing seemed to help. I stopped a total of seven times and still ran a solid marathon. Any idea what could have caused it?
Have you ever taken that many e-caps before? That sounds excessive. The saltiness of Gatorade used to screw with my stomach like crazy and it’s nowhere near as salty as an e-cap.
My wife who I also coach had a simliar problem. She was taking in water, calories and loads of salt. She was confusing mine and others recommendations and decided she needed everything. But, she was “not understanding” was that you need to keep the concentrations relatively low. Once she got her “liquid” calories, salt and water in the right concentration she stopped having problems.
Here are my guidelines that have worked with the athlete’s I coach. Some stick exactly to this and others use them with some flexibility. The main thing is that they all follow the core principle:
!!! Concentration is king - keep the concentration of everything that ends up in your stomach to 310 osmo’s or less (fluid, calories, salt)
Guidelines:
AVOID solids race day - solid in, solid out is my wife’s saying. Solids are slower to digest and have a high tendancy to plug the gut up. Even avoid in your pre-race breakfast.
Mix your drinks according to the directions. Most (not all) drinks on the shelf will end up around 300 osmo’s if you follow the directions exactly. If you add salt to this then you are going over the concentration.
If you are adding more calories or salt to your mix then you need to dilute your drinks or take more water seperately. I do not have any easy answer to say how much salt = this much more water.
Calories have a much bigger impact on concentration than salt does.
How many calories? 1g/kg (or 2.2lbs of BW) is where you want to start.
How much salt? Most drinks have salt in them. 200-400mg/hr is fine for the bike. You won’t lose much. If you are a heavy/salty sweater you can start taking in more salt in the final 1/3 of the bike. 300-500mg on the run will work for most people. But for some people the needs are quite different. 1000+mg may be necessary for the few heavy/salty sweaters.
Use a maltodextrin based drink with simple sugars added (infinit is a great example of how to mix).
Avoid protein in your drinks, they add quite a bit to the osmolality.
You must try this in training over and over until you get it right. It will never be the same on race day. But, you know for sure if that if it does not work in training then it definetly won’t work on race day. You may want to schedule specific sessions to mimic race conditions so that you gain confidence in it. (i.e. 5 hour ride, with 3hrs at IM pace at the end followed by 30-45 minute brick at IM pace with lots of easy training before and after that session).
Listen to your body on race day (and training). If you are bloating up then back off. Feel great or hungry and then add some more.
This works! Many athlete’s don’t want to hear this and complain that they need something solid on race day. I thought I did. When you are racing, you won’t even notice that you are not taking in solids.
I too had lower G.I. problems in lou. I visited 8 of the 10 first porta-johns. someone in the race (bless you lady in blue) had immodium. It helped, but boy was my marathon split shot. I never recovered.
I did the same problem of when I ran my first solo marathon. I drank too much and was peeing every aid station except this time was not urination that was stopping me. My second solo marathon was smarter and less of a problem. I will do the sweat/water loss ratio training for my next race.
I could not run and therefore my HR was 30 beats below my goal for average on the whole marathon leg. I still had a blast and great first I.M. but would like to have run it…so I think I will!.. next time!
Although I had a rough day at IMC last week. My stomach felt great. I had so many problems my first few IM’s until I started following those guidelines. I have had lots of positive experiences helping athlete’s fix their nutrition problems with those guidelines. At the IM Hawaii conference 3 years ago, they went over a survey of athlete’s from a previous IM. Nutrition and Pacing problems were the #1 and #2 factors that caused disappointing races. So I spent even more time making sure I was giving the right information out to people.
I saw your post from awhile ago that you were researching drinks. Let me us know how it works out for you…the more examples of what works and what doesn’t gives us all more tricks to share with other athlete’s.
Thanks for the good info. I think my body was trained so much better than my results ended up being because of nutrition. You really can’t simulate race day in training, can you? Well, I’ll try to get it worked out for next time.
Just keep in mind that 1g/kg BW is a place to start to ensure you can avoid stomach issues. The fitter you are and faster you go, you will more than likely need >1g/kg to hold those faster paces. However, you still can go quite fast on the 1g/kg. Key is to listen to your body in training and racing to add or slow down your intake. If nutrition is slowing you down (i.e. making you walk) then you should nail the 1g/kg plan first and then work your way up.
For 1g/kg (or 2.2lbs of BW), do you mean grams of carbs, or number of calories? Initially, I thought you mean calories, but 60 calories per hour for me would be really low.
Miranda, definelty. I can pretty much guarentee my metabolism is higher than yours but I have gone under 9:40 in mulitple IMs on 1 to 1.5 g/kg and I know many other male/female athletes that go under 11hrs on 1g/kg. If your stomach can handle 2X or more than that then great, I am working on it. If others are not handling larger amounts then 1g/kg is a lot faster than walking with cramps or bloating.
