Bonking in an IM, what do you do if the following is happening? Lets assume it is on the run…
Bloated?
Energy Crash?
Too much electrolytes?
Too little electorlytes? (This may be obvious?)
Have I forgotten any?
Bonking in an IM, what do you do if the following is happening? Lets assume it is on the run…
Bloated?
Slow down until it goes away
Energy Crash?
Mow down at the aid station
Too much electrolytes?
Dunno
Too little electorlytes? (This may be obvious?)
Broth
Have I forgotten any?
What you need to do is starting working it backwards and finding out where things got off the rails. Bonks don’t just happen. The caloric math for an IM or any endurance event like this is fairly straight forward. Beyond about the one hour mark you need to be taking in roughly 250 - 350 calories of carbohydrate/hour. And you need to keep doing this until about 30 or so minutes are left in the run. That’s it. Now, how you achieve this, is up to you. The options these days are endless - to the point of being totally confusing. The best way to sort things out is to sort out a plan in training, and then as best you can stick to it during the race.
Final point, and this is a point that few seem to get or understand - even some of the best triathkletes in the world - Part of being “successful” at IM distance racing is having an Iron-gut. Having the ability to keep shoving the calories in, when you feel like crap and you keep on going no matter what.
To get nutriments and electrolytes to your blood, a sport drink must be isotonic.
A drink is considered isotonic if its cho concentration is between 30 to 60 gr/l.
However, isotonia varies with temperature, the higher the temp, the lower the concentration of the drink. During hot summer races (most Ironman races),a 30 gr/liter drink will probably be considered as an isotonic sport drink.
So 30gr of CHO x 4kcal = 120 kcal, or in mild temperature 45 x 4 = 180kcal
Knowing that the average athlete can only ingest , due to gastric limitations, an average of 1 liter of liquids/hour, I wonder how one can go over 120-180 kcal/hour during a hot day racing, and avoid gastric problems related to a non-isotonic drink…
Everything Flek said. One pro told me once to start hitting the caffeine ASAP.
I have seen those numbers to and they are much lower than what I know that many people are taking in. I am guessing that more than a few are taking in too many calories, overwhelming the system, which results in gastric shut down, then a mild bonk then taking in way more calories, causing more gastric distress, and a viscious cycle gets going.
It’s a fine line that you have to find, but to be successful at this it’s important to find out where that line is for you.
When I was racing IM’s years ago - used energy bars on the bike at a rate of about one an hour( 200 calories/bar) and grabbed water as needed. Then on the run it was gatorade/water and then coke for the last 90 minutes. This was simple almost fail-proof plan that worked well for me. I only had to worry about grabbing water on the bike. No messing around with fancy formulas, or worrying about what the on-course drink was, or what was in my special needs bag or would it be there.
Good advice…
Can you clarify your question? Are you asking about how to deal with a bonk, or too much electrolytes (does that ever happen?)
or too little? Or an ‘energy crash’ (what is that?)
Each situation is a specific case. You need to replace electrolytes during a race, but you won’t have too many because you immediately excrete the excess…(but I’m sure it’s happened to someone, somewhere).
Bonking is a very specific situation where the liver runs out of it’s glucose stores…while the muscles will typically still have glycogen stored. If you encounter a bonk it’s because you aren’t properly trained for the situation. The treatment is to ingest carbs immediately.
From your description, it seems you were possibly short of electrolytes, and also took in way too many calories early on. You should work this out in training, but in the heat of battle many feel more is good. That’s really not the case with calories.