It's not the drink mix.....it's the intensity that makes us sick

Triathlon Forum
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OK guys…now everyone is going to get twisted in a knot because they can’t get Gatorade on some WTC courses and its gonna be Powerbar Perform.

A few years ago, Darcy from Infinit Nutrition Canada asked me to try Infinit. I like how I can pack 500-700 calories in a bottle. I’ve done IM’s where I got all my calories off Infinit.

However, I told Darcy, “I don’t care how good Infinit is, I will still use ON COURSE NUTRITION to supplement Infinit”.

Now lots of people are running around trying to figure out how they can get access to Powerbar Perform to “test it out in training” before they race on it. While I don’t have an issue with testing out products before using it on race day (good plan) and as much as I’d love to blame all kinds of products for my problems on Ironman courses related to nutrition, the bottom line is that:

“Products never create Problems…I create my OWN Problems”

A couple of years ago, I was visiting at Tom Evans’ place before Ironman Canada and noted that he had one water bottle holder on his race bike. We joke around that on ST there are many dudes loaded down with week of groceries on their bike, and he said, “I just need one bottle. Ride hard for 2-3 hours. Stop in the middle, get a sub and drink, fill up my bottle and finish my long ride. If I can digest that, I can process anything on race day”. His point was that it is never what you take in that makes you sick, it’s just that the intensity is TOO HIGH.

I’ve never seen anyone get sick at Turkey Dinner or MacDonalds (OK, maybe a few) when the intensity is low (sitting around), but all kinds of tri guys (including me many times) and gals get sick off gatorade/infinite/powerbar stuff on the bike leg at triathlons!

I know Jesse Kropelnicki has his athletes including pint size folks like Cait Snow take in up to 600 calories an hour. Mark Allen did the same “back in the day”. Strauss tells us to top out at ~300 per hour cause being slightly under fuelled is better than overfuelled and you’re never more than 5 minutes away from “fuel top up”. I think Jesse’s approach is awesome if you can keep your intensity in check, however, I’ve had better success recently with the Stauss approach.

Bottom line, is I strongly believe you can work off “any on course nutrition” if you balance the intake with your pace, be it powerbar, gatorade, or infinit…in fact in my last half IM at Wildflower (going off the top of my head), I used 700 calories from infinit, 200-300 from Gatorade, 200 from powerbar and another 400 from powergels (leveraging calories from all companies).

…and yes, Darcy does support me, and I love the flexibility of Infinit as it is the equivalent of electrolytes+bars+gels+drink in one convenient form factor, but being flexible enought to use ANY on course nutrition by matching intake to pace is key to long course tri success.

Don’t get sucked into believeing that you can only use products from one vendor…your stomach has evolved for many generations to be able to break down a variety of nutrition…in the end most of this stuff is maltdextrin, dextrose, corn syrup, electrolytes and preservatives, with slightly different types of packaging.

Dev

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not always. some sugar solutions (and it’s all sugar unless it’s UCAN) in some individuals can cause problems. The way you make it sound is that this is a blanket solution. Far from the case but still the most apt first suggestion.

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Sorry Dev but in my specific case, Gatorade gives me wicked heartburn and sits like a rock in my stomach. No matter what I am doing. And I doubt you can call golf a high intensity sport. :slight_smile:

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shhhh
.

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Marky, sure, some things don’t come across totally in text. While some sugars make us react worse than others, the culprit is still intensity/degree of intensity…you might just have to go with lower intensity for some sugars. We can sit around and eat a birthday cake and not puke up, but if we start riding a powerbar might go down easier than the aforementioned birthday cake and pure maltodextrin with no protein might go down better than the powerbar, but in the end, it works out to degrees of intensity that different types of nutrition can be absorbed at (ex: Dr. Tommy’s subway example…I think there is bacon and cheese in that order too :slight_smile: ). The 24 hour racers and RAM guys are putting back pretty well everything. Even in the days of Lemond and Hinault the guys would get “Jambon et Fromage sur un baguette” in their musette…and those guys were riding harder than we are.

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So find a product you can go hard with and suck down.

Athlete is riding within known wattage parameters (which are already backed off from what should be) and still has digestion issues. In such a case do you tell the athlete to stop eating or go even slower. No, you find a product that let’s them race to their potential.

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Amen and amen.

Stomach problems are almost always pacing problems.

You obviously have to have a plan but most in LC racing ride too hard.

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Would you be better off with beer or Gatorade for the beer mile (just checking if the dextrose/High Fructose corn syrup/citric acid works worse for you than maltodextrin)?

Seriously though, if that is your case, you’re stuck going at lower intensity with on course nutrition or bringing all of your own so that you can go higher intensity. Or you can just take water off the course, bring your salt tabs and consume gels off the course…works out to the same thing as a maltodextrin based drink

Dev

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shhhh

x2! The “nutrition” excuses are some of the most entertaining posts on ST… :slight_smile:

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I resemble that remark!!! (the guys entertaining you with IM nutrition excuses…). I really think that Stauss’ guidelines are good.

As he said, you’re never more than a few minutes away from a fuel top up. Interestingly enough, in a half IM, I can take in 1400-1800 calories starting 30 minutes into the bike and ending 30 minutes before the end of the run. I’ve even experimented and done 2000…that’s 2000 in 3.5 hours or close to 600 per hour…and that’s at half IM intensity. But if I try to keep that rate up over an IM bike, the bucket just “overflows” and I end up on your ST entertainment list!!!

So perhaps there is an intensity component, absorption rate component and “size of bucket” component. For example…you one might take in a 2000 calorie turkey dinner in a sitting of 45 minutes, but you can’t take in 4000 over 90 minutes :-).

Dev

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Hmmm. This sounds remarkably similar to when someone tried to tell me it doesn’t matter what type of Alcohol you drink, it’s the amount… Well after years of experimentation on the subject I cna tell you - It Matters.

In any case, I don’t know that the above applies to everyone. Gatorade can cramp me up on a simple walk. I’ve had mixed results with other products, and can say that intensity is a big factor, but Gatorade me no likey. :wink:

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So far Inifinit has been a perfect solution for me.

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Maybe for you but this isn’t true for everyone. Some people don’t respond well to certain products, just like not everyone has the same tolerance for spicy/sugary/rich/etc foods in real life.

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Hey M~, if Infinit works for you, if you’re ever on a course and miss special needs, then gels (mainly maltodextrin like infinit), salt tabs and water might work, assuming you can deal with the preservatives in gels. Although I was joking about the “beer mile” in my previous post do you know if the citric acid bothers you, or the High Fructose Corn Syrup in liquid Gatorade. Also have you tried powedered Gatorade here in Canada. I am pretty sure it just has a mix of dextrose and sucrose but no HFCS.

Of course, I should be encouraging you to use 100% Infinit, however, being a friend, I don’t want to see you weighed down with 3 bottles of Infinit slowing down your bike and if you miss special needs, I do want you to have a backup solution!

Dev

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Carl, that’s fine…but what do you do on course when what they have is your only option (ex: miss special needs). You can go into starvation mode, or try to take what is on course and dial back intensity. I see racers who try to control their environment while others work with their environment. Although Lemond may be hated on ST, years ago, when asked about his nutrition during the TdF, he responded, “We stay in 22 hotels over 23 days. I eat what they give me during the race and in the evening. I can’t be a successful stage racer if I can’t adapt to my surroundings”.

…as for tolerance in real life, it usually (not always) comes down to training people to handle sugary/rich/spicey foods. We all start out as babies eating liquified bland food, but eventually pretty well 100% of kids from other parts of the world where spicey foods are mainstream acquire the ability to digest them. Its just people in Western cultures who don’t need to acquire that ability who have more difficulty with non bland foods :slight_smile:

Heck, even in Britain, the land of tasteless food (sorry guys), Indian and Thai food have become pretty well maistream from a restaurant perspective…anything is possible when humans (even my British friends who are almost asleep as I type) force themselves to adapt :-).

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The questions is: what is the physiology?

When you are stressing your body, you splanchnic circulation shunts blood AWAY from you gut, to you extremities in order to do work. The harder you push, the more extreme this can be, but it can of course be tempered somewhat by training.

Add on top of this the “pain” we experience in our abdomen with food and working out. Why do we get this pain? We have all heard not to swim within thirty minutes of eating, but why? Well, when you stress your body, blood is shunted away from you gut, and the parasympathetic response (i.e. “digest food now”) is blunted, so food essentially doesn’t go anywhere…it just sits around.

Well how does this cause pain? The ONLY way the intestines themselves really feel pain is by stretch. You cant cut or burn the intestines without pain, but when they are stretched by gas or fluid, that is when it hurts. So, if you have food or fluid, decreased blood flow, minimal movement, and on top of that the fluid or food is mildly hyperosmolar with a lot of sugar etc, it is going to cause cramping and “gut pain” by drawing fluid to the location in your gut and increasing swelling.

The way to get rid of this is twofold: one train your body to tolerate fluid during exercise, and two, if possible, limit your concentration of solutes in the fluids (which of course must be balanced vs energy need during a long race or workout).

So it is really a mixture of how hard you are going, what you are taking in, and how used to it you are by tricking your body to put a little blood back into you splanchnic circulation. Therefore it is not just the intensity making us sick, it is multifactorial.

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Not every product can be tolerated by everyone. My stomach for one really doesn’t like Powergel but I’m fine with Gu, Hammer Gel, and Accel Gel. So Powergel is never a part of any back-up plan for me.

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shhhh

x2! The “nutrition” excuses are some of the most entertaining posts on ST… :slight_smile:

agree, its sad enough when they blame their ironman on nutrition, some guy a couple days ago actually blamed their olympic distance on not enough salt before the run, funny

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Actually Dev, like many things it’s not an either or. It’s possible that it’s both the intensity and the nutrition. Or too much nutrition for the intensity. Or too much intensity for the nutrition.

Rest and exercise are different states with different blood flow rates to different areas of the body.

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That’s why I like the rural courses in the south…a recent opossum roadkill can keep you going for hours. (still lobbying Emilio to build in a “possum pocket” in a tri-suit) :wink: