I love the PF&H products. I use their drink mix (the carb & electrolyte mix), gels, and hydration tabs/packets every day for training. I’ve also tried Mortal and much prefer the taste of PF&H.
From what I gather, the hate is because Ironman took a product (Gatorade Endurance) which had carbs and electrolytes, and replaced it with a product that only has electrolytes. I think most people here just love a good witch hunt and don’t actually have a suggestion as to what product Ironman should use over Mortal or PF&H.
Heck I feel like Maurten should also receive the same type of hate for having such low levels of electrolytes in all of their products. But they’re only the fuel option, so the product fits the job description.
It’s more beneficial for Ironman’s pockets if they can be in business with two companies that provide separate on-course fueling and hydration options.
As a businessman, I get the decision. As a racer, I’ll just make sure that I can support myself on course and not rely on a single gel/liquid from an aid station to give me both carbs and electrolytes.
I would bet most people drink their own calories on the bike. If someone lives off the bike course these days - meaning a lot of Maurten gels - then I haven’t heard of it.
I don’t think a lot of people rely on oncourse but I do think a lot of people don’t drink their nutrition either. I think there are a lot of people that keep them separate and rely on a watered down gel bottle, gels or solid nutrition vs relying mostly on liquid nutrition.
As you point out P&H has a carb option, but to my understanding in Europe they aren’t using it because it’s either pricier and/or IM wants to maintain this silly electrolyte drink distinction from their nutrition.
Regarding the salt, it’s clear that Maurten isn’t a product they were originally designing for 8hr+ racing environments. Someone running a marathon isn’t overly concerned about losing 1000mg of salt an hour over 2-3 hours. But we know that adds up over 8hrs and more. So while I think we can throw a little shade at their product not being ideal, I do think it’s not unreasonable to ask an athlete to take some salt tabs.
The reality is, the sponsorship product IM is selling is the wrong one. Maurten should be providing the drink and gel mix and if P&H and Mortal want to be the electrolyte guys, they should just offer their little shots of “electrolytes + sweet bullsh!t” at the aid stations.
Having a sweet whole bottle drink mix on the course that provides little caloric value makes about as much sense as a golf shoe brand deciding their shoe should be the official running shoe of Ironman. But maybe it’s on par with an Asian electric car company that no longer gets tax rebates and who’s imports just became uneconomical to distribute in the US being a title sponsor.
Well if the hydration can’t have sufficient/substantial calories, I guess I’d just prefer water.
Edit: Actually looking at Precision it looks fine. About 12 g carbs per 24 oz bottle and no artificial sweetener, so probably not very sweet. That paired with the on course gels seems reasonable for getting fluid, carbs, and electrolytes.
Just to clarify, Maurten was indeed created with Ironman racing in mind. The founders were trying to solve the issue of stomach cramps caused by the high carb products available at the time. They must also have incredibly low salt concentration.
Interesting. I realize they are using that hydrogel marketing to claim you can ingest more with less gastric stress. But I’m surprised they’d have so little salt if the idea was you’d take these over 8-10 hrs or more. I totally understand not needing a lot of salt for a marathon, but I wonder what their rationale is for that level over 10hrs in the sun while drinking so much water.
The hate is because of 2 reasons
1 - Those of us who calculate carbs per hour are reduced to carrying all our carbs with us. Previously we had the option to also live off the land
2 - (and more importantly) There are absolutely those on course who are not experienced enough / cognizant of fueling strategies / etc. in order to differentiate between “sports drink with carbs” and “sports drink without carbs.” We know that there are people out there doing an IM race, and thinking they’ll just drink the sports drink on course, because they stop at the gas station and get gatorade during their rides
I think we take for granted how much the average triathlete thinks about these kinds of things. My run partner, to whom I’m always trying to get to have more calories when he’s competing, refilled his bottles in his last IM with Mortal, without thinking that there aren’t carbs in it. He told me “My stomach was off, I don’t get it, I even refilled my bottles.” This is a guy who’d be lucky to drink 2 bottles on a 4h ride before I started preaching the merits of 1L and 400 cals per hour.
Ironically, perhaps Ironman could send shockwaves through the energy drink community if they announced a sponsorship deal with U.S. Sugar Corporation, incidentally, also based in Florida along with another deal with Morton Salt or Redmond Salt.
Since Mortal is making them mix the crap, just dump a bunch of sugar and salt in the cooler, stir it up and start filling bottles.
Whatever Mortal is spending, US Sugar can match it with 1.3 billion in sales. Morton Salt is about the same in annual sales. I have to assume some marketing director in either of those companies could be salivating at the prospect of turning their simple product into a hip fitness trend.
It’s no Gatorade behemoth, but apparently Gatorade forgot how sports nutrition works and think zero calorie + high intensity go well together:
Incidentally, here’s a fun little chatgpt exercise with a single stevia urine study I uploaded:
How bout don’t do that! It’ll make me, @DrAlexHarrison, and hundreds…maybe thousands of ST’rs start paying a premium for table sugar and table salt to blend our Speed Nectar!!!
