I did Oregon 70.3 last weekend and had some issues with diarrhea on the run. I also had this issue in Ironman California 2022. I’m wondering if the cause for this might have been too many electrolytes and wondered if anyone has any insights or other potential causes related to this.
Here’s my full nutrition breakdown for the race last weekend:
Dinner the night before - ravioli with some bread
breakfast - 2 packets of oatmeal
*did go to the bathroom before the race
before the swim - 1 scoop of First Endurance EFS
on the bike - 10 scoops EFS and about 2.5-2.75L of water (total)
on the run - water and 4 maurten gels, then coke for the last ~4 miles
I read that one of the causes of diarrhea is excess electrolytes, and EFS does have a lot, which leads me to believe this may have been the cause. Perhaps it’s more a case of too many electrolytes for a cool-ish race day. Maybe in a hot race this amount would have been fine.
Just double-check the ingredient list. They reformulated again after people didn’t like the non-nutritive sweetener in it.
If it has it – you’re probably sensitive to it while racing, congrats, swap it for the new version and see how it goes.
If it doesn’t – I mean, there’s a thousand different potential reasons why you had GI distress while racing, including but not limited to effort vs fueling, osmolality of the solution against total fluid intake, you just had a shitty day (no pun intended), etc.
carbs and sodium per hour on the bike and on the run?
practice in training (a lot) with this mix?
source of sodium and what else is coming along for the ride (potassium, vitamin C, etc)? Hence why adding pure sodium citrate is a good call to kick the other ingredients off the train to your gut
source of carbs?
did you sodium load the day before or morning of?
I do highly suggest spending some time on Dr Alex Harrison’s YouTube channel
a little over 100 grams per hour on the bike, about 70 per hour on the run
-a bit of practice, but not a ton
-no additional sodium besides what’s in the EFS, which is 300mg per serving, so roughly 3000mg on the bike
(also 100mg calcium, 160mg potassium, 150mg magnesium, 465mg chloride per serving)
-just the carbs from the EFS, then switched to (on course) maurten gels
-I did not sodium load
I will add that in my previous years of racing half and full ironmans, I had never quite figured out my fueling and always experienced a gradual decline over the bike ride (which didn’t improve on the run). I was perviously fueling with ~55-60grams of carbs per hour and doing 100+ for this race was a night and day difference. I felt great the whole bike ride and got one of the fastest overall bike splits.
I will check out Dr Harrison’s channel - thanks for the recommend
It’s possible it was a bit too much. I can keep practicing in training and I’m doing another 70.3 in a couple months so I can tweak my nutrition plan for that one.
Bike time was 2:16 and run was 1:39.
Also, at the risk of providing TMI, it was almost entirely water I was eliminating.
Leading up to this race I was playing around with the Saturday app and tried using sugar with a bit of salt and that seemed to work pretty well. Next time I might try using mostly sugar with a couple scoops of EFS for some electrolytes and flavor.
a little over 100 grams per hour on the bike, about 70 per hour on the run
-a bit of practice, but not a ton
-no additional sodium besides what’s in the EFS, which is 300mg per serving, so roughly 3000mg on the bike
(also 100mg calcium, 160mg potassium, 150mg magnesium, 465mg chloride per serving)
-just the carbs from the EFS, then switched to (on course) maurten gels
-I did not sodium load
I will add that in my previous years of racing half and full ironmans, I had never quite figured out my fueling and always experienced a gradual decline over the bike ride (which didn’t improve on the run). I was perviously fueling with ~55-60grams of carbs per hour and doing 100+ for this race was a night and day difference. I felt great the whole bike ride and got one of the fastest overall bike splits.
I will check out Dr Harrison’s channel - thanks for the recommend
So, that is 1200 mg sodium/hour on the bike which is good but nothing that should cause gi distress from my experience, and kind of low carbs. But the other stuff, like the magnesium and the chloride, I’m not sure how that might affect you. That is definitely a question for Dr. Alex Harrison. Maybe he can chime in.
Kevin’s “a little over 100†grams of carbs on the bike was a little misleading though.
10x30 over a quick 2:16 bike ride is a little over 130 grams per hour. That’s a lot by any measure and a shit ton for a smaller person (which I don’t know if Kev is).
And some people (me certainly) have a tendency to back load carb consumption on the bike. Like, one hour into the bike you’re like “shit, I was supposed to empty a bottle over this period and I didn’t†and then 130 grams an hour becomes 160 an hour for the remaining portion of the bike leg. (Just some speculation).
Kevin’s “a little over 100†grams of carbs on the bike was a little misleading though.
10x30 over a quick 2:16 bike ride is a little over 130 grams per hour. That’s a lot by any measure and a shit ton for a smaller person (which I don’t know if Kev is).
And some people (me certainly) have a tendency to back load carb consumption on the bike. Like, one hour into the bike you’re like “shit, I was supposed to empty a bottle over this period and I didn’t†and then 130 grams an hour becomes 160 an hour for the remaining portion of the bike leg. (Just some speculation).
That was the piece missing: 2.5L over how much time?
So yes, that increases the sodium per hour also, but I’d still argue that 130g carbs and 1300mg sodium might not be the issue, but rather the source of the carbs and the source of the sodium and the tag along ingredients, and the lack of extended practice with those levels of carbs and sodium. With use in training, 2.25L of fluid using primarily sugar for carbs and sodium citrate for sodium would be safe, from my experience, even for a sub 150lb guy.
I had budgeted enough nutrition for a 2:30 bike, and didn’t end up finishing one of my bottles, so it was probably closer to ~9 scoops over the whole bike. 9*28grams=252 /2.25=112. Higher than I anticipated, but pithing the range I felt comfortable with.
Im 5’ 10", 150lbs
I think I spaced out my nutrition pretty evenly, I had my nutrition in two bottles and took 6 sips every 5 minutes throughout the bike.