How To Optimise Your Ironman Fuelling!

When should you take caffeine gels? How many carbs should you aim to eat? Ironman race information can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to fuelling. Heather talks to Precision Fuel & Hydration nutritionist, Emily, to understand more about how to improve on fuelling strategy!

00:00 Intro
01:55 Interview Precision Fuel & Hydration study
03:10 Carb race analysis
04:40 Different fuelling products
06:00 Carb aims
07:22 Leon Chevalier case study
08:11 Caffeine consumption

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[gtn]

How many carbs have you managed to consume on race day? 🍝 Let us know in the comments below! 💬

[marie-louisekarlander]

Hi,
I am 57 years old and woman, 74 kg, 174 cm, my pr is 12:30 on IM.
I take before the race, full IM (after breakfast) 60 g carbs, sport drink, one small bottle of electrolytes, half shot of coffein 125 mg .
On the bike I take 75g carbs/h, if it is a warm race, 4 salt tablets, 4 tablets of caffeine. Everything in sport drinks, 4 big bottles, and I grab water on the road. I don’t take jel on the bike, got 4 on the bike if I loose one bottle . 45 km/bottle, drinking around 0, 5 -1 dl every 15-20 minutes.
In TA2, the second half shot of caffeine 125 mg, more electrolytes.
Run start after 3 km taking gel, one every 3-3, 5 km. 60 g carbs/h only gel. The first three gels without caffeine, after that every second with caffeine. 12 gels totally. 7 without and 5 with caffeine. The gels got 21mg caffeine
I train very often with nutrition so are used to this. I tried race up the carbs on the bike but it didn’t work yet.
After race I take one recovery drink 😝, and also on the breakfast day after one recovery drink. Specially if I will soon race again, and must back in training again.

My best regards to all of you

Marie-Louise

[Aeronwor]

If I were to take that much caffine with that amount of gels, I too would have motivation to get to the finish line as quickly as possible.

[matthiaswuest]

Really great video and awesome to hear from Emily at PH. As a stats guy and a long distance athlete I am itching to get my hands on that data set!

[chrisstrider]

I can definitely do the practicing with caffeine 😊

[sebastienbrochard]

When packing to travel to my first IM, i was shocked at the amount of carb i was planning to take ...

I have trained the way I would race ... but come time to put all on paper, the total for the 13h00 race came up to ...

... 1000g ... 🫣😵😵‍💫 ... yep ... 1kg of carb! Crazy day out!

In the end, i hit about 900-950g ... and did 12h25 ... ☺️

[skirtonbear]

I was doing great until the long runs crept up to 10 miles. Then, I think caffeine did a toll on my digestion because carbs alone didn’t seem to cause it. Now I have to rethink my half marathon strategy.

[MMichiganSalveRegina]

#GTNCoachesCorner One thing I've been wondering relating to "carb/gut training" is whether it is helpful to just eat a lot of carbs throughout your day. Like if I'm used to eating 60+ grams of carbs for lunch (when my body is not using them), is 60g during an event going to seem like no big deal? Obviously there is the strain of exercising on your gut, but I'm talking purely about how many carbs your body can absorb during an IM.

[jackthedude]

Hi GTN, I've recently completed my third IM and in All of them I've experienced gut problems around half marathon/30 km... The first (10h42, 3h50 marathon time in Klagenfurt) was actually my best even though i wasn't really counting my carbs intake per hour. In the last one in Cervia (10h45, 4h05 marathon time...) i really struggled in the running part with the nausea and i was more specific about targeting 90/95 carbs per hour on the bike (trained ok in the long workouts during preparation) and about 60ish on the run. So, may it be a salt problem (I've also taken salt caps during bike and run? Or is It normal exhaustion due to poor training maybe on the run? #GTNCoachesCorner

[carlbyronrodgers]

😊Interesting and informative.Emergency packet Jellybabies.

[ironore]

If you were to pack one bottle with fuel and one with hydration what would be the most carbs in one bottle have you heard of people making ?

[PanosVideo]

whats your opinion about race walking?

[jamiefuhrman]

Is the 3-6 mg/kg caffeine overall? What race distance? Spaced out evenly?

[DigininjaRobin]

Is nutrition the fourth activity or is that transitions?

[kerrynball]

100mg of caffine ~= 3 cans of coke. Sounds like a lot.

[tristianm]

Is Gtn promoting diabetes in age group athletes! The study of 70 athletes is with an average time of 9.30 for an Ironman which is not far of elite athlete with high metabolic efficiency! Surely Gtn should be promoting a balanced metabolic flexible approach where slower athlete are efficient at burning fat and do not have to consume so much of these gastly gels to avoid gastrointestinal problems and rot their teeth🤔🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️

[DeanPattrick]

Do you know what we did in the 90s 😂😂😂😂

[trimad]

Sorry but that T-shirt colour is not great