Ironman Nutrition

I've had a number of people reach out to me re: my Ironman Lake Tahoe nutrition debacle and ask how at #10 do I now have this figured out.

So I will go back.

Ironman's 1-3- I used Carbo Pro in a concentrated bottle- 1600 calories and a 6 lines drawn on the bottle- every 30 min I drank 1/2 of a line and chased with water and consumed 24 oz water/hour.  Every 30 min 2x salt tabs at 400mg - so 800mg salt per hour.  AND it worked well!

Until Ironman # 4 and it was hot and humid
AND around his time there was a lot of talk about adding protein to your nutrition to better sustain you.  But don't do this in the Kona sun as it will thicken and not be drinkable. So I tried Infinit.  Special blend based on my sweat test etc.  6 bottles - 3 on the bike and 3 in special needs.  Yes they were hot but I had practiced this and all was fine, until mile 70 and I started vomiting.  Let's just say 60+ oz of red infinite on the bike came back up.  The funny thing is I never stopped riding (just leaned over and let it come up)  and soon thereafter a guy in a white kit covered in red spray rides along side me.  I start profusely apologizing to him and he than says "If I have been 10 meters back I would not have gotten hit.  I've been drafting and well "karma sucks"  and he rolled off.  Gotta love that

And so I rode on, not keeping anything down, not even water for the remainder of the ride.   I started the run and at mile 6, still unable to keep anything down, I blacked out and woke up under a palm tree with some medical staff.  Eventually I was in the car on my way to medical and was 11 lbs down from the start, severely dehydrated  My day was over.

Even though there were other circumstances (aka being sick, heat etc) I have never tried Ifinit again.

So my next approach was drinking water and water with NUUN and eating solid food every 30 min. This is how I train and so I decided to race that way, supplementing with Salt Tabs and it worked great - in cooler temps.  Solid run, no GI issues and I found out what worked.

Until I returned to the heat and make 9 porta pottie stops on the run and walked for many miles.

Ill be okay if I
never drink this again 

So.... I have now figured out -in cooler temps I can tolerate solids and run well.  In warmer temps I simply cannot digest them so I end up with non stop diarrhea. (despite taking immodium)

So....that is how I got to the 8x bottle of Gatorade Endurance + 4 bottles of water for Ironman Lake Tahoe.  But that simply did not work..
1- keeping track of how much I took in was a challenge
2 - once I threw all my bottles away when I had a minor temper tantrum  I was at a loss for what I had taken in
3- the genius move of changing my A4 front bottle on Saturday so I could easily read power was not so genius as I could not not reach the straw.  So I tossed that away too.  Literally throwing $ away at this point.

We all have that wonder when a new engineered product comes out- is this the magic formula to make me faster, run better etc.... so we keep looking. My advice to all those who don't suffer GI issues in Ironman- DONT change your plan!   stick with it.

And for me I simply cannot put the same stress on my body in training that I do racing.  It has to be the adrenaline and nerves that f with my GI on race day.

So back to the preverbial drawing board before Ironman Texas!
And I have to buy a new front hydratino system.