Nutrition 101

We are rapidly coming into race season here in Western Australia and as such I have been having a number of conversations about nutrition with some of my athletes. These conversations are coming up because some of them are preparing for Half Ironman and others are getting ready for longer and longer training sessions. Whichever the case, they all have a growing need for information regarding sports nutrition.

Now, before I get started, I am not a dietitian and I usually encourage my athletes to go to dietitians to get their race and training nutrition really dialed in. However, for those athletes that aren't going to a dietitian, this is the information I give them to point them in the right direction. It may not be 100% correct, but from what I know it is pretty close. It was certainly good enough to get me through the majority of my races.

Sports nutrition is a bit of a complicated subject, but in brief  what you are looking for is about 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour of exercise. I say about, because it is a bit personal, some people cope with more, some with less. I know that I used to be fine with about 65g/hr, but 75g/hr was to much for my digestive system. I had mates for whom 75g/hr was fine. Basically start with 60g/hr in training and experiment a little. See how you go. Don't experiment on race day. To figure out how much carbohydrate is in a product have a look at the nutritional information, it is usually on there. 

The reason that 60 grams is the magic number is because it is about as much as your body can absorb in an hour. In a Half Ironman you will be burning more than 60 grams/hour, so the idea is to take in the 60g/hour so that you can try and keep up with what you are burning for as long as possible. If you end up burning too much fuel without replacing it that is when you end up hitting the wall.

Why not simply take in more than 60g/hr in order to keep up with the fuel that you are burning. Well because yourbody won't absorb the extra fuel, instead you will probably just get sick. This is normally called Gastro Intestinal Distress. I have had it and it isn't fun. The result is many trips to the porta loos on course. Not a place you want to be. 

Also, it is important to understand that in order for your body to absorb this carbohydrate it needs to be diluted. The rule of thumb is that you need 100ml of water for every 6g of carbohydrate, ie the carbohydrate should end up as 6% in solution. Some products claim to need less water to be absorbed, Hammer Gels claim to absorb at 18% but I would be experimenting a fair bit with those before hand to make sure they work for you. 

There you go. That is the basic idea. 60g/hr, 100ml/6g. Easy.

So how does that work in practice?

Well how you get those 60g/hr into your system is really up to you. People take Gels, or energy bars, sports drinks, bananas, coke, sandwiches the list goes on. Really the right source of nutrition is the one that works for you. 

Many people go for gels because they are convenient to carry, however, they can get a bit sickly after a while. Solid food such as energy bars or bananas can be okay on the bike, but most people don’t like eating food while running. A sports drink (ie Gatorade, Powerade, Endura, Hammer HEED etc) can be good, although it means you have to drink in order to get energy. Drinking isn't a problem for a hot race, but some cooler races you don’t really feel like drinking. Lots of people like decoupling their hydration and the fuel, hence they don’t use energy drinks.

  

I used to use a combination for Half Ironman Races. I would have a bottle of Hammer HEED and alternate between that and Gels on the bike. On the run I would use a Gel every 30 minutes and perhaps start taking Coke in the last 30 minutes. On the run it isn't possible to drink enough water to dilute the carbohydrates from the gels, so I simply used to drink as much as felt comfortable and leave it at that. In Ironman I used a similar idea, however, I also incorporated Perpetuem Chews and some energy bars in order to get some food into my stomach. The specific race nutrition products are highly refined and so wear thin after a while, but they are also very compact and so easy to pack on race day. Convenience wins out in this case.

The point is though that there are countless ways to get sufficient fuel into your system, the important thing is finding the right one for you. Because you take so much nutrition in a race it is important to find a product that you can stomach a lot of which doesn’t cause you any problems when you run etc. This trial and error is what training is for. 

Well before you get to race day you should have figured out how much fuel you need and how you are planning on consuming it, carry it etc. You then have weeks of training to test your fueling concept and refine it and refine it, until you are completely confident it will work for you. 

After that, all you have to do is race.