What To Eat During Ironman Triathlon

Hey, I'm Ben Greenfield, and I get tons of questions every day about what I put into my Ironman bottles and bags and all that jazz. As you can see here, I have a crazy looking concoction in my blender. I decided that rather than taking 15 minutes to walk you through everything, the process of me pouring everything in there, I'm just going to tell you what's in there. So first of all, I'll be out there for around 10 hours is what I plan for approximately. Hopefully a little less than that. But I like to account for that extra time. So I put 10 servings of superstarch. That's the first thing I put in there. 10 servings of superstarch. So one scoop is one serving, and that's about 100 calories in a scoop. Okay, so 10 servings of superstarch, really about a quarter as much sugar as I'd normally use. But Superstarch lets me tap into my own body's fat as a fuel. The next thing that I did was I took the equivalent of 5 grams of amino acids per hour. One of these capsules is 1 gram. So I dumped 50 of these capsules in there into the blender. 5, 0. Now, the next thing that I did was I used MCT oil, about a tablespoon per hour of MCT oil is what you need to to actually allow you to be able to really use fat efficiently as a fuel. But to not wind up in a diaper by the end of the day, don't use more than about a tablespoon, maximum of two tablespoons an hour. Okay, so I've got 10 tablespoons of MCT oil in here. All right, the next thing are a couple of my secret weapons. All right, I've got X2 performance. Now for the bike ride, I like to take in about 3, 3 x 2 performance, which is a mix of glucose, caffeine, a little bit of D Ribose. It's not a lot of sugar. It's just barely enough sugar for my brain to get a slight hit of carbs, which it actually needs long term during a long day like this. But basically, D Ribose, caffeine, what's called disodium ATP, all these other things in X2 performance help my body to more rapidly regenerate ATP while I'm out there. And then the last thing, just because it's sexy and cool and I like it, is WASP amino acids, similar to the X2 performance. I like to go through three servings of it on the bike and one serving on it on the run. So I put all of this into the blender, and then I know that I'm going to be carrying one bottle on the down tube of my bicycle during the first half of my bike. And then I'll have another bottle waiting for me in special needs. Each of these bottles are about 20 ounces. And these bottles are made by a company called Flow. They're made of silicone and they have a wide mouth. So they just really let you very easily take in a fuel like this. Because when I press blend and I blend this, it'll come out to a similar texture to like kind of like a thin gel. And then the other thing is that on the run, I'll have this waiting for me in T2 or the bike to run transition. And this is about 10 ounces. And then I'll have another one in the special needs of the run. And this also is about 10 ounces. So that's a total of 60 ounces, right? 20, 20, 10 and 10. So I top off the blender to be pretty close to 60 ounces. And then I simply press blend. I won't put you through the rigors of having to hear the blender going, but I'm going to press blend and I pour this bottle, this bottle, this bottle, and this bottle. The contents of the blender in each of those bottles, they all go where they're supposed to go. This one goes in the down tube of the bike. This one goes in bike special needs. This one goes in the T2 bag or the Bike to Run transition bag. And this one goes in the run special needs bag. And that is it. Super simple, very easy fueling scenario. It's clean. Once you blend it, nothing clumps, nothing kind of gets clumped up. Oh, there's one thing that I forgot to tell you, and this is the whole deal with live tv. Electrolytes. I don't use electrolytes because they stop you from cramping. But what I do is I break open, right about 5 grams worth of electrolyte capsules and I dump them in there because the electrolytes keep any clumping from occurring. So even after you blend it, you might get some clumping. So that will keep the clumping from occurring and it makes it a little bit salty. I personally don't really like that super salty flavor, but. But it does make the actual texture way, way better. So that's it. That's the Ironman fueling scenario. Easy clean. Leave your questions or comments underneath these videos or this video. I'll be happy to respond. I'm Ben Greenfield. Have a great ra.