Fueling & Hydration Solutions for Half Ironman Triathlon Ep 13

This is one of those things, knowing your electrolyte losses. I have seen, uh, just sort of anecdotally, people feel like they are not having enough energy. They're really dragging in a race, but when they dial in those electrolyte needs, it's like the light bulb goes off. Welcome to the Find Your Edge podcast. Get ready to dive into all things training, nutrition, recovery, and more. Whether you're a new or experienced endurance athlete. Athlete, a weekend warrior, or someone who just wants to improve your health and fitness, this podcast is for you. I'm Chris Newport, founder, head coach, registered dietitian, exercise physiologist, and certified personal trainer with the Endurance Edge and the Fueling Edge. With more than 20 years experience in the fitness industry, 18 years in multi-sport, and over 10 years as a sports nutritionist, I'm speaking with athletes and experts about key actionable steps you can take to reach and sustain peak performance and health. Let's do it. Welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast. I am your host, Chris Newport, and we are talking about one of my favorite topics today is common mistakes in fueling and hydrating for half iron distance triathlon and solutions on how to fix them. So I know we've got quite a few, at least local half iron distance triathlons coming up and races are starting to come up again. So I want to make sure that you guys are prepared. And ready to race and feeling super confident in your fueling and hydration plan. So let's jump in. First problem I see the most often is improper pacing and training. So this is a pretty generally easy solution is making sure that you're training and pacing properly. So most people, just as an example, do well pacing somewhere between 70-85% of their FTP on the bike. And the majority of people falling somewhere around 75% FTP. That's just for bike pacing as an example, but another recommendation I have, and perhaps it's a shameless plug, but get a coach. There are a lot of great coaches all over the country, all over the world. Find somebody who's going to be a good fit for you and really understands the pacing needs of triathlon, specifically of half iron distance, because it's kind of a unique pacing strategy, uh, versus iron distance, that is, and versus like sprint and Olympic distance. So make sure that you're also giving yourself plenty of time to train, especially if you're brand new. If you have never done this distance before, give yourself plenty of time to train and figure out how to pace properly. Okay. Or at least be able to work with a coach to be able to pace properly. So adjusting that overload. And then as you get more experienced, you're going to get better at training for those specific paces. So the majority of your training should still be done at some of those lower distances. So less than 70% of your VO2 max, not of your FTP, but of your VO2 max. So the majority of your training should still be aerobic in nature. That is, you should be able to have a conversation. You're using oxygen efficiently as a fuel source, and in turn you're using fat as a fuel source. That is critical as an endurance athlete. So continue to get that experience, continue to practice, continue to train, because the more experience you have in the sport, the better you're going to be able to execute your pacing strategy. All right. So that's problem number one. Problem number two is just generally athletes have no idea what is going on in their body during exercise or how things are happening in order to be able to structure an appropriate fueling and hydration plan. So we love science here. Science is your friend. And one way that we use it is knowing what's called your substrate use. So we use VO2 max testing. And in fact, you don't even have to go to max in order to figure this out. We love to see everything actually under your VO2 max. In order to determine an appropriate fueling plan. Because what that tells us is at every given pace, if you're doing a graded exercise test, for example, what we see is how effectively you're using carbohydrates and fat as fuel sources. Okay. So the slower that you go, the more fat is contributing to your exercise. So that being said, perhaps another way is the slower you go, the less you have to actually fuel yourself to be able to do the work. Okay. Now at some point we have to, you know, beat the clock. We generally have about 8 hours to complete the race. So, you know, you can't be crawling your way to the finish line, but just knowing that the more effectively you can use fat as a fuel source, that means the less additional carbohydrates or additional energy you have to actually take in during the race. Now, having said that, half Ironman distance is one of those distances that you kind of, you can't get away with fudging it anymore. Like perhaps you could do in a sprint or Olympic distance race, you really have to be able to create a fueling plan or else you will experience the dreaded bonk. And if you don't know what bonking is or hitting the wall, it literally is like smacking into a wall. Your body has to slow down drastically, if not stop for a while, because it has run out of what's called glycogen or your stored carbohydrates that are used for energy that's in your liver and your muscles. Once we get through that, that's in limited supply. Once we get through that, that's when we bonk and we're either transitioning to using protein as an energy source, which we are incredibly inefficient at, and our body wants to use protein for other things. So you really have to slow down or stop in order to be able to effectively continue to move. So general recommendations for getting the appropriate carbohydrates per hour is somewhere around 30 to 60 grams of carbs per hour. In my mind, that's a very large range. It's a good starting point for somebody who has never done this before, but just know that the smaller you are, the fewer carbohydrates you're going to need per hour. The larger you are, the more carbohydrates you'll need, the more fat adapted you are. So, uh, perhaps you're somebody who follows more of a low carbohydrate diet or ketogenic diet. I'm not suggesting that necessarily. But what we see with our clients in the lab, as well as in the literature, the more your body is adapted to using fat as a fuel source, the fewer carbohydrates you're going to need and that you're going to use. So somebody who is more fat adapted, I find is more successful in iron distance or ultra marathons. But for this distance, you're kind of pushing your pace quite a bit. So you definitely are going to have to get enough carbohydrates. So when we see that it's some of these intended paces that you're exercising in our lab, using VO2 as a marker, we see how many calories you're using from fat, how many calories you're using for carbohydrate. And in turn, we can determine how much fuel you can actually take in and use for work. So having said that, there is a slight difference on the bike versus on the run. The run is more calorically expensive, if you will. Uh, and generally we're going to be going through calories and through carbohydrates a little faster and a little bit lower on the bike. So if you have the resources and can do a bike test and a run test, especially if you're You're— if your skills vary quite a bit on the bike versus on the run, let's say you're somebody who ran in high school and in college, and now you're getting into triathlon. You want to make sure that you also have a bike test in order to be able to determine that fueling strategy or fueling plan based on how much energy you're using at the paces that you're practicing or the paces that you're working towards using for the bike versus on the run. All right. So, and also just to say that the higher intensity, the larger the contribution of carbs, just to remind you about that. So pacing, this goes back to pacing. Pacing is critical. You can't necessarily train there all the time because it's kind of what we like to call sort of the mushy middle. It's not super effective at getting you faster. It's not really effective at building your aerobic engine or making yourself use fat as a fuel source more effectively. But if you can sprinkle in those intervals of training at your intended pace, You are going to help yourself train your gut in, in addition to training your body to be able to sustain a half Ironman distance pace. So, and then on that note, most people just going into this are either overeating or they're undereating. So a shocking statistic that I've seen in the literature, up to 85% of people in triathlon are experiencing some sort of GI distress in long course racing, that being half iron distance or longer. So there's only so much your GI system can do when it is exercising. And again, the faster you're going. So if you're improperly pacing or you're trying to go out too fast, your ability to digest decreases. So if you're stuffing your face full of carbohydrates, your body is not able to keep up and then you're going to experience a lot of upper GI in particular distress. So things like burping and nausea, perhaps even vomiting, or people are just grossly undereating. I see that a little less. I generally see overeating more so than, than undereating. So again, general recommendations, 30 to 60 grams of carbs per hour, both on the bike and on the run. But if you can, especially if your abilities differ largely on the bike versus on the run, get your VO2 max test done at those specific paces in order to make sure that you are fueling properly. All right. So next thing, as it relates to self-knowledge and knowing what you're doing, what your body's doing during exercise is knowing your fluid loss. We've got to create that hydration plan. So how do we do that? A couple of different things. Get in the habit of, especially if you're someone who sweats profusely and you know who you are and don't apologize for it, it is what it is and it's okay. Uh, be sure to take your pre and post weights, especially in the summertime, or especially when it starts to get hotter here. We're in North Carolina. It is stinking hot even in April when we're recording this. The humidity is pretty ridiculous. And when you have that high humidity, your body is not able to release sweat because sweat is your body's mechanism of cooling itself. If you cannot release that heat through sweat, you're going to retain a lot of it. And then you just are just sopping wet. Okay. So if you're one of those people and that's okay, Get in the habit of taking a pre and a post weight. Ideal losses during exercise is somewhere around 1% of your body weight, maybe up to 2%. But when we start hitting 2%, what we see in the literature is that we're going to start to see those performance declines, certainly by the time you get to 3 and 4%, and then we're really starting to get into trouble. Okay. So if you notice that you're losing more than that, you're going to have to be taking in more fluid. Another trick that you can do is checking your urine color in particular, before you head out for, you know, a run or a bike or workout. Uh, keep in mind that when you are urinating into the toilet, that toilet water is going to dilute the color. So if you are somebody who really struggles with this, you may have to actually get a little cup to pee in and check your urine color that way, just like you would do at the doctor's office. Okay. So they're pretty cheap. You can get them and I'll link to it. You can get a little cups, uh, you know, you could just get clear cups at the grocery store, or you could get an actual like urine cup from, you know, a place like Amazon or even the local drugstore. Something else to potentially invest in. And I know this is going to probably, um, be a significant fewer amount of people, but this is what I did in my, for my thesis when I was, I did a case study on a type 1 diabetic athlete over a 12-hour mountain biking time trial. And we had to check his urine color. So using a refractometer, they're actually surprisingly affordable. The one that I used from college from our school cost several hundred dollars. You can again get them, you know, on places like Amazon for somewhere around $30 to $50. And then you'll just need pipettes. So basically you pee in that cup, you take a little couple of drops of your urine, you put it in that refractometer, and you kind of look through a little screen. It kind of looks like a little binocular, if you will, or unocular. and your urine will show whether you're appropriately— it's called urine specific gravity— whether you're appropriately hydrated or not. So that's even taking it to the next level beyond urine color and beyond total weight loss is making sure that you're appropriately hydrated. You can do that both, both pre and post weight. So that's going to determine how much do you need to be drinking. Now you do not have to have a 0% loss. That's not a bad thing, but for somebody who's losing excessive amounts, you're just not going to be able to keep up with it because your stomach can only take in so much fluid. So that's when you may— if you're losing more than you can actually take in, or your losses are excessive, we can help with some of those strategies, um, in particular cooling strategies. And perhaps that's going to be another podcast because I want to make sure that we get into electrolyte losses. So this is one of those things, knowing your electrolyte losses. I have seen, uh, just sort of anecdotally, people feel like they are not having enough energy. They're really dragging in a race, but when they dial in those electrolyte needs, it's like the light bulb goes off and they feel so much more energized. When you're kind of dragging yourself down the race course, feeling like, ah, I don't have enough energy. Let me just take another gel. 'Let me just eat something else,' when that's not necessarily the solution. It could be electrolyte related. I have also seen that people recover so much faster when they nail their electrolyte needs. Now, unfortunately, this is not one that you can really do on your own. This is sweat testing in particular. We have sweat testing both in our exercise physiology lab, as well as a home sweat testing kit that you can do on your own. It must be done while you're sweating. So don't be fooled by tests where you're just sitting around. We've seen in the literature that it is an inaccurate level of electrolyte losses as compared to when you're exercise testing. So combining your total fluid losses with your electrolyte losses is really going to be able to help you nail that hydration amount. And then knowing your substrate use from something like VO2 max testing is going to be able to nail those fueling needs. So now you've got a plan. So this leads us to the third problem: not giving yourself enough time to train your gut. Just like training your body, you need to train your gut. It is an athletic organ and you gotta train it. Okay. So when you've created that plan, You have to practice it. Now, having said that, you don't necessarily have to do, uh, there, there's all kinds of different ways that you can put the pieces together to creating a plan. And this is what we help people do in our practice. So having those, just like we talked about, fueling needs, the fluid needs, and the electrolyte needs, you can separate them all. In other words, doing something like gels or food, doing water, and then doing supplemental electrolytes. You can smush 'em all together, if you will, by doing something like a sports drink. Keep in mind, there is no perfect sports drink. There is the one that is perfect for you based on your fluid and electrolyte losses and your carbohydrate needs based on your pacing. Okay? So keep that in mind. Your, uh, fueling and hydration for a short course event is going to be different than your fueling and hydration for a long course event. I'll be at perhaps not by all that much, um, in terms of like carbohydrates in particular, but just know that they're, you know, whatever your training buddy trains with or drinks or whatever may not be the solution to you. So that's another kind of common problem I'll roll into this problem. Is trying to use the fueling or hydration solution that your friend or training partner is using. Sure. It's a nice way to try something out because you actually do have to test out products. Even if we create this, this plan, you're still going to have to test it out. You're still going to have to practice it. You're still going to have to train your gut. So testing out products, because if they, if they don't taste good, especially during exercise, it's not going to work. It's not going to work. And you also have to practice this in various weather conditions. So I always relate it to Dr. Seuss, you know, the Green Eggs and Ham. Can you have it on a boat? Can you have it in a tree? It's the same thing with a fueling and hydration plan. Can you eat it when it's cold? Can you drink it when it's cold? Can you drink it when it's hot? So that might be something that might vary based on the seasons and when you're, um, when you're working out. So make sure to test these products out. It should taste good and you should be motivated to eat or drink it. Okay. So that's another tip is to make sure that this is not only something that you enjoy or that tastes good to you, but something that you can consistently have. If something makes you excessively thirsty beyond what you're actually losing, it's probably not the right product for you. We want to make sure if you are using a sports drink that it has at least 2 different types of carbohydrates in it. And then of course, making sure that it's got the right amount of electrolytes. Electrolytes in products vary immensely. We've got a database of them. Uh, we don't necessarily, we make sure to create the right product or create the right plan based on the products that are available to you and that you actually like. So we're not married to a particular company. I know some other companies have sweat testing products, but of course they are selling their product and they're only going to match you to their products. That may not be a good fit for you. Okay. So same thing with giving yourself some time to train your gut. You also have to give yourself time to actually practice eating and drinking on the bike and on the run. So little pro tip. Skip the snack in transition if you want to save some time and practice eating and drinking on the bike and on the run. You can practice on the trainer if you're somebody who needs to build your confidence on the bike by taking your water bottle on and off of your bike. If you're leaving it on the rear of your saddle or on your down tube, or if you're somebody who is putting it in your aero bars, you know, having sort of a hydration solution in your aero bars, or if you're Actually bringing a pack. So these are things that you have to practice both on the bike and on the run. Are you going to walk through aid stations? Are you going to use a hydration pack? Are you going to use a fueling belt? What is going to be your solution? So another pro tip is investigate what's going to be on the course on race day. Know where the aid stations are. And you have to plan your logistics accordingly. Honestly, this is probably one of the most challenging things in terms of creating a fueling and hydration plan is logistics. How much do you need to carry? What is your preferred type of beverage or type of product that you're bringing with you? Is it something that's powdered? Is it already a ready-to-drink? Are you going to have to mix it on your own? Do you have to mix it beforehand? Are you carrying things like electrolyte tablets? Where are you going to put them? How are they not going to get wet? All of these questions. And generally most people I have create this wonderful spreadsheet and we do the same when we're creating people's fueling and hydration system, uh, plans based on their VO2 and sweat testing results. We create them a spreadsheet and we work through all of these details. But obviously you're going to have to be the one who does a good amount of the work by practicing it. And again, figuring out those logistics, what's going to be on the course on race day that may not be a good fit for you. If it's not, how are you going to carry things, especially in the age of COVID when there's likely going to be fewer opportunities, uh, for volunteers to be able to help you out. Um, you have to be a little bit more. Self-reliance on these things. So again, create that plan and practice it. All right. So we've got our 3 problems and our solutions. So before I summarize, I have a quick ask for you. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform, take a screenshot and email it to info@theenduranceedge.com. That's T-H-E Endurance edge.com, and we'll send you some free swag as a nice little thank you gift. Also, if you know anyone who would benefit from this information, please pass this podcast along to them. We've helped hundreds of people dial in their fueling and hydration strategies using the evidence-based tools we've talked about today. We've helped triathletes, we've helped cyclists, runners, as well as military personnel, firefighters, rowers, rock climbers. Soccer players, volleyball players, football players, and more. And we can help people anywhere in the country with our home sweat testing kit and some of our other strategies we've got. So you can book a free nutrition consult at our website, theenduranceedge.com. Again, that's T-H-E and then endurance, E-N-D-U-R-A-N-C-E, and edge, E-D-G-E.com. And we look forward to helping you. So Let's go ahead and summarize so that you can fuel and hydrate properly for your next half iron distance triathlon race. Number 1, be sure you are training your body and your gut at the appropriate paces that you're actually going to be racing at. If you need help, get a coach. You can obviously contact us, but there are a lot of really fantastic coaches who can help you out there. Step 2, get to know your body's needs during exercise. Use science. It is your friend. So if you can get VO2 max tested or testing at the specific pace that you intend to race at, go do it. This will help dial in your fueling needs so that you're not shooting in the dark or just randomly guessing. Make sure if you're somebody who loses a lot of sweat, regularly test you for your hydration with urine color. Body weight, and potentially even urine specific gravity with that refractometer. Again, I'll link to that on our blog, on our website. And step 3, create a fueling and hydration plan and be sure to practice it. This has to happen at least several weeks prior to race day. This is not something that you want to be doing the week before your race. This is something I personally would love to see that people know and are executing at least 6 to 8 weeks before your race day. And then when you're at your race, be sure to consistently hydrate and fuel on the bike and on the run. So something like, you know, again, figuring out those logistics, how are you going to fuel and hydrate regularly and consistently on the bike and the run? The body does so much better when it gets little amounts at a consistent pace can better deliver that to working muscles than if you're guzzling water or you're taking in tons of gels and those kinds of things. So hopefully that helped you for your next half iron distance triathlon. Thank you again for listening. Good luck. And we're here to help if you need us. So be sure to contact us on our website, theenduranceedge.com, and we'll catch you next time.