Practice practice... race nutrition that has not worked for me

With the main competitions on my calendar behind me, it's kind of relax season. However, I am still keeping active and do indeed have a race coming up! This coming Saturday I will be doing the classic local triathlon just outside Sault Ste Marie: http://www.stjosephislandtriathlon.com/

This is its 10th year and I'm very excited to be back racing after missing the 9th. Originally I was planning on taking on the sprint distance as it has been 2 years since I've done so... but I can't help it! I've had a taste of the olympic distance and I can't get enough. Also, I still need to figure out nutrition on the bike.

I feel like I'm comfortable with my dinner the night before, my breakfast, and my pre-swim routine. I'm content with a stirfry, chicken breast + pasta or otherwise similar dish for dinner. A little bit more carb than normal, probably just out of habit, but a good dose of protein, a mix of animal and plant. In the morning, yoghurt with hemp seed or other plant-based protein, some honey, a banana, home made power bar (recipe forthcoming!) and a cup of coffee. So far I've only had bad coffee on race morning. Perhaps I will experiment with good coffee in the future, if I'm lucky. 15 minutes before the swim I'll gulp down a gel. At all times I am drinking water. However, this is where my certainty ends.

In training, I'm fairly used to a rather dilute sports drink, but I tend to need a little bit more fuel for optimal performance racing that hard for 2 hours. With that in mind, I've been trying to figure it out. I've found that the things I've tried in training work a lot better in training than in racing... So that is proving to be a less-than bullet proof method of "knowing myself". Here are two things I've done in races that did not work.

Mistake #1: The double-strength sports drink, as seen at Muskoka 5150

This is a bad bad bad idea and I should have known better. Really, don't do this. In short, if your drink has a higher concentration of solute than your body environment, it will tend to draw water out of your gut and whatever and you'll die. Or at least you'll dehydrate, have trouble digesting anything and subsequently cramp up. For more on this: http://www.infinitnutrition.ca/information/osmolality101.asp

Mistake #2: Eating up a hill, as seen at Toronto Triathlon Festival

This is a bit more of a subtle problem, but has moved me to try something new. Many people can eat gels and race well. I've tried them in training and been totally fine. My goal at the race was to eat one at about 10km, then a second at 30km, washing it down with water. I was riding fairly well, was hitting a nice decent and got all tucked in and aero and bombed it! What fun! Then I looked down and noticed it was time to eat, yum! But now I was at the bottom of a hill and going up. Wanting to get my power up again, I started pedalling hard and ripping into that gel. My heart rate was up around 180 bpm while I was gulping down that warm, creamy goo. About 10-15 bpm higher than normal race rate. I tried to wash it down with water but was breathing hard. The problem this time was that it just wasn't going down. I've had plenty practice eating at lower heart rates and effort levels, but I was working too hard and my body just wasn't taking it properly. This manifested itself with burping and a conceivable belief that one of these burps may contain vomit. Luckily, I think I nailed the amount of calories I need since (aside from the temporary gut ache), I didn't feel like I was crashing and was able to take on gatorade as needed on the run. However, I've come to believe that my personal gel consumption is a fickle business. The next experiment will be simply 100C worth of sports drink on the bike inside about 700mL of fluid. Drink the whole thing.

Mistake #3: How much is too much? as seen while running today

Today I did a swim-run workout. After coming out of the water I was feeling a little "wiggly" which I associate with low blood sugar. I consumed 100C of sugar and took another 100C with me on my run. After 20 minutes I began my 4km of tempo running and decided to try another 100C of semi-solid food as an experiment. Disaster. Very debilitating gut pain and feelings of vomit. Heart rate was around 180-190. Too high and too much.

Slowly but surely I think I'm zeroing in on my ideal fuelling. This is one of the major reasons I want to do another olympic distance race. I want another chance to nail my feeding plan. It's a subtle detail at this point, I doubt my time will increase by more than a couple seconds... But I shouldn't have to feel any stomach pain.

Adam "blah blah food" Fortais