# IRONMAN Fuelling & Hydration: How to Nail Your Carbs, Electrolytes and Fluids on Race Day

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 1 Jul 2026, 27 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO8376835563.mp3

Race day success is as much a fuelling challenge as a fitness challenge. And in this episode Coach Rob Wilby answers athlete questions on getting your IRONMAN and 70.3 fuelling and hydration right. From carb targets to sweat rates to the bottle setup that keeps you in control when it's brutally hot, this is your guide to practising it all long before race day. In this episode: • Should your carbs-per-hour be based on body weight? Why gut absorption matters more than size • The 1g of carbs per kg of body weight starting point, and why ~100g/hr is the gold standard for most age-groupers • How to train your gut: the +5g per hour, per week protocol • Why you should back your carbs off by ~10% on race day, especially in the heat • How much to drink on the bike and run, and why sweat rates can vary from as little as 300ml to as much as 1,500ml per hour • The case for a sweat test to find your personal numbers • Refilling bottles on course vs. carrying a concentrated mix • Why you should separate your carbs and electrolytes into different bottles • What you can learn from Rob's personal experience of dehydration, hyponatraemia and a finish-line collapse Thinking about your first Ironman or 70.3 in 2026? At Team Oxygenaddict, we specialise in helping busy professionals fit high-quality training around demanding jobs and family life. Book an application call today to find out if you'd be a good fit for Team Oxygenaddict here: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/consultation-call/ * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply use code OXYGEN26 at checkout to claim your 15% discount * * * * * * * * * * * *SPONSORS* * * * * * * * * * * * Thinking about your first Ironman or 70.3 in 2026? At Team Oxygenaddict, we specialise in helping busy professionals fit high-quality training around demanding jobs and family life. Book an application call today to find out if you'd be a good fit for Team Oxygenaddict here: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/consultation-call/ * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply use code OXYGEN26 at checkout to claim your 15% discount

## Transcript

[0:04] Hello and welcome to the Oxygen Addict Triathlon podcast.
[0:07] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors Precision Fuel
[0:10] and hydration.com. You can get 15% off your first
[0:13] order with the code OXYGEN 26. Welcome to the show everybody.
[0:17] I'm your host coach Rob Willby from Team Oxygen Addict
[0:19] Triathlon Coaching. Every week I'll bring you an
[0:21] episode of this podcast to help educate, motivate and inspire
[0:24] you if you're Iron Man and 70.3 Adventures.
[0:27] On this week's episode, we'll be answering athlete questions
[0:30] around Iron Man fuelling and hydration.
[0:33] So we've got a tonne of questions have come through.
[0:35] It seems like the closer we get to Iron Man race day, the closer
[0:39] we get to race season, rightly so, the more people start to
[0:43] consider the fuelling, the hydration, the amount of fluid
[0:46] they need, the amount of electrolytes they need in that
[0:49] fluid. And we'll talk through some
[0:51] strategies during this episode. But one thing I want to stress
[0:54] to you here is if you're not quite at your race yet, start
[0:59] planning this out well in advance and start practising it
[1:02] on your long runs, on your long ride so it becomes second
[1:04] nature. So most important thing I can
[1:06] say to you in this entire episode, if you've left it until
[1:10] just before race day to make a plan, well, do you know what
[1:13] that's better than nothing. At least you're going in with a
[1:15] plan. But the best thing that you can
[1:16] possibly do here is practise this over ideally 10 weeks
[1:20] leading up to Iron Man or 70.3 race day.
[1:23] Then you practise in training, you practise with the products
[1:26] you're going to have. You've got the right number of
[1:27] grammes of carbs, milligrammes of sodium, the amount of fluid.
[1:31] Some of these things will vary on the day depending on
[1:33] temperature, but a lot of them won't.
[1:35] So try and start to practise this as far out from race day as
[1:38] you possibly can, because I genuinely mean this when I say
[1:41] it. Success on race day.
[1:43] It's as much a fuelling equation as as a fitness challenge.
[1:47] And so getting the right amounts of carbs and the right amounts
[1:50] of fluid and the right concentration of electrolytes in
[1:53] that fluid I think is as important to success, especially
[1:56] Iron Man race day, as getting the training right in the lead
[2:00] up. So that's the frame through
[2:02] which I want you listening to today's episode.
[2:04] Now, it's especially important to think about this given these
[2:07] heat spells we've had recently as I'm recording, we've just had
[2:10] a really crazy hot spell here in the UK and across Europe.
[2:13] And in fact, reading the news, Iron Man France was cancelled,
[2:17] Germany was shortened because of these extreme heat events.
[2:21] And good on Iron Man, quite frankly, for making a decision
[2:23] to do that. You know, it's an incredibly
[2:25] difficult challenge no matter what the temperature is.
[2:28] And often these races are really hot.
[2:29] But when it gets up into the 40°C and from our American
[2:33] listeners, that's going to be 110°F plus it does become life
[2:39] threateningly hot just to stay alive and let alone trying to
[2:42] exercise in that heat. So I think they should be as a
[2:46] difficult decision to make. And I understand if people have
[2:48] got race entries and they've flown out to Nice or Germany or
[2:51] wherever and haven't got to do the race they wanted.
[2:53] I can understand people being upset and pissed off about it.
[2:56] But ultimately, these are the kind of conditions where people
[3:00] end up dying. So I think we've got to look at
[3:02] it through through that point of view.
[3:03] Before I go into today's episode in detail, there's a couple of
[3:06] quick things you can do to help us out, please.
[3:08] Firstly, if you like and enjoy this episode, please follow us
[3:11] on Spotify or Upper podcasts. We're also, we've got a YouTube
[3:15] channel. Go and check us out on YouTube.
[3:16] It's just team Oxygen Addicts on YouTube.
[3:18] It's not the same exact version of the podcast.
[3:21] I put different episodes together over there, so
[3:23] hopefully you'll enjoy that as well.
[3:25] And if you're looking for help training for your first time,
[3:27] man, check out the coaching memberships over at
[3:29] teamoxygenaddict.com. I think we've got the most
[3:31] comprehensive triathlon coaching programme that's specifically
[3:34] designed for you. If you're a person with the
[3:37] problems, a busy age group of faces, if you've got family
[3:41] life, work life, you're trying to juggle all of that around
[3:43] training for Ironman. That's what we specialised in,
[3:46] helping people train around that and making it fit with your
[3:49] life. So if you're interested, there's
[3:50] a link in the show notes, I'd love to have a chat with you,
[3:52] book a membership call. We'll see if you'd be a good fit
[3:55] for joining the team. All right, so firstly, the first
[3:58] question that I get here. And again, these aren't specific
[4:01] questions from from named athletes this week.
[4:04] These are questions that I've combined together from tonnes of
[4:07] questions that have been sent in.
[4:08] So if you have got these questions, please feel free to
[4:11] send them in to help. Oxygen addict.com.
[4:14] I'm happy to answer these combined a bunch of them today
[4:17] to give us these questions in general around fueling and
[4:20] hydration. So firstly, should the amount of
[4:23] carbs per hour that are taken be based solely on my body weight?
[4:27] Right. Great question.
[4:29] Honestly, body weight can be a good guide to this.
[4:33] But gut absorption capacity matters a lot more than size.
[4:36] And our evidence, both scientifically and what we see
[4:40] anecdotally, is that gut absorption can be trained, which
[4:43] means that your body can learn to take in more carbohydrate.
[4:47] And ultimately you you're going to need to take in plenty of
[4:50] carbohydrate during your Iron Man or even your 70.3 because
[4:53] you just haven't got enough storage in your body.
[4:55] You've probably got enough storage for two 2 1/2 hours
[4:58] worth of exercise. If you're going to be out there
[5:01] between 8-9 hours and up to 17 hours, you are going to have to
[5:05] keep eating to keep those carbohydrate stores.
[5:07] So what we've always said here is a good rule of thumb to shoot
[5:10] for. It's 1 gramme of carbs per kilo
[5:13] of body weight. So if you're 60 kilos, that's 60
[5:16] grammes of carbs per hour. If you're 80 kilos, it's 80
[5:19] grammes. There seems to be a limit of
[5:22] around 100 grammes an hour for most normal triathletes.
[5:27] Now, if you, if you read about the pros, if you read about the
[5:29] very top age group is you'll read about people doing
[5:32] tremendous amounts of carbohydrate volume to try and
[5:35] keep themselves fueled. Some of them now are north of
[5:38] 150 grammes per hour. So what we're learning here is
[5:43] it's a relatively new concept. It's within the last year or two
[5:46] where people have really started pushing this carbohydrate
[5:49] absorption narrative. Firstly, you'll hear these
[5:53] stories from the pros of doing 150 grammes an hour in training.
[5:57] I don't think they're doing that on race day.
[5:58] I've not personally heard of pros doing more than 120 grammes
[6:02] an hour on race day, because obviously when you're working
[6:04] hard, some of that blood flow to the gut gets shunted off to your
[6:07] muscles and you're not going to absorb it as well.
[6:09] Secondly, you're not a pro and they've trained for it.
[6:13] Where I'm going with this is if you can shoot initially for one
[6:16] gramme of carbs per kilo of body weight per hour, that's a great
[6:20] starting point. If you can get up toward a
[6:22] hundred grammes an hour, I would consider that to be the absolute
[6:25] gold standard when moving away from that idea of smaller bodies
[6:29] seem to need less or can absorb less.
[6:31] Frankly, the more you can absorb, the better.
[6:33] The more you can absorb, the more you can use, the faster you
[6:36] can go. But the word of caution here is
[6:39] if you don't absorb the carbohydrate, it's just going to
[6:42] sit in your gut and eventually you're going to have to get rid
[6:45] of it. And so you'll hear these
[6:46] horrific stories of people throwing up or people having to
[6:49] go to the toilet with diarrhoea. It's not a place you want to be
[6:52] on race day, so you need to train it in training.
[6:56] So most athletes are going to land in our experience between
[6:59] the 60 to 90 grammes per hour range regardless of body weight.
[7:04] So train it. Start out with just doing
[7:07] whatever you do, which means just go out for a ride, take
[7:11] your normal amount of carbohydrate with you.
[7:12] When you get back, work out what you've eaten and then work out
[7:16] how many grammes per hour that's worked out to.
[7:18] And then let's say you know, let's say you've been out and
[7:21] you've worked out you've done 30 grammes or 40 grammes per hour.
[7:24] Start to gradually increase that by 5 grammes per hour each week.
[7:28] So you can go 45505560, etcetera.
[7:32] Get to the point where you keep increasing until you start to
[7:36] feel some discomfort and then you back it off a little bit.
[7:40] And our advice for race day is to to kind of take a step back
[7:44] from where your maximum numbers have been in training.
[7:47] So if you've been up to 100, dial it down to 90 grammes an
[7:50] hour on race day because again, you're probably going to end up
[7:52] going a bit harder on race day than you have in training.
[7:55] So there you go. That's my best advice for you
[7:57] there on the amount of carbs per hour, whether it should be based
[8:01] on body weight or not. OK, second question, how much
[8:06] should I push the carb intake in Iron Man training?
[8:09] So I answered this a little bit already.
[8:11] The headline here is that the fuel intolerance is trainable,
[8:14] but build it up gradually and we've said it is five grammes
[8:17] per hour per week idea. That's the best way to go with
[8:20] this. Don't try and go crazy.
[8:23] The five grammes per week, 5 grammes per hour per week seems
[8:27] to be a relatively Safeway to step forward with this.
[8:31] I'd advise you increasing until you get toward that 100 gramme
[8:34] per hour point or until you start to notice the gut
[8:37] discomfort and then back it off. But remember, it's very
[8:40] individual. If if it turns out that you can
[8:42] only process 50 grammes per hour, it doesn't mean you're
[8:44] doing anything wrong. Everybody is different and even
[8:47] some of you might be up at 121 thirty.
[8:50] That's fine. If you're absorbing it all,
[8:53] great. I've certainly had experiences
[8:55] in the past years and years ago with an athlete.
[8:57] He was a really big athlete. He was over 100 kilos and he was
[9:00] saying to me at the time I was advising to not go to more than
[9:04] 60 grammes an hour, I think. And he was saying like I can do
[9:07] 100 grammes an hour easily and I'm really hungry all the time.
[9:10] And it was what was right for him.
[9:12] And we, we adapted at the time when we said, look, if you're
[9:14] doing this in training and you're absorbing it in training,
[9:17] fantastic, more power to you. So that's a really good lead
[9:20] that things are working. So go there and the one word of
[9:24] training here is on race day. Sorry.
[9:26] The one word of caution here is on race day, especially if it's
[9:30] very hot, back that intake off by 10% from your best numbers.
[9:35] You really want to be comfortable on race day.
[9:38] And again, the intensity of race day will probably end up being a
[9:41] bit higher, whether you mean it to or not, which means there's a
[9:43] bit less blood available and you got for the absorption,
[9:47] especially on a really hot day, there's going to be less blood
[9:50] available and you got to absorb the carbohydrate because you're
[9:54] pumping so much more to your skin to try and stay cool.
[9:57] So don't try and push more on race day.
[9:59] That's my headline advice for you there #3 how much should I
[10:04] drink per hour on the bike and on the run?
[10:07] Again, this is an incredibly individual answer for everybody
[10:11] and we're going to start by working out what's right for
[10:13] you. And the number is going to be
[10:15] different depending on how hot it is.
[10:17] That's what makes this such a challenge.
[10:19] And especially if you're training in relatively cool
[10:22] conditions and then you your race day is really, really hot.
[10:26] So some baseline numbers, roughly 500 to 700 milligrammes,
[10:31] sorry, millilitres per hour is the common starting point, but
[10:36] sweat rates can vary hugely from 300 mills an hour up to over
[10:41] 1000 mills per hour when it's very hot.
[10:43] We've seen some athletes sweating 1500 millilitres per
[10:46] hour. So if you're not aware of what
[10:49] those numbers are, that's where the big challenge is.
[10:52] So the best thing you can actually do is to do a sweat
[10:55] test, find out your own number. If you visit the precision
[10:58] Hydration website, you can take an online sweat test there which
[11:02] will give you a good lead to the rough volume and the rough
[11:05] concentration of your sweat. The best way to go, the gold
[11:08] standard is an in person sweat test and again you can find out
[11:11] details of that through the precision Hydration website.
[11:14] What that will tell you specifically is the
[11:17] concentration of your sweat, which doesn't vary very much at
[11:21] all and it will also tell you your sweat rate at rest.
[11:25] And so from there it gives you some really good leads.
[11:28] The key here though is to expect to drink more in the heat.
[11:31] So let the thirst plus a plan guide you don't over drink, but
[11:37] if you're thirsty on race day or you're thirsty riding in the
[11:39] heat, that's a key that you need to be drinking more.
[11:43] So the key thing I'd say for you here is you need to keep records
[11:46] with our athletes. What we encourage them to do is
[11:48] in their Training Peaks account, we've got a little box with a
[11:51] long ride in particular that gets them to record how many
[11:55] grammes of carbs per hour they've taken in, how many
[11:57] millilitres per hour they've taken in on the ride, and what
[12:00] the what the temperature has been.
[12:02] And so you'll then get a really good idea.
[12:04] Some other ideas you can do is you can weigh yourself before
[12:06] the ride and weigh yourself after the ride.
[12:09] Again, keep track of how much you've taken in.
[12:12] That will give you a good lead for how much you've either under
[12:15] drunk or whether you've drunk appropriately.
[12:18] So keeping the records is the absolute key to this.
[12:21] And at this point I'm going to give a shout out to our
[12:23] sponsors, Precision Fuel and Hydration.
[12:26] They are the title sponsor of the Iron Man 70.3 World
[12:29] Championships, which you might have seen has just been
[12:31] announced. The 2027 is going to be moving
[12:35] to Chattanooga in the USA. Originally it was going to be a
[12:37] Nice. I've been reading that there's a
[12:39] new mayor of Nice who has said we're cutting costs and we're
[12:43] not going to pay to have Iron Man come here.
[12:45] So the 70.3 World Champs is still in Nice this year, but in
[12:48] 2027 we'll be going over to Chattanooga and it will again be
[12:52] the Precision Fuel and Hydration Iron Man 70.3 World
[12:55] Championships on their website. I think you've got most
[12:59] importantly a tonne of information that you can educate
[13:02] yourself around fluid intake, electrolyte intake and grammes
[13:06] of carbohydrate. And I've said this before and
[13:08] I'm not going to apologise for saying it, it is as important to
[13:11] get these numbers right for your Iron Man race day as it is to
[13:14] get your training right. And so you have to practise it
[13:16] in training. The first spot to start is
[13:19] getting good education. So on the PFH website there are
[13:22] literally hundreds of case studies of athletes.
[13:25] You can find an athlete like you of a similar body size, doing
[13:28] similar events, see what's worked for them.
[13:31] You can take the online sweat test.
[13:32] Just learn about this stuff because there's more to it than
[13:35] just drinking when you're thirsty.
[13:37] So go on there and educate yourself.
[13:39] If you decide you want to make a purchase there, you can use the
[13:42] code Oxygen 26 that will give you 15% of your first order.
[13:48] But one of their new products on the 23rd of June was released.
[13:52] It was the new flavour of their chew, which is the watermelon
[13:55] flavour chew. It's really great actually.
[13:56] They sent me a packet of these through to try.
[13:59] It's a really nice mild flavour. I like the other flavours that
[14:02] are out there anyway, so it's it's no odds to me.
[14:04] I like all of them, but these ones I think are really, really
[14:07] good. Tested it on my 14 year old son
[14:09] who immediately started trying to Hoover them away into his
[14:12] lunch box for school so I've had to hide those away from him.
[14:15] Sorry son, you're not getting any of those.
[14:18] But they're really good, really like them.
[14:20] So I'd really recommend you go and try this new flavour out.
[14:24] They were developed alongside Rachel and Can to help beat the
[14:27] flavour fatigue that you often get when you're just eating the
[14:30] same thing time and time again. She used it to win the Coke
[14:33] Donor 250. So there you go.
[14:35] We've got a fantastic pedigree there already. 30 grammes of
[14:39] carbs per pack, high carb to weight ratio.
[14:42] They contain no artificial ingredients and the vegan and
[14:44] gluten free batch tested for anti doping.
[14:47] So damn good. Use the code oxygen 26 for 15%
[14:50] of your first order. Can't recommend those highly
[14:53] enough. OK next question and this was a
[14:57] genuine question from one of our athletes.
[14:59] Can I real, can I refill my own bottles on the course at my Iron
[15:03] Man? OK, so the first thing to point
[15:06] out here is you can refill your bottles but you don't need to.
[15:09] The aid stations on a course. If you're a first timer and you
[15:11] haven't done this before, they will hand you full water bottles
[15:15] from the aid station and all you do is you discard your empty
[15:17] water bottle as you're riding in towards the aid station, pick up
[15:21] a fresh one and off you go. They'll have, if you're doing a
[15:24] branded Iron Man, they'll have both plain water and PFH 1000
[15:30] milligramme concentration bottles ready made-up for you.
[15:34] So you've got the choice there of what you choose.
[15:36] So just discard the bottle on the way in picking you one up.
[15:39] My personal favourite to do is to pick up the 1000 milligramme
[15:42] bottle, put it on the frame, then pick up a bottle of plain
[15:45] water and use that to hydrate with at the end of the aid
[15:49] station and then discard the bottle before the end of the aid
[15:52] station. That way you get the fluids that
[15:54] you need and you get to stay cool as well.
[15:57] My personal advice to you here is going to be to carry a
[16:01] concentrated mix of PFH in a bottle with you and then dilute
[16:07] with water on the course if you need to.
[16:09] So that way you've you're always sure you've got enough
[16:11] electrolytes to get around the course.
[16:13] Obviously it's a lot easier on the Iron Man branded routes
[16:15] because they've got PFH actually out there on the course.
[16:18] If you do another races you're going to have to take care of
[16:22] your own electrolytes. So you can either do the
[16:24] concentrated bottle or you might have to take the sachets or
[16:27] tablets with you and stop, open the bottle up, drop the tablets
[16:31] or the powder in and remix as you go along.
[16:33] It's not ideal to have to do that in terms of timing if
[16:36] you're trying to be competitive. But it's much more important to
[16:40] get that fluid balance and electrolyte balance right
[16:43] because it's really going to come back and bite you during
[16:45] the marathon and if you don't get it right.
[16:47] So make sure you get that absolutely sorted.
[16:51] Question 6. Should I separate carbs from
[16:54] electrolytes in my bottles? And my answer is always going to
[16:58] be yes, because separating these out is going to give you
[17:01] independent control over the carbs that you take in and the
[17:05] sodium and fluid volume that you take in.
[17:07] So ideally, what you're going to have here is 1 bottle of
[17:10] concentrated carbohydrate. I think the PFH Flow Gel is a
[17:14] fantastic product here because you can get 360 grammes of carbs
[17:18] in one small bike bottle, and then you can have your sodium
[17:21] and fluids in another bottle. You can have a concentrated
[17:24] bottle there. And then if it's really hot and
[17:27] you need to drink more, you're then in control of the volume of
[17:31] fluid you're taking in and it isn't dependent on you're taking
[17:34] in extra carbs as well. In the past athletes have mixed
[17:37] up strong concentrations of water and carb together.
[17:42] I see. The problem there is if you're
[17:44] really thirsty and you need to drink, you can end up having to
[17:46] dump down tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of carbs just to get the
[17:51] fluid in that's going to upset you gut.
[17:53] Very possibly. So personal favourite here, a
[17:57] concentrated carb bottle, some kind of concentrated gel here.
[18:02] So either the PFH flow gel, there's other brands out there
[18:05] as well. The high 5 gels work great.
[18:07] You can get 12 or 13 of those fluid gels into a bottle there.
[18:11] So you've got 1300 calories or so and a really strong
[18:16] electrolyte dose bottle as well. Whatever you choose, use that
[18:21] system and training so you've practised with it.
[18:23] So again, a really great way to go here is one really strong car
[18:26] bottle, one strong electrolyte bottle, and then stop to get
[18:30] water from a shop as you're out there.
[18:32] And then you get used to doing it the way you're going to do it
[18:34] on race day. I'm going to give you a sort of
[18:36] personal anecdote here. When I went to the World
[18:39] Championships in 2008, it was in Almir in Holland, and it was an
[18:44] incredibly hot day. It was up into the low 30s.
[18:47] There was no shade. It was absolutely boiling heart
[18:50] to probably over 110° in the sun as we were riding.
[18:55] It was difficult because they set the pros off first in the
[18:59] swim and we had to stand around. So we didn't get started until,
[19:02] from memory, it's probably after 9:00 AM, so it was already
[19:04] really hot. We've been standing around for
[19:06] an hour or two already, race day morning, waiting for the pros to
[19:10] do their swim before we would get set off.
[19:12] And it was weird because it was kind of a triangle of 1500
[19:15] metres and then the long swim. So we had to wait for the pros
[19:18] to do this first triangle before they set us off.
[19:21] So we were there for ages in the hot sun.
[19:23] So we were already dehydrated before we set off.
[19:26] The swim then was really long. It was meant to be a four and a
[19:29] half K swim. It was long by AK.
[19:31] So we swam over 5 1/2 K. So I was in the water for, I
[19:35] think for memory, I was in the water for an hour, 45, something
[19:38] like that. So by the time I got out of the
[19:40] water, I can remember being super, super thirsty.
[19:44] I got onto the bike. The bike was flat.
[19:47] It was really hot, but it was also really windy.
[19:49] And the first part of the course, Almera was, I'm going to
[19:54] guess it was two or three miles of a straight bike path all the
[19:57] way down, still alongside the water, so you could see athletes
[20:01] stretching off into the distance.
[20:03] And what that does mentally, it encourages you to ride far too
[20:06] hard. I didn't have a power metre at
[20:07] the time and so I think in my brain what I was thinking was if
[20:11] I can catch one of these athletes.
[20:13] I can maybe sit 20 metres behind them and get a bit of wind
[20:17] shadow from this athlete. But of course every time you
[20:19] caught somebody your sensation is I'm going much faster than
[20:23] them so why would I want to slow down?
[20:25] So you end up making pacing mistakes, riding too hard,
[20:30] riding too hard into the wind. Like I said I didn't have a
[20:33] power metre at the time, but I know from my splits afterwards
[20:36] it was it was 3 loops of 40K and my 40K splits were 1041 ten 1:15
[20:44] for a 330 bike split. 3/30 was about what I thought I would
[20:49] ride if I paced it evenly. But obviously I've absolutely
[20:52] detonated on the bike. I remember just grinding my
[20:55] teeth on the back half of it and because it was so flat and
[20:58] because I was trying to race and in my head it was the World
[21:01] Championships, I didn't stop to pee on the bike.
[21:04] So I was riding around, there was nowhere to pee obviously on
[21:08] a downhill where I would usually have done it.
[21:09] And I know like Full disclosure, back in the day, that was the
[21:12] accepted thing, peeing on the bike.
[21:13] I think they've changed the rules since then and it's now a
[21:15] DQ offence, but it wasn't back then.
[21:17] So peeing on the bike was a thing to do.
[21:19] So I hadn't had a pee since before the start of the swim.
[21:22] So it's probably 5 hours into the day.
[21:25] And the reason that's important is firstly, I was in a huge
[21:28] amount of discomfort from carrying all this water and in
[21:31] my bladder, but secondly it meant I didn't want to drink.
[21:35] So I wasn't picking enough water from the aid stations.
[21:37] It was before the days of PFH being available, I actually did
[21:40] have salt tabs on the bike and I used to try and take 1 salt tab
[21:44] every hour which was 250 mils of sodium, which is obviously
[21:48] nowhere near enough for a guy like me.
[21:49] It turns out when I'm sweat tested, my sweat is over 1600
[21:53] milligrammes per litre. So it's really hot, I'm getting
[21:56] really dehydrated, I'm not drinking, I'm not getting enough
[22:00] sodium in. And I remember eventually just
[22:02] having to stop at the roadside and going for AP and then
[22:04] stopping again in T2 and having the most enormous P setting off
[22:08] on the run and just feeling really weird, feeling really
[22:11] light headed. I didn't have any kind of, you
[22:15] know, I don't have any kind of speed on the run.
[22:17] I'd over biked anyway. So I'd blow myself to bits.
[22:20] And as the end of the run came, I was getting hotter and hotter
[22:23] and hotter and more dehydrated and feeling more dizzy.
[22:25] And I remember crossing the finish line, Chrissy Wellington
[22:28] was there giving out finishing medals, which was wonderful.
[22:33] And that's the last thing I remember getting my medal off
[22:35] Chrissy, everything going dark. And then basically just about
[22:40] remembering I was getting taken to the Med tent and then coming
[22:43] around with the drip in my arm. And my wife at the time was
[22:47] saying to me, you know, you've had two Ivs, you've been in and
[22:50] out of consciousness. They want to take you to
[22:52] hospitals. This is not good.
[22:54] And I eventually came around and was fine after a couple of
[22:58] hours, but I was, I was really ill.
[23:00] I was throwing up. One of the things that happened
[23:02] is when you get dehydrated and hyponatremic, your body makes
[23:05] you throw up. You throw up basically pure
[23:07] water to try and restore your body's electrolyte balance.
[23:10] So even though you're already really dehydrated, your body
[23:13] dehydrates you even more to try and restore the sodium balance.
[23:17] So I was really, really ill. It was, it was one of the last
[23:20] races that I did competitively because of this experience.
[23:24] And I just thought I, I can't race and end up in this
[23:27] situation. My poor wife's been sitting
[23:29] there for hours in this Med tent with me.
[23:31] She thought I was seriously ill and I felt seriously ill at the
[23:34] time as well. So I'm telling you this so that
[23:37] you avoid making the same mistakes that I did.
[23:40] If it turns out you're a particularly heavy or salty
[23:43] sweater, you can't afford to not take care of this.
[23:46] You can't afford to make mistakes, not drinking enough,
[23:49] can't afford to make mistakes, not stopping for a pee if you
[23:52] need it, quite frankly, because that will even affect the amount
[23:55] that you drink. So take care of this stuff.
[23:58] That's my most important take away to you.
[24:01] I would rather you cross the finish line feeling good and a
[24:04] bit slower having executed your nutrition and hydration
[24:07] strategies, the tea, then try and push yourself to the ragged
[24:11] edge, feeling sick, not able to drink or eat and ending up ill
[24:14] or hypernatremic. It's really, really unpleasant.
[24:17] So take care of all of this stuff.
[24:20] I know the guy sponsor the show, but you know, the Full
[24:23] disclosure here is I approached Andy, Andy Blow from Precision
[24:26] Hydration when I met him at Iman UK and said, look, man, I need
[24:30] to talk to you about this. These are my symptoms.
[24:32] And he said, basically, you're just like me mate, I've got the
[24:35] solution for you. It's the very early days of the
[24:37] podcast and they've become a great fit for sponsoring the
[24:41] show because I think what they do is so important to the
[24:43] success of athletes health and success completing race day.
[24:48] So although it's a shout out for them, they're responsive because
[24:52] they're a company that help out athletes in such an important
[24:56] way. So I encourage you head on over
[24:57] to precisionfuelandhydration.com and if you are going to make a
[25:00] purchase, use the code Oxygen 26 for 15% of your first
[25:04] electrolyte order. If you're racing Challenge Roth
[25:06] this weekend, I wish you all the best.
[25:09] I know it's going to be really, really hot.
[25:11] So take all of this under advisement.
[25:14] Make sure you're drinking. Make sure you're drinking the
[25:15] right amount of concentration of electrolytes.
[25:18] Back the power off if you need to.
[25:20] Stay as cool as you can. Walk parts of the marathon more
[25:23] than you feel that you need to protect that finish at all
[25:27] costs. Hope it goes really, really well
[25:29] and please send me an e-mail to help Oxygen addict.com to let me
[25:33] know how those race goes. I'm going to do an episode
[25:35] reading out our genuine readers emails coming out in the next
[25:39] week or two, so we'll have time to include it for that one.
[25:42] So all the best to you. I hope it goes really, really
[25:44] well. And also no matter where you're
[25:46] racing around the world, you know, 70.3 Sweden as well coming
[25:49] up this weekend amongst others. So I hope that goes well.
[25:53] And if you're looking for help coaching for your first time on
[25:55] a 70.3 team, oxygenetic.com. I think we've got the most
[25:59] comprehensive triathlon coaching programme that's designed to
[26:02] solve the problems. That busy age group is like you
[26:04] face. If you've got a busy family
[26:06] life, a busy work life and you're trying to juggle all
[26:09] these balls, We'll help you sort this out by putting a training
[26:12] plan in place that suits your life.
[26:13] Then all you have to do everyday is just do the training that's
[26:17] there and not worry about whether what you're doing is
[26:19] correct or what you have to do. So links in the show notes, You
[26:23] don't have to remember them. And until next week, have a
[26:26] great safe training and racing week.
[26:28] I'm cultural will be and you've been listening to the Oxygenatic
[26:31] Triathlon podcast. Take good care, stay safe in the
[26:35] heat, and I'll see you next week.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.