# How to Hydrate for IRONMAN with Andy Blow from Precision Fuel & Hydration | Ep 491

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 29 May 2024, 15 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/87113914/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2024-4-23%2F378519925-44100-2-6246cf5346256.mp3

Do you know how much fluid you lose through sweating in an hour? How about the amount of sodium? Sweat rates and concentration can vary hugely - from 300ml per hour to 1500ml per hour. And 200mg of sodium to 1500mg+ per hour. Not knowing how much liquid, and what strength of electrolytes to be consuming while you're racing puts you at a very real risk of - at best underperforming, at worst a trip to the medical tent. Why risk hundreds of hours of training for something that can be taken care of relatively easily? Andy Blow, founder of Precison Fuel & Hydration talks us through the importance of correct, personalised hydration specifically for IRONMAN athletes. PF&H are the new hydration partners for IRONMAN Europe, and will be providing on-course hydration at all European IRONMAN events throughout 2024. * * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Like what you heard in this show? Join hundreds of other age group triathletes making the most of their limited training time, training with Team OxygenAddict! http://team.oxygenaddict.com - The most comprehensive triathlon coaching program for busy age groupers. Join the Team Oxygenaddict waiting list and be the first to find out when a space becomes available: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/waiting-list * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 this link and the discount will be auto-applied at the checkout. * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch on youtube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

## Transcript

[0:02] Hello and welcome to the Oxygenating Podcast.
[0:05] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors Precision Fuel
[0:08] and hydration.com. You can personalise your
[0:10] fuelling and hydration strategy so you perform at your best with
[0:14] 15% off your first order of electrolytes and carbohydrate
[0:17] fuel with decodeoxygen24@precisionfuelandhydration.com.
[0:22] Welcome to the show everybody. I'm your host, coach Rob Wilby,
[0:25] and every week we've been you an episode of this podcast to help
[0:29] motivate and inspire you for your triathlon goals for this
[0:32] season. Listen, a couple of quick things
[0:34] you could do for us before we jump into today's episode.
[0:37] If you do like this episode, please consider following us on
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[0:56] appreciate that. And secondly, if you're looking
[0:58] for help and advice with your triathlon training, please
[1:01] consider getting in touch with us.
[1:03] You can read all about what we offer at Team Oxygen, nick.com
[1:06] and then you can e-mail us at help@oxygenaddict.com or there's
[1:11] a link in the show notes to book a call with me or one of the
[1:13] coaching team. We can discuss how we can best
[1:16] help you out with your triathlon goals for this season.
[1:20] Andy Blow from Precision Hydration, welcome onto the
[1:23] show. It's great to have you with us
[1:25] and thank you for joining us to give us a special introduction
[1:28] as to how Ironman athletes can really improve the hydration and
[1:33] they can deliver great hydration so they can have a really
[1:35] fantastic race day. So first up, I know you've got a
[1:38] few tips for us that are really going to help Ironman athletes
[1:41] out on race day. The first thing I wanted to
[1:42] start with was let's talk about fluid needs from Iron Man and
[1:47] what can an athlete typically get through or typically need
[1:51] and how can that vary depending on temperature and weather?
[1:54] Yeah, hydration, as you know better than anyone, Rob, is
[1:57] very, very individual. And the amount of fluid that
[2:00] different people need for different races is probably
[2:03] going to be driven by three things primarily.
[2:06] The first one is obvious, it's going to be the weather.
[2:09] We know that I'm an athletes drink significantly less in cool
[2:12] conditions than they're doing hot conditions because we see
[2:15] that in the case of the numbers that we put together, we've got
[2:18] Ironman athletes in very, very cold races who've drunk less
[2:22] than 300 millilitres per hour through the race.
[2:25] And we've got Iron Man athletes in extremely hot and humid
[2:28] conditions. You've drunk close to 1 1/2
[2:31] litres per hour for the entire race.
[2:33] So that is a big, big old range. The second thing that's going to
[2:37] drive how much fluid you need is to do with your Physiology, your
[2:41] sweat rate. Different people just have
[2:43] different sweat rates. You know, we've all been in a
[2:45] sort of a, a spinning class environment or been in the gym
[2:48] and someone's there glowing away and barely sweating and another
[2:51] person's like reading the equipment and creating a
[2:53] swimming pool on the floor. And that's just how some of us
[2:56] are, are wired up differently. And then the third thing is the
[3:01] intensity that you go in at the people at the front of the race
[3:04] who are absolutely smashing it. The, the, the guys and girls
[3:06] that are putting out 200 and 5300 watts on the bike or more.
[3:09] And the people that are running at 4 minutes, OK, are going to
[3:12] sweat more than the people that are running and cycling more
[3:16] slowly. So getting an understanding of
[3:19] what your individual swat rate is going to be like in the
[3:22] conditions and at the pace that you're going to be going at is
[3:25] going to be really, really important.
[3:27] So my top tip for getting your height, your fluid requirement
[3:30] nailed is weigh yourself before and after some training sessions
[3:35] where you do your best to simulate race conditions,
[3:38] environment, intensity and clothing.
[3:41] And then look at those numbers and start to figure out what is
[3:44] a reasonable proportion of those fluids if you used to be able to
[3:47] replace on race day. Alright, that's great.
[3:50] So it's very individual. People need to work out what
[3:52] works for themselves, and you're going to need less on cool days
[3:56] and potentially much more on very hot days.
[3:59] Yeah, and and always don't just copy other people with this this
[4:03] number, the amount of fluid you need is going to be really
[4:05] individual to you. You're you might get lucky if
[4:08] you copy what you're you're successful.
[4:10] I'm an athlete friend does, but you may well be getting it
[4:14] totally wrong. So rely on getting it right for
[4:16] you. Nice one.
[4:18] And the next important factor involved in keeping your
[4:22] hydration right is obviously electrolyte balance and
[4:25] electrolyte concentration. So can you talk us through a
[4:27] little bit around? Again, it's going to be
[4:29] individual, but what people need to know about electrolytes to
[4:32] help them stay hydrated? First thing is, the most
[4:36] important electrolyte you're going to take in as an Ironman
[4:38] athlete is you're going to need to take in sodium.
[4:41] Sodium is the one that really it's the one you lose most of in
[4:46] your sweat and it's the one that has the most influence on your
[4:48] fluid balance when you're exercising.
[4:50] So we lose a lot of sodium in our sweat because it's the most
[4:54] predominant electrolyte in your blood plasma where sweat comes
[4:57] from. So what we're focusing on along
[4:59] with the volume of fluid is how much sodium to put in it.
[5:03] Now again, like with fluid volume replacement, everyone is
[5:06] an individual here and everyone's swept.
[5:08] Sodium levels are going to vary. So some people lose tiny, tiny
[5:12] amounts of sodium in their sweat, as little as 200
[5:14] milligrammes in every litre. Other people might lose upwards
[5:17] of 1500 or 1800 milligrammes of litre litre like like you or I
[5:22] do. And so we've got to try and
[5:23] tailor that electrolyte intake based on what you lose as an
[5:27] individual and also based on the total fluid volume you're
[5:31] drinking. So the generally speaking, the
[5:33] saltier your sweat and the more total fluid you drinking, the
[5:37] higher the concentration of electrolytes are going to need
[5:39] to take in. Right, that makes perfect sense.
[5:42] So again, it's very individual, but people need to try and work
[5:45] this out in training. I remember you telling me years
[5:48] ago, really good. A really good lead on this is if
[5:51] you go out on a hot day and you're wearing black kit, if you
[5:54] end the kit with white salt caked all over your shorts and
[5:58] all over your jersey, that's a really good sign that you
[6:01] probably are very salty sweater or very high concentration of
[6:04] sodium sweater. Definitely there's there's lots
[6:07] of signs like that. If you see salt lots over your
[6:10] skin and clothes on a hot day, if you're someone who's when you
[6:13] sweat stings in your eyes, if you get muscle cramps quite
[6:17] easily, especially in hot weather, If you're also just
[6:20] someone who finds that they feel a bit crappy, you get headaches
[6:22] and you feel a bit rubbish after training and exercising in the
[6:26] heat, then all of those things are good signs that you might be
[6:29] losing more salt and you need to replace a bit more.
[6:32] Great. Now as well as these sort of
[6:35] telltale signs, I know that you guys do individual sweat tests
[6:39] for athletes as well. Can you talk us through a little
[6:41] bit about what the sweat test is, how people can firstly do
[6:45] their online sweat test with you and then the in person sweat
[6:48] test as well? Yeah.
[6:49] So the online sweat test is built into our fuel and
[6:51] hydration planner, basically what that does that ask you some
[6:54] questions about your Physiology, how you find exercising in the
[6:57] heat and that kind of thing. It it helps to put you in the
[7:01] right zone for how much electrolyte you might need to
[7:03] replace for a given race. The rear.
[7:07] If you're really serious about getting this right though, the
[7:09] best thing is to get an actual sweat test done, which is where
[7:12] we take a sweat sample from you. We currently do that at rest.
[7:15] We put some electrodes on your arm, we extract the sweat
[7:17] sample. It takes about 20 minutes.
[7:19] We analyse it and we look at the level of sodium and the level of
[7:23] salt you're losing in your sweat.
[7:25] And that's, although that varies a little bit day-to-day, it's
[7:27] relatively set by your genetics. So I've had hundreds of sweat
[7:31] tests over the years and they always come out really, really
[7:34] on the high end. So I know I'm still needs to
[7:36] replace a lot more like like you are as well.
[7:39] We do also though, test people that lose tiny amounts
[7:43] sometimes. And of course everyone else
[7:45] exists somewhere in between. And people that are familiar
[7:48] with statistics will will know what a normal distribution curve
[7:52] is, where you've got this kind of bowl shaped curve on a graph.
[7:55] Some of us are really, really high in terms of how much salt
[7:57] we lose in our sweats. Some of us are low, but the
[7:59] majority of people are somewhere in the middle.
[8:01] And by having that sweat test, you can sort of figure out where
[8:04] you sit on that line and use that information intelligently
[8:07] to to guide how aggressive you wanna be with your electrolyte
[8:11] replacement. That feels like over the years
[8:14] the the knowledge athletes have got around the importance of
[8:17] replacing sodium as well as fluid in Iron Man has really
[8:21] increased. I remember back in the early
[8:22] days when I was racing, we had almost no knowledge of it at all
[8:25] of the importance of it. Now you guys have just announced
[8:29] that you're going to be the official hydration partner of
[8:31] Ironman Europe. It's going to be much, much
[8:34] easier for athletes to get hold of higher concentrations of
[8:38] sodium out on the course. So do you want to talk a little
[8:41] bit about what will be available for athletes racing the Ironman
[8:44] branded events in Europe? Yeah.
[8:46] Yeah, yeah, we're obviously super excited to be partnering
[8:49] with Ironman. I've been a triathlete since I
[8:52] can remember and it's still the biggest brand in the sport.
[8:55] It's the one that everyone wants to do.
[8:56] So being able to partner with them at this level is
[8:59] incredible. And we're providing PH1000,
[9:02] which is our kind of mid, mid to high strength electrolyte drink
[9:06] on course on the bike and the run at all of the Ironman Europe
[9:10] races this year, including the Vinfast.
[9:13] I'm on World Championships in Nice in September, so athletes
[9:17] there will be able to get PH1000 in Bite bottles is premixed into
[9:22] 750 millilitre bike bottles on the bike.
[9:25] And then we had to pick it up in cups on the run.
[9:27] And that will be alongside things like Morton gels and
[9:30] Morton bars for energy, bananas, cups of cola, sweets and other
[9:35] sort of small real food items to build a whole fuelling strategy.
[9:39] And the important thing for people to remember is that the
[9:42] electrolyte drink that we're providing, pH thousand, is about
[9:45] double the electrolytes sent to the normal sports drink, but
[9:47] it's got no carbs with it. So you're going to use that to
[9:51] get your fluids and electrolytes and you're going to use the
[9:53] jewels, the bars, the bananas, the coke and the other things to
[9:57] kind of or, or the jobs that you carry with you or choose you
[10:00] carry with you to build the fuelling side of you of your
[10:04] overall plan. Nice.
[10:06] And I think a lot of the athletes have spoken to that we
[10:09] coach, they're really excited about the partnership because
[10:11] the challenge for them has always been how do I carry the
[10:14] sachets of sodium with me and the do I stop on the bike, do I
[10:18] mix it myself? The fact it's going to be much
[10:20] more easily available, I think it's really going to help out
[10:23] athletes who are racing in the heat this year especially, and
[10:27] those who really struggle with cramps traditionally on the run.
[10:30] I think it's really going to help them out as well.
[10:33] Yeah, I hope so. And I think the, the big
[10:35] question we've been having from athletes that use our products
[10:38] has been, OK, well, we've got thousand strength on the course.
[10:41] What if I use 1500 or what if I use 500 typically?
[10:45] And the answer to that is relatively straightforward in
[10:47] that you can use the pH thousand on course.
[10:51] If you're someone who doesn't need a lot of electrolytes, then
[10:54] you're going to take infrequently, you're gonna take
[10:56] bottles of pH thousand and more frequently you gonna pick up
[10:59] bottles of water. So overall, you're diluting the
[11:01] mix that's grown into your body downwards.
[11:04] If you're someone like me who sweats a lot and you need a lot
[11:06] more salt, I'd be looking at 1500 milligrammes a litre.
[11:09] Normally I would be taking the thousands that I can get course
[11:12] and then carrying some electrolyte capsules which are
[11:15] then supplement on top of that in order to increase the
[11:18] relative concentration. And if anyone's got specific
[11:21] questions about that, we've got our dedicated helpline and video
[11:26] call system set up for Ironman so people can book a free 20
[11:30] minute call and talk their strategy through just to get a
[11:33] common sense check on it if they want to.
[11:36] And that's something that we've had really good feedback on.
[11:38] A lot of our athletes have used those calls.
[11:40] And I'll make sure we'll put a link in the show notes under the
[11:43] video and in the podcast so people can go and book that call
[11:47] with you. They found it super helpful.
[11:50] And they've all also found helpful the case studies I think
[11:53] that you've put up on your website of, you know, I think
[11:56] you've got, I don't think I'm overstating it, say hundreds of
[11:59] different athletes at 70.3 and Iron Man now showing what those
[12:03] athletes have taken on race day to give them an idea of what
[12:06] other people have taken who might be similar to them.
[12:09] So do you want to give people just a heads up where they can
[12:11] go to find out a little bit more about those case studies and
[12:14] about the online sweat test and the video call?
[12:17] Yeah, all of that you can find on our home page, which is a
[12:20] precisionhydration.com or precision fuel and hydration
[12:23] com. Both of those URL's work.
[12:25] In the top navigation bar. You've got a link to athletes
[12:27] where you can go through to look at Coast studies.
[12:29] We've also got an Ironman specific page now, LinkedIn the
[12:32] top menu bar. If you want to book a video
[12:34] call, you can do that through the Ironman pages, but you can
[12:37] also go straight to the footer of the website and just hit the
[12:39] link that says book a free video call and get straight through to
[12:43] the team. Nice one.
[12:45] Well, listen, Andy, thanks so much for coming on.
[12:48] I think those tips are really going to help us athletes out
[12:50] when they're both training and racing somebody .3 and Iron Man
[12:54] this year and we'll look forward to seeing you guys out on the
[12:56] course with the precision fuel and hydration flags in the
[13:00] background of the World Championships again.
[13:02] Yeah, we can't wait, mate, Can't, can't wait to be there.
[13:06] OK, then that brings us to the end of this week's episode.
[13:10] So here are some discount codes and deals for you over at
[13:13] Precision Fuel and hydration.com.
[13:15] Use the code Oxygen 24 for 15% off your first electrolyte
[13:18] order. And over at teamoxygenaddict.com
[13:22] I think we've got the most comprehensive triathlon coaching
[13:25] programme for busy age groupers. If you've enjoyed what you've
[13:28] heard today and the advice has helped you out, well, great
[13:31] stuff. I hope that's helped put some of
[13:33] your fears at rest. And I know from some of the
[13:34] calls we've had, it's helping raise the right questions in the
[13:38] minds of people as to whether their current coaching
[13:42] relationship is working for them.
[13:44] If you're looking for a change or if you're looking for high
[13:46] quality, proven coaching for Iron Man or 73 Triathlon this
[13:50] year, you can just check out the details of our coaching packages
[13:53] on our website at teamoxygenaddict.com.
[13:56] And then if you're interested, there's a link in the show notes
[13:59] below. You can join our waiting list
[14:01] and you'll be notified if the slot becomes available.
[14:04] And at that point you'll have a chance to book a call with us
[14:07] and see if you'd be a good fit for joining the team.
[14:09] So although we don't have slots available at the moment, we'll
[14:12] make those call appointments available to people as and when
[14:16] we do have a fleets who end their coaching packages during
[14:20] the season if and when that happens.
[14:22] So remember there's links in the show notes so you don't have to
[14:24] remember them till next week. Have a great safe training and
[14:28] racing week. I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've
[14:30] been listening to the Oxygen Addict podcast.
[14:33] See ya.

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