Road to Challenge Aarhus: Nailing 70.3 Nutrition?

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Yesterday evening I spent some time trying to get my nutrition for the upcoming self-supported 70.3 half ironman triathlon on 16/4 right. It’s a pretty tricky calculation when you’ve never done it before. As ever so often with these kinds of things, I set up a Google Doc spreadsheet to help out with the numbers.
As previously explained I’ve never really had a go at this distance, so making a nutrition plan that works is unlikely. Another good reason to try things out beforehand. I’ve now settled with about 560 grams carbs for an estimated 7 hours of activity. We’ll see if that does it. Either way I should bring some extra energy onto the bike.
In order to have everything nailed there’s one thing that I haven’t calculated: my hourly sweat rate. Without that, I really do not know how much I need to drink or how much salt I need to take in. I’m just going to have to wing that one, but I’ll bring 3 tablets for the run to avoid cramping as I had some cramping issues last year going from bike to run in the Aalsmeer Sprint Triathlon.
For final prep I need to pack the whole thing, check the bike, pack the clothes and God knows what else to finally be ready for the start on Saturday morning.
Everything old is new again: it’s OK to let thirst be your guide to a hydration strategy. See Matt Fitzgerald’s summary of current science on the subject:
http://www.active.com/nutrition/Articles/The_new_rules_of_hydration.htm?page=2&PageMode=Print
Cheers!
Mark
Thanks for sharing. Just read tje article, which definitely provides food for thought!
I may not have said, but I have been following this preparation from here – I absolutely cannot wait to hear how you’ve done! Lots of good luck today – though I know it will be the hard work that gets you through! 🙂
I thought away much. Well, as you can see from the race report it was good fun and I seem more ready than I thought. I have come up with a few problems though: in Aarhus it will be much warmer and much, MUCH more hilly!!