My Ironman Nutrition Plan Re-engineered

I wanted to share the major changes I had to make to the Ironman nutrition plan I used during last year's race. So I briefly summarized what I used last year but I was very detailed on what I used this year. Yes people, I'm a wordy son of a gun so very detailed means extremely detailed! I will not go too deep into all of the weeks of trial and error experimentation I had to endure to finally find what worked for me. During those weeks, I was getting stressed out about finding what would work. I finally discovered that my biggest issue was caused by early muscle fatigue due to insufficient sodium intake! I also wanted to provide the details of the race plan I used during this year's Ironman Florida (IMFL). I wanted to share all of this information to contribute to the triathlon community since I have learned so much from the community over the last 2.5 years.

The information I provided below can help more than just triathletes doing Ironman. It could be slightly modified for half-ironman length races. For half-ironman races, the fats that were included in my bike nutrition may possibly not be needed since it is a higher intensity, shorter race. People doing century bike rides could easily follow the bike nutrition I used this year. For sprint and Olympic length triathlons, the plan I discuss below is not applicable! In those short races, simple sugars rule. If you feel any of the information provided below is useful to you, please take heart and consider donating to my Move Your Feet for Loeys-Dietz fundraiser on Crowdrise's website that helps support LDSF.

The nutrition and hydration plan I used last year during IMFL (see my 2013 race report) failed miserably early in this year's Ironman training. I was dying during my long training days as I mentioned in my 2014 IMFL Race Report. Looking back at my 2013 training and race, I most likely was not taking in enough
calories, water, and electrolytes. I did not have a horrible day but I had to do a significant amount of walking during the second run loop of the marathon. I was dehydrated due to not taking in enough sodium based on my discovery this year. My nutrition and hydration plan for this year's race worked flawlessly. But did it? The swim was cancelled this year due to bad rip currents. I had to wait around in T1 for several hours. I was getting hungry! I ended up using some of the backup nutrition I had on my bike. Will this plan work for a future Ironman race when I actually swim? I believe it will! But, then again, I want to believe that! :)

As previously mentioned, I started out using the same nutrition as last year. I was using a mixture of Generation UCAN (a superstarch) and MCT Oil. I used the plain flavor of Generation UCAN since the flavored versions were too strong for my taste. In order to give the mixture a slight flavor, I would add one or two Nuun tablets. After about 3 hours on a bike ride, I would eat a packet of Justin's Almond Butter. I was also taking in about 2 or 3 capsules of Salt Stick per hour.

Early in my training this year, everything appeared to be working fine but several people kept telling me I needed to take sugars. I did not want to rely on sugars as I was dead set on being as fat adapted for as long as possible. I wanted to rely more on fat. I read about and even heard podcasts about how sugars were not needed. I wanted to stay very low carb with both my daily diet and my training nutrition. Last year, my training was not as tough as this year so it appeared to work better. With the high intensity sessions mixed into my training this year, I had to consider changing my beliefs. Prior to giving up on it, I started to change my daily diet and my breakfast before races and long training days. Weekend after weekend, I kept tweaking the amount of UCAN and MCT Oil. I even tried adding different bars (Quest Bars, Bonk Breakers, and Power Bars). Nothing worked! I just could not stomach solid foods when training hard so there was NO WAY I would race using it! I needed to stick with liquid nutrition.

With all of the experimentation I did with my daily diet and bike/run nutrition, my mindset about the use of sugars/carbs changed slightly. I still do not believe we need to rely so much on carbs as most people believe they need in their daily diet. There is a role for it; especially athletically. During the times I was stressing out about not being able to get my nutrition plan working without the need for sugars, I heard a podcast from Professor Tim Noakes where he stated that 50% of fat-adapted person still needed sugars to perform well. Well, I finally gave in after weeks of struggling. With sugars, my performance greatly improved in all three sports. I do want to point that the prior 2 years of me working on being very low carb taught my body how to burn fat more efficiently. Therefore, when I was exercising in lower heart rate zones, my body does use as much of the stored glucose than if I was not as an efficient fat burner.

Being heavier this year, I needed a little more calories than last year but I had to increase my intake substantially. My weight was pretty steady for the entire ironman training. So if you want to go calculate ratios using the information I provide below, just based everything for 187-pound. I'm sure there's one or two more geeks out there like me!

Changes to My Daily Diet

The first changes I made was to increase my daily intake of carbs. My coach, as well as a few friends, kept telling me to do this. My training notes to my coach commonly stating that I was tired/dragging or that my legs felt heavy. Even with upping my carbs, I still eat a very high fat and moderate protein diet. I'm now in the middle to very top of what might be considered low carb. From Sunday through Thursday, I was taking in 25 to 50 grams of carbs per day. I only eat white rice, sweet potatoes, and, occasionally, red potatoes. But when I eat them, I "dumb them down", as I like to say. I put butter or olive oil in them to help cut down the insulin spike associated with eating carbs. Friday and Saturday nights, I was taking in roughly 75 to 100 grams per day. Once I increased my daily intake to 50 to 75 grams, I started seeing major improvements during my weekday training days. On some days, I would up to 75 to 100 grams if I left I needed it or I knew the next day's training would be a very hard session. On Friday and Saturday, I started taking in 125 to 150 grams of carbs per day. When my training was nearing its peak, I sometimes took that to 200 grams. Since I had been eating very low carb for nearly two years, eating over 125 grams per day most times was actually tough to achieve, plus it made me fell gross! Sluggish! I do not record my daily diet but occasionally I would check where I was using online resources or the MyFitnessPal app on my phone.

My body cannot handle large amounts of carbs that well. Over the last 2 years, I've really learned this! I need more fat in my diet to feel my best; to look my best. When I bumped my carbs up, I noticed my mid-section was holding onto a little more fat than I did the prior year. I was getting stronger and faster so I gave up on the fact that I had much less definition to my abs. Trust me, my abs were never ripped but I did lose a lot of definition. The last few weeks leading up to IMFL, I actually felt fat. I raced Ironman Florida this year 15 pounds heavier (172 lb versus 187 lb). Most of that weight gain, I believe, is muscle mass since the swim help transform me and the hard bike sessions made me stronger. But how much of it was excess fat that I was hauling around? I wish I knew. I still need to tweak my daily diet to find a happy median where I'm still strong and I look closer to the way that makes me happy. After a few days of bad eating and drinking, I'm back to eating extremely low carb and I'm not feeling fat anymore!

Changes to Breakfast on Race Day and Long Training Days

Breakfast went through changes at the same time I was tweaking my daily intake of carbs. Most days, I all had for breakfast was my butter coffee (2 cups of brewed coffee, 2 tablespoons of KerryGold unsalted butter, and 1 tablespoon of MCT Oil, all blended in my Vitamix). This is just crazy delicious! Before training sessions lasting 1.5 hours or less, I rarely had breakfast before leaving the house. During weekday training, my breakfast did not change. If I felt sluggish in the morning as peak training was approaching, I would have one tablespoon of honey.

For the weekend training, I was having my butter coffee, 1 scoop of Generation UCAN with 24-oz of water, and 1 or 2 tablespoons of Almond Butter. I did not want to take in any simple sugars to stay in fat burning mode for as long as possible but after much internal fighting, I switch to the following. I eat the following on race and long training days and eat it about 2 hours before heading out. Generally, having the following provided me with at least 500 calories and 70 grams of carbs (50 grams of sugars). The almond butter only provides about 10 grams of fat. Prior to switching my breakfast, the majority of my calories was from fats.

• 1 large or 2 small/medium Bananas
• 2 tablespoons of Almond Butter
• 1 or 2 tablespoon of Honey - I used 2 tbsp for very long days or races. Also, some people cannot handle honey so please make sure you test it out on short training days when you are close to home
• 1 small cup of a dark roast coffee (plain)
• 24 ounces of water
• 2 to 4 capsules of SaltStick (electrolytes)
• 3 or 4 capsules Hammer Nutrition's Amino Acid
• 2 capsules Hammer Nutrition's Anti-Fatigue
• 2 capsules of SR Stamina

A little bit about the SR Stamina and Anti-Fatigue, due to lack of carbs, I was dragging after long or hard training. I was always complaining about having "heavy legs".  So, I started using SR Stamina and Anti-fatigue with breakfast and taking Hammer Nutrition's Super Antioxidants capsules after hard or long training days. My "heavy leg" feeling WENT AWAY! My legs now only felt tired when I was not fully recovered. I believe the use of Anti-fatigue during long training and the use of Super Antioxidants solved the issue. SR Stamina is primarily composed of maca. Maca supposedly is good for energy if you feel tired all of the time (e.g., Ironman training!). It also helps with the immune system. I was trying out lots of stuff in the summer and I am not convinced SR Stamina helped much. However, I'm not changing what I found to work for me so I will continue to take this leading up to and on race and long training days! The Anti-fatigue pills is supposed to help remove ammonia from your muscles so you do not experience muscle fatigue as early. Does it work? For me, I believe it does! I take two capsules per hour on both the bike and run on long training days and races.

Changes to Run Nutrition and Hydration

Last year, I used the mixture of Ucan and MCT Oil for my long runs. I was taking in about 600 mg of electrolytes per hour. I would struggle some but, in training, it worked well. During the race last year, my body rejected it after about 7 or so miles of the run. My body got sick of using the mixture all day long. So I planned to use a totally different nutrition on the run than on the bike to change it up. I tried different brands of gels and I even try EFS liquid shots. I could not stomach the flavors!

Also, as run days got longer, they made me feel gross. I never had any issues except that I just couldn't down them without forcing them down. I ended up using Infinit Nutrition as my run fuel. I got a free consultation and they worked up a custom blend (click here for a $5 off Inifinit coupon code). You can tweak their blend to fit your needs but working with their consultant was faster (less trial and error).  I can NOT stand anything with a strong flavored, so I had the flavor of my custom blend dialed down to the lowest value on the scale! I used the pink lemonade flavor where two scoops of the blend consisted of 250 calories, 63 grams of carbs, 14 grams of sugars, 500 mg of sodium, and also included amino acids. I used two scoops of the blend as my nutrition per hour. I did not want to run with a FuelBelt this year but I needed to due to the deciding to use this custom blend. The FuelBelt I used had three 7-oz bottle on the back.

Since I sweat a lot, I found during training that needed significantly more than 500 mg of sodium that was in the product. I drank one of the 7-ounce bottles per hour. To those bottles, I added enough of a product I discovered, and cannot live without, to achieve a minimum of 1100 mg of sodium. That product is called The Right Stuff. I used the lemon-lime flavor since it went well with the pink lemonade flavor of the custom blend. I just mixed the packet of The Right Stuff with 1780 mg of sodium in the water that I use to mix my hourly 7-oz bottles. In each 1-hour bottle, I also opened two Anti-Fatigue capsules and mixed it in. When I started using this mixture, my long runs got easier and easier!

So, I drank this 7-oz bottle per hour and depending on how hot the day was, I was drinking another 7 to 14 ounces of plain water. On very hot days, I was bumping up my sodium intake to as high as 1700 mg per hour. But for cool to warm running weather, 1100 to 1500 mg was more than enough. During long training days, my running buddy, Roy, and I would do 6 to 7 mile loops so we could stop at the car and refill or replace the bottles we carried.

Changes to Bike Nutrition and Hydration

My biggest nutritional change was on the bike. Based on what I discovered this summer, I was not taking in enough calories last year. As I discussed above and in my race report, finding what worked for me on the bike took many stressful weeks! Bumping up my calories, carbs/sugars, and water intake all helped but it was not until I started taking in 1700 mg of sodium per hour that my life got better! On hot days, I was taking in up to 36-oz of water! I had to go buy 33-oz water bottles on eBay so I did not have to make as many stops during my long bike training days. I would make multi-hour bottles with my nutrition, electrolyte and supplements are mixed in so I did not have to worry about anything except drinking every 20 minutes. I switched to using Hammer's Perpetuem. I used Perpetuem since it had fats and protein and did not use lots of simple sugars. It uses Maltodextrin, a complex sugar that is supposedly easily digestible and absorbed as rapidly as glucose. I wanted to minimize the use of simple sugars as much as possible since my body cannot handle them if I were to use them through the entire day. I only wanted to use simple sugars during the run.

I started with a 290 calories per hour and kept increasing it until I felt full the entire ride. At that point I dialed it down a hair. As temperatures came down from the peak summer temperatures, I started to dial down the calories so I didn't feel full. At peak training, I found that 375 calories per hour worked and tapered it down to 360 calories per hour as temperatures and/or intensities came down.

Each multi-hour bottle I mixed was based on doing what I list below. Being the geek I am and to make my life easy, I created a quick and dirty spreadsheet that helped report how many scoops, how many packets, and how many opened capsules of the items below I needed in each bottle. The mixture worked nicely for up to a 4-hour bottle.  At 5-hours, the mixture just didn't work for me. On my six-hour training ride, I just road with one pre-mixed 3-hour bottle plus I carried a ZipLoc bag in my shirt pocket. I made my second 3-hour bottle when we stopped to buy more water.

For each hour, I used the following:

1. Perpetuem (strawberry-vanilla flavor) - I included the proper number of scoops to approximately achieve the calories and carbs I needed per hour.
2. 375 calories per hour
3. 72 to 75 grams of carbs (with Perpetuem approximately only 9 grams of sugars)
4. 8 grams of protein (this was what Perpetuem provided based on using 375 calories)
5. Maximum of 1700 mg of sodium per hour. Perpetuem has sodium in it so I would add the proper number of packets of The Right Stuff (berry flavor) to get the sodium I needed. I reduced sodium intake as temperatures started to cool but I found that at 1300 mg sodium per hour, my legs were fatiguing! Crazy! I still cannot believe how much sodium my body needs, even on cool days!
6. Two opened capsules Hammer Nutrition's Amino Acid per hour
7. Two opened capsules of Hammer Nutrition's Anti-Fatigue per hour
8. Then for the ENTIRE ride, regards of length/time, I added two opened capsules of SR Stamina. Again, this was NOT per hour.

Early in training, I was taking the supplements and electrolytes at different times than my nutrition. I even purchased a boat load of 2"x2" ZipLoc bags that I put the supplements in. At each scheduled time, I would find the packet I needed in my bike bento box, tear the edge of bag's corner with my teeth, and take the pill. But, when I started mixing it all in one bottle, life on the bike got easier! I drank from my nutrition bottle at 20 minute intervals! At a minimum, I drank water every 20 minutes. Typically, I drank every 10 minutes or when I was thirsty. As you can imagine, when I was drinking 36-oz of water per hour, it felt is if spent more time drinking water then not! This plan worked well in training and worked extremely well on race day!

Race Plan - Breakfast

I eat pretty much what I discussed above except that I had 2 medium bananas and 2 tablespoons of honey. That's about 600 calories. I figured I bumped up calories since I would be waiting around more than smaller races and training days. Oddly, waiting around was exactly what happened! I ate between 3:30 and 4:00 AM and headed out to transition area just past 5:00 AM.

Race Plan - Prior To Race

I only had 16-oz of water. I did not want to take in anymore sugars. The swim got canceled and during the LONG wait until I left on the bike, I was getting hungry.  About 1 hour before heading out on the bike, I took two small sips of my bike nutrition. About 30 minutes before leaving, I ate a 1.15-oz packet of PocketFuel Almond butter (banana-blueberry) that I had as backup on my bike. I also took another sip from my nutrition bottle. I'm guessing I had a total of 230 calories during the last 1 hour of the 3.5 hour "wait leg" of the race.

Race Plan - Swim

Swim was cancelled but I was planning on lining up in self-seating area with 1:10 swimmers. I was hoping to draft them for as long as possible. I was aiming for 1 hour 15 minutes. Under better sea conditions, could have I achieved it? I will never know!

Race Plan - T1

I was planning on taking off my own wetsuit. I didn't want all of the sand on me like last year. This would add time but I wanted to be comfy the entire ride. In a sandwich size ZipLoc bag, I had anti-chafing lotion squeezed in to apply if I felt I needed to reapply after the swim. Neat trick: put the chamois cream or other anti-chafing lotion, you unzip the bag and turn the bag inside-out so you it as a glove! You do not get all of the gunk all over your hands. I use SportSlick. That stuff works great and lasts for a very long time. It is very greasy and extremely hard to get off your hands so using the ZipLoc bag as a glove is nice! When I was getting dressed race morning, I used a ZipLoc! 

On this day, there was no T1 due to the canceled swim. I had planned to beat my time from last year. My goal was 8 minutes or less. I supposed I beat my time... :)

Race Plan - Bike

With the cooler temps, I set up my bottles for 360 calories per hour and 1450 mg of sodium hour. I carried two 4-hour bottles of nutrition. I had a backup 4-hour bottle in my bike special needs bag in case I dropped one of my bottles I carried. I was not planning on stopping on the bike unless I needed to access anything in my bag. My bag also had two extra CO2 cartridges and tire tubes in case I used or dropped the two I carried. I had a small hand towel and a ZipLoc bag with chamois squeezed in to apply if I felt I was chafing during the ride. 

I had a 20-minute alert setup on my bike computer as a reminder to drink my nutrition. It was so dang windy, I could not hear it most times. I just watch the interval time on bike computer or the time on my Garmin watch. Each 20-minute interval, I was to monitor that my average power was about 185 watts. The battery died after 2 hours on the bike so I could not monitor it. I was averaging my planned power up until then. Also, each time I took in my nutrition, I spun my legs quickly for a minute or less. Next, I popped it into a big gear to grind my legs out for a few seconds. Then it was back into the groove.

Due to the cooler temps, I know 24-oz of water would be enough so I had to force myself to drink the water the first 2 hours of the ride.  I did not stop at the special needs area since I had everything on me I needed. At the end of the ride, I ended up drinking 6.5 hours of fuel in 6 hours so I actually took in 390 calories per hour! More than the 375 calories I used in training that most times made me feel full. Race days I guess! I never felt hungry or full on the ride so nutrition worked out. This also resulted on roughly 1550 mg of sodium per hour well within my typical range.

My plan was to not stop once on the bike; not for anything. Well, it was too cold, it was extremely wind, and I was on the segment of bike course what was in the worst surface condition. After being bumped around for nearly 6 miles and not being able to hold it any longer, I stopped to pee at the Special Needs Area. For me, it was special need! :)  My final data showed I wasted 3 minutes waiting in line at the portable bathrooms. The three minutes did not kill me since I am not even close to being a Kona Qualifier. But, heck, it felt as if I was waiting in line for 10 minutes!

On my bike, I carried two gel packets as backup. I had one packet of almond butter but used during the "wait leg" of the race. I also carried Hammer's Energy Surge that I briefly experiment with very late in my training. I did not see any help from the product when fatigue was catching up with me. When I started to feel fatigued on the bike, at the end of hour 4 and hour 5 of the bike, I took put one of the pills under my tongue. It dissolves very slowly. The pill has ATP (the fuel your muscles use) and magnesium (one of the four main components of electrolytes). So, if it didn't help me to take, it didn't hurt me either.

Race Plan - T2

Plan was obvious; get off bike and getting running fast! I targeted 6 minutes or faster.  I did it in 5.5 minutes (including a quick pee break). It felt like it was a lot longer so I know I can shave a little more time next time I do IMFL.

Race Plan - Run

I carried three 7-oz bottles and had 3 bottles in my special needs bag. Two of three bottles included my run fuel. The 3rd bottle was plain water in case I needed it between water stations. It was cold so I didn't need to use it. On the first run loop, I drank one bottle to the turn-around point and I threw it away at the next water station. I drank and threw away the 2nd bottle by the time I was about 1 mile from the special needs area. In my special needs bag, I had the 3 replacement bottle, headlamp, running gloves and visor in case I was hot with the full cap I wore. I only needed the gloves since my hands were cold and the two bottles with my fuel.  I only used my nutrition throughout the run. I never used anything available on the course except for water. I grab a cup of water at every water station and drank half of the cup. I do not know how much water I drank per hour but I was never dehydrated and I went of thirst to determine how much of the water I drank at each station.

I carried on me two gel packets as backup should I needed to switch fuel type during the run. I never used them. I also carried four Energy Surge pills to use when I felt fatigued. I took one with about 8 miles to go when I felt the fatigue building. I also took a second one with about 4 miles to go in case it helped me since my plan was to pick up my pace the last 5K of the race. I do not believe the Energy Surge helped on the bike and run. But it didn't hurt me; that is for sure.

I had plan to not walk at all on my first loop. I did have to stop for a few seconds at special needs to get my stuff and put the headlamp on the bill of my running cap. I used a headlamp that had green lights and that made the reflective material on people running ahead of light up like Christmas! It was easier the eyes too. On the 2nd loop, I had planned to only walk 10 seconds at each and every water station. I did not have to walk at all. I was getting tired but my pace was still good and fatigue did not start settling until the last half of the 2nd loop.

Recovery

Right after a hard or long training day and races, I take two capsules of Hammer's Super Antioxidants. I also take it again just before bedtime. If my body still feels the previous day's activities, I will take the capsules a couple of times during the day. This product has helped me to greatly reduce the "heavy leg" feelings I have always had! I do NOT use a recovery drink as I have never found them to really help me. I just eat REAL food when I get home. I try to eat just a little carbs (via rice or a piece of fruit) to help replenish my glycogen stores. My recovery meal is mostly fats and protein. I try to eat the meal as soon as possible after the training or racing.

Finishing it up

I figured I would have had to go into survival mode during the 2nd run loop but I was lucky I did not. I believe everything worked out well during the race, even under the tough conditions dealt to us on that day. I hired the best coach. I believe I trained properly by using the best plan for me and finding training buddies that had very similar goals as I did. My confidence continued to grow during my three week taper. And I had the right mindset heading into race day - I would not fail and I would achieve all of my goals. But what really helped what that my nutrition and hydration plan work flawlessly. It took me two or more months to nailed it down! The information above may help some triathlete. However, everyone is different so experimentation is required to determine what works best. I, at least, hope that the information above gives you a good starting point if you are looking to change or tweak your current nutrition plan. If sweat a lot like me, I suggest you look at your sodium intake ASAP!

Verbosely Yours,
Tomas Orihuela


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