Formulating Your Race Day Nutrition Plan
By Rich Strauss

So you've done a few sprint races and you want to move up into the longer distances. Anyone who has been in this sport a while will tell you that as the distance of the race increases, a well thought out and organized race day nutrition plan is critical. In my opinion, you can fake the funk for races under 1:30. Above that you need to know what you are doing and have a plan.

After reading this article, you should be able to determine your own nutrition plan. This plan should look something like this: at HR "x", ingest "y" calories per hour and drink water "z". The rest are just details.

First I want to establish some simple principles, upon which we will build your plan:

1. The faster you go, the more calories you burn.
   
   
2. The faster you go, the more difficult it is to digest whatever you eat.
   
   
3. Water is necessary for digestion, not just for hydration.

Please refer to the beginning paragraphs of Race Day Nutrition for a more complete discussion of the fuel burning process during exercise.

Nutrition and Pace

You can see from the principles above that your nutrition plan is intimately connected to your race pace. Because pace is so critical, we can't do much until we determine what it should be for your race. It is most common to define pace in terms of a heart rate.

Your heart rate is a measurement of "how hard" your body is working. This is a cumulative measurement that includes how fast you are going, your hydration state, body temperature, etc. As you ask your body to do more and more "things," your heart rate increases. As heart rate increases, you are less able to digest food. Therefore the proper race pace should be defined as a target heart rate, at which you are able to do two things:

1. Finish the race distance.
2. Ingest AND digest an adequate amount of calories to maintain your performance during the race.

These are the heart rate ranges that work best for me for each race distance:

Because of Principle #2 above, the amount of calories you can digest will be different for each race pace and distance. For an Ironman, you should be able to eat "a lot," which we will define below. But for a Sprint, you may only be able to sip water.

Ironman Plan

Because nutrition is so critical for Ironman racing, I will start with an Ironman plan and work backwards.

I want you to start with the number of 300 calories per hour. Studies have shown that most people can digest 275-400+ calories per hour during an Ironman. I think it's better to start low and work your way up. If you are hungry, you can always eat more, but if you have eaten too much, nasty things can happen. It's best to practice, refine, and rehearse your nutrition plan on your long bike rides, as this is where you will be doing most of your eating on race day. It's also where you are most likely to screw it up.

This 300 calories per hour can take any form, but try to follow these guidelines:

• Get most of your calories from liquids (sports drinks). They are easier to digest and you need the fluid and sodium anyway.
  
• Plan to drink 1.5 - 2 bottles of fluid per hour.
  
• If you eat something that is calorie dense, such as a bar or gel, drink 6-8 ounces of water with it, NOT a sports drink. Water, in addition to being required for proper hydration, is also required for digestion. If you eat something with a lot of calories and don't drink water, it could sit in your stomach and cause bloating.
  
• This guidance to drink water also applies to a calorie dense liquid. Some people eat a liquid diet on race day, mixing a high calorie feed bottle. Treat a sip of this as if it were a gel and drink water with it. I learned this the hard way on my first IM.

Practice this plan during your long bikes. 300 calories, 1.5-2 bottles per hour. Keep track of how many calories you eat over the course of the ride and record your heart rate. If you get hungry, eat more and factor that into your total count. At the end of the ride, take total calories, divide by number of hours to determine your individual calories per hour at your IM target heart rate. As you do this for every ride, experimenting with different foods, eating schedules, calories per hour, etc, you will become very familiar with what works for you and what does not. You might determine that you can eat more or less than this 300 number. It's just a number.

Specifics

Following these guidelines, a simple plan (assuming 300 calories per hour) would be to drink 2 bottles of sports drink (100 cal per bottle) and one gel (100 cal) per hour. When you eat the gel, wash it down with 6-8 oz of water. For example, you start the bike with 2 bottles of Gatorade, one is to last you to the first aid station, the second is for insurance. It's a good idea to carry a few extra gels too, just in case. Most aid stations are about 10 miles apart, so 30-40 minutes. Drink the first bottle before the first aid station. At the aid station grab a gel and water. Eat gel, drink water, use rest of the bottle to rinse off, cool your head, then toss it, or keep it for insurance. The next half-hour drink the other Gatorade bottle you started with. Repeat at the next aid station. Simple. If you determine that your calories per hour is closer to 400, just eat another gel.

If you follow this routine, the aid stations become your signal to eat and drink water. Some people then set a watch to beep every 10 minutes to remind them to drink sports drink.

If your Ironman calories per hour is 400, then your calories per hour for shorter, faster paced races will be lower. Just how much lower you will have to find out through experience. For me, my feed plan for a half is not that much different for an IM. But I have a history of side stitches during Olympic distance races. For this reason, I only eat about 100-150 calories per hour and am very careful about how much I drink. For a Sprint, I might carry a bottle of Gatorade, just to have something to sip on. I try to start the race as hydrated as possible, though. Like I said, fluid, food, and an extremely high heart rate don't mix very well with me.

Let's now complete our table above, including calories per hour for each race distance:

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