Nutrition advice please! - Olympic distance tris

Hi,

I am doing my first Olympic tri distance this weekend at London and don't really have any clue about the best way to do race nutrition. Quantity and types. I did my first sprint earlier in the summer with a bit of water and half a gel and got around fine but know I can't depend on that with these distances.

All top tips welcome!

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Hi James you may not be surprised to hear that on the advanced BTF triathlon coaching course that the guy responsible for giving nutrition advice to the Brownlees basically told us "it depends".

That always seemed to be the answer - apparently Jonny Brownlee has pretty much the same appalling diet as me yet ends up a finely honed athlete not a chubby tail runner at Parkrun. Life's just not fair.

However there were a few key points in what he said. First you should in general eat a balanced diet with calorie intake largely matching your calories used (that's why Jonny can get away with eating doughnuts and I can't). The aim though was to go into the race with adequate glycogen stores by eating your normal diet - neither starving yourself nor eating multiple bowls of pasta.

It's important to make sure you are drinking enough - especially in hot weather. You should drink to thirst though not force a lot of water down (which is actually dangerous in races like marathons).

Then in general you should find you will not run out of glycogen in a sprint triathlon (as you found) but that in an Olympic distance race assuming you are finishing 2.30 to 3 hours you might benefit from extra fuel which means sugar in some form.

Options are sugar cubes (they give these out on Paris marathon), sweets, fruit, gels, energy bars and energy drinks containing glucose/fructose.

How much you need depends on how fast you use up your energy reserves - the bigger you are and the faster you are travelling the quicker you might benefit from taking on sugar.

Obviously it's because of my excessive speed and not excessive size that I need to eat in Olympic tris. This is what I do but bear in mind that even when fit I'm 82kg and 6ft tall - if you are bigger you might be able to benefit from more.

Also try what you are going to use before the race while cycling or running. You don't want to find in a race that the gel or whatever is making you sick.

So this is what I do (but as I said above it depends)

15 minutes before the swim 1 caffeine gel - might be a psychological crutch but at least I start buzzing ;-)

On the bike 750ml bottle of energy drink (if hot - less if cold) drank when I feel thirsty I take a gel but only use it if I feel I need it.

On the run water at aid stations of available especially if hot and if I didn't eat gel on bike and feel flagging might eat it after half way (but usually don't)

Then afterwards for recovery cake ;-)

Actually we were told by this guy who was a lecturer as well that in academic studies no recovery drink outperforms milk - I like chocolate milk (which might contribute to the problem above)

Good luck James!
Second what Tony says, with the most important bit (except it's a bit late for you now!) to try it out in training first. Use brick sessions especially to see what you can stomach. Use the bike to get liquid nutrition/hydration in, and then just a smaller amount to get through the run to avoid stomach issues. They give out gels at London, but i would look up what make they are and try out in advance to check it agrees with you, or just take your own.
Thanks both - really helpful :)

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