Catching Up

As I head into my third Ironman race, I realize how little I know about racing an Ironman.  Case in point, several weeks ago I was riding with the mighty Peter M (a multiple Ironman finisher and strong biker).  We headed out for a 5 hour ride when my rear water bottle holder broke.  I need to ride with four water bottles (600 ml) as I drink a lot of water even if its not hot.  Unable to fix the holder, I gave Peter one of my half filled water bottle to carry while I carried the other one in my jersey.  The first thing he said was, "Wow, this is heavy."  I thought to myself, "what's he complaining about?  Its only half filled."  I started thinking, when I race, I'm carrying three bottles of nutrition (250ish calories each) and one water bottle which I swap out.  At the bike special needs, I swap three new bottles of nutrition.  That's a lot of extra weight to carry over 180 km but how else would I get 250-300 calories per hour?  Gels?  Ugh.  Three gels per hour for six hours?  Barf.

As we rode, I talked to Peter about how he carries his nutrition and he uses Bonk Breaker.  I wasn't sold on eating solids during an Ironman and while I have a pretty strong stomach, coming off the bike last year at IMMT, my stomach was bloated.  I emailed Scobie about nutrition and he reminded me of the conversation we had several years ago.  He uses one super concentrated bottle of nutrition and picks up water at the aid stations.  Why carry all that extra weight?  Later I weighted a full water bottle and it weighted 1.5 pounds.  Last year I used the store bought Infinit.  It worked ok in training but not so great in the race.  I was bloated and wiped out coming off the bike last year.  With only 70 odd days to go to IMMT, I had to figure this nutrition problem out so I called Infinit Canada.  I spoke with Darcy Haggith CEO of Infinit Canada for about 45 minutes.  He was most helpful in explaining how he used Infinit at IMLP.  As Scobie said, "why make things so complicated?"  Darcy recommended loading one bottle super concentrated of Infinit and carry the other three bottles of water.  One sip of Infinit every 15 minutes and two sips of water.  I ordered a bag for the bike (a different mix for the run).  I told Darcy about my last couple of long rides (150 km+) I felt like crap and Sunday's long runs were a disaster.  He told me I wasn't fueling properly during and after Saturday's long ride.  Nuff said, I ordered a bag of Ride Infinit and Darcy threw in a couple of packages of recovery mix.

I got the package last Friday and mixed up one bottle of super concentrated bottle Infinit (which was about 95% powder and 5% water).  The first thing I noticed it was super salty.  I'm a heavy sweater and have not been taking salt pills on my long ride.  Saturday's long ride was 164 km and I felt great.  I'm pretty sure I was drinking more nutrition and water than normal.  In fact, coming off the bike I ran a 6.60 km hilly run (well as hilly as this area gets) and I still felt good.  I used the recovery mix and couldn't believe what a difference it made.  On Sunday I didn't feel as crappy as the previous two weeks and was able to run 25 km at a half decent pace.  Lesson number one learned.  I ordered the run mix and a bag of recovery mix as well.  I"ll try it next week (this week is a recovery week).

Lesson Two - Body Weight

Last year I didn't really pay attention to my weight.  "Hey, I just rode 160 km.  I deserve a steak dinner and a couple of pints of beer!"  Needless to say, I only lost five pounds from January 1st to August 17th (race day).  Stunning, considering I swam 160 km, rode 4,200 km and ran over 840 km.
On January 1st this year, I tipped the scale at 185 pounds.  Oink oink.  This morning I weighted just under 175 pounds.  I hope to get down to 170 by race day.  The less junk in the trunk, the faster you go...........

That's all I got.  Ride safe