Fueling Mindset: The Essential Guide to Fueling Your Race

In this episode, Aubrey Hayes and Joshua Gordon discuss essential race nutrition strategies for endurance athletes, focusing on the four by one rule: 100 grams of carbs, 1 liter of fluid, 1 gram of sodium, and 100 milligrams of caffeine. They explore the importance of carbohydrates, fluid balance, sodium intake, and the role of caffeine in enhancing performance. The conversation also covers how to adjust nutrition based on race length, common mistakes athletes make, and the significance of testing and tuning nutrition strategies during training. The episode concludes with final thoughts on preparation and personalization for race day nutrition.

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Transcript

Aubrey Hayes (00:00)

Welcome to the precise multi-sport podcast where we dive deep into the world of endurance sports, training strategies, and the mindset that fuels peak performance. I'm Aubrey Hayes, USAT level one coach, age group athlete, and co-founder of Precise Multi-sport.

Joshua (00:13)

I am Joshua Gordon, 11 time full Ironman finisher and co-founder of Precise Multisport.

Aubrey Hayes (00:20)

Alright so today we are going to touch on how to fuel or properly fuel your race and specifically touching on 70.3 in Ironman Racing.

today we're gonna introduce a rule and some of the elements for end race nutrition strategies that you can use. So Josh, take us away with what that rule is.

Joshua (00:42)

Sure thing.

I am going to pull all of this inspiration from this from when I used to work with Dr. Alex Harrison. He's a very popular guy. He invented the Saturday app and I highly suggest like you follow him and what he has to say. But basically I tell all the people that I coach that's a very simple thing. You know, it's kind of like a moniker that I remember the four by one rule. And so what I mean by this is it's kind of a simple equation, but it can be generalized.

pretty

easily. I say for every like 100 grams of carbs that you consume you need at least one liter of fluid, one gram of sodium, and 100 milligrams of caffeine. So basically just like those four things that we're gonna go into detail more but you know they're all kind of multiples of a 10 or a 100 or 1. So yeah like I think this is like those numbers will go in detail but they're a good starting point and that from there you can try to

based on your physiology if you're a high responder or low responder or certain things like the conditions and there's a lot of variables that go into this but from a fundamental level if you just followed that one piece of advice 100 grams of carbs, 1 liter fluid, 1 gram of sodium and 100 milligrams of caffeine you're gonna do really well with that

Aubrey Hayes (01:59)

This is just a baseline to start off of, and then you can start individualizing from there based on some of the elements we'll talk about. we're going talk about the four total elements, calling it. So adjusting for race length, nutrition periodization, the role of the environment of the race or the environment you're in, common mistakes and consequences, and then testing and tuning in training itself. But within that,

Joshua (02:03)

For sure.

Aubrey Hayes (02:24)

There are some components that we're going to talk about ⁓ with that, right? So you're talking about carbohydrates, fluids, sodium, and caffeine. So let's dive into those a little bit, like those recommended ranges, absorption limits, and things like that.

Joshua (02:39)

Yeah,

for sure. So let's start with the most important of all the four things, right?

you need to fuel both your workouts and your racing, right? And so, you know, there's different amounts of absorption rates and there's different like ratios of glucose and fructose that people can handle. And like the old conventional wisdom is that, you you should choose to consume like 30 to 60 grams an hour. And that's kind of like safe, right? But nowadays I'm sure everyone like has heard these crazy numbers people are pushing down, And I've tried pretty high myself.

Aubrey Hayes (03:03)

Mm-hmm.

Joshua (03:13)

like 60 would be the bare minimum that I would suggest for like a race situation, but pushing all the way up to maybe like 140, right? So it's in the middle of that crazy range is like 100. So I think like, you know, that might be a high for a lot of people, but like 100 grams of carbs of like a one to 0.8 ratio. So glucose to fructose, that's kind of the number one ⁓ ratio that people use nowadays. if you buy Morton products, they come with that ratio.

Aubrey Hayes (03:13)

Yeah.

Joshua (03:41)

And they say that that ratio is best because there's like a limit to the amount of glucose that you can absorb per hour, which is around one gram of glucose per minute or 60 grams of carbohydrates per minute. So if you want to go above that 60, you need to start increasing the amount of fructose, So if you increase the amount of fructose, you can actually take in more total carbohydrates. And the other cool thing is like, it's called, forget the exact name of it, but fructose consumption will allow you to actually absorb more glucose. So if you only

had glucose it would be limited but if you start increasing the fructose it actually allows you to absorb more glucose and so that's how people get to these crazy numbers like 150 grams an hour or higher and so you know I would recommend like a hundred grams to most the people that I coach for a 70.3 or Ironman distance race does that make sense

Aubrey Hayes (04:20)

Yeah.

Yeah,

no, 100%. And then with that, do you start them off at like the bare minimum? Hey, we're going to start with 60 grams. And then as they're training, build them up each week, hey, try to take in 70, adjust your fructose to glucose, things like that.

Joshua (04:37)

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Totally. Like it really just depends on the person.

I'll give you an example. my wife, she cannot handle any fructose whatsoever. I tried to get her to use like pH gels or Morton and she's always having stomach problems, like stomach pains. So I was like, you should try this other product. You can. Have you heard of that one? It's pure. Yeah. It's like pure glucose, right? And she can digest that no problem. So I think the safest thing to do, if I would recommend someone start from nothing would be to start with like pure glucose, 60 grams.

Aubrey Hayes (05:02)

Yeah.

Joshua (05:12)

an hour, And then start adding in fructose. And so an easy way to do that is basically table sugar is 50 % glucose, 50 % fructose. So you could just basically mix in sugar with some of these other products and get the exact ratio that you want. Maybe we can write a blog or something about this. I mean, there's so much information out there. That's why I recommend Alex's Saturday app will like tell you how to do all of this stuff.

For yourself or fuel in you know those other fuel in there's some things that do it but you don't need all those things You should just experiment but yeah start on the low end 60 and see how hard you can push it and you don't you'll know When it's going bad because you're gonna feel like you have to puke Yeah

Aubrey Hayes (05:36)

Okay. Fueling,

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've had

like I used My first races I used goo I would never go back to those things first of all They're way too thick and then I use the cliff blocks and every time I took them in a long ride I just felt like my stomach was in knots every time and then I started using pH and I've had zero issues with precision fuel and hydration ⁓ Products at all. So I'm just gonna stick to those for now

Joshua (05:57)

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm.

Aubrey Hayes (06:17)

So when we talk about that, so you talk about carbohydrates and then taking in fluids and sodium and things of that nature. So fluid rate, I think it's very important, but you can take in too much water and you can take in too much salt, right? And really jack your GI up. So ⁓ kind of deep dive into how that fluid and sodium rates work out.

Joshua (06:24)

for sure.

Right.

For sure. like, in my experience, and I think the research backs this up, but I don't have it on hand, but like...

When you're taking in a little lesser amount of carbohydrates, let's just say 60 grams, Like you can get away with taking in less fluid because that's ⁓ just how the body can absorb it. But when you're pushing up high numbers, like 100 grams or more, then if you don't take enough fluid, that's when you get GI distress. So like when you have a high carbohydrate intake, you basically have to have enough fluid to go along with it. So this goes beyond just hydrating for performance and preventing dehydration.

Aubrey Hayes (07:05)

Mm-hmm.

Joshua (07:14)

It's like a lot of people get into the mistake. They read some article right on triathlete Oh 90 to 220 grams an hour But they rarely mention in those articles that you need enough fluid. Otherwise, you're gonna have GI distress So the key is if you're gonna have a high carbohydrate intake You need a significant amount of water beyond just requirement for hydration purposes

Aubrey Hayes (07:15)

Yeah.

Thank

Yeah, and it's not like you said, not just for hydration, but just actually processing those carbohydrates. you're putting all that into an empty gut, ⁓ no fluids to to mix with it, man. You're just you're setting yourself up for failure 100%.

Joshua (07:44)

Yeah.

Yeah, and that's

where kind of sodium comes in is because like you can kind of offset some of that.

with higher sodium content because it increases the blood plasma volume, You maintain, you're retaining more water, And so if you have like no sodium, but a lot of carbs in the little water, I feel like that is a recipe for disaster. if you have any, if you have two of those three things and not one of the other, right? It's also a recipe. if you have too much carbs and too much sodium, but not enough water, like you're gonna have problems, right? So that's where this nutrition,

Aubrey Hayes (08:02)

Mm-hmm. Attention. Yeah.

Yeah.

Joshua (08:25)

You know comes in this balancing it right because it's like a lot of people read an article or they listen to podcasts They miss the trifecta of it. You can't have one without the other two to have an effective race nutrition strategy

Aubrey Hayes (08:40)

With that, we're talking about ⁓ sodium.

people may say how much sodium do I take?

when you look at yourself, I think there's a couple ways and I know you have more of a scientific way of looking at it. But for me, it's like, if you go for a run or a bike and you come back and you have little to no salt on your clothing, then you probably don't need to intake a whole lot of sodium. And it also could be based on the heat of the day as well. But if you come back and you're one of those people that are caked in sodium, then you probably need to increase that amount of sodium that you're intaking, not just even during, but before and after those events.

So that's how I kind of range it. I usually don't try to go over 15, 16 hundred milligrams an hour because that starts to become excessive. But that's where I cap. I usually do 1500 milligrams an hour because I'm one of those people that just like soaked in salt at the end of every run. So what is a good way that you see to attract sodium or how much people need to take?

Joshua (09:31)

Yeah.

I mean, think like, thirst is a good way beyond just like looking at your skin after. mean, of course, if you're taking sodium, but you should be reaching for the bottle, you know, like sodium promotes thirst, And so if you're having a problem taking in, you're like, dang, how am going to drink 1.5 liters of fluid an hour? increase the amount of sodium, You should be wanting to drink the bottle basically, The other thing is you could do based on how you feel.

Like

if you have too little sodium that you might feel after the workout like kind of light-headed there could be some symptoms, So you should like experiment with that. We'll get into that more but I think it's safe to just choose like between 500 and 1500 and you know people there's a lot of fear-mongering out there like

Aubrey Hayes (10:14)

Yeah.

Joshua (10:22)

Daily recommended amount of sodium is 2,400 milligrams. You know, and then you start Googling it oh, do athletes need more sodium? And you get all these articles being like, athletes don't need more sodium. And I'm just like, you know, so I think 500 to 1,500 milligrams is safe for most people. And just, you know, experiment with it. We'll get into that a little bit more.

Aubrey Hayes (10:26)

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have this weird thing I have to confess. So like when I drink sodium or take in nutrients when I work out, I'm like, this is the spark to the muscle. And I just think of like, electricity, like shocking, you know, into the muscle and stuff because it yeah, because it carries.

Joshua (10:52)

Okay, electrolytes, yeah

Aubrey Hayes (10:58)

I mean it carries

energy, helps retain, especially sodium helps retain that water to keep the muscles working and things like that. But it's just this weird thing in my head. yeah, there's some other electricity going on in my body right now. Whatever. I just had to admit that. So with that, we're going to add in caffeine now to our race nutrition. And there's a lot of things out there like caffeine makes you cramp or caffeine hurts your performance or caffeine does everything for your performance or

Joshua (11:11)

if it works.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Aubrey Hayes (11:26)

I try to not drink caffeine a week prior to my race so the caffeine hits better but we talk about caffeine during race nutrition. What are we looking at?

Joshua (11:34)

It's optional, you don't have to take caffeine. And I've done many races without caffeine, there are considerations. if you're doing a run only race, sometimes like I don't want to take caffeine because the GI issue, So as you mentioned, caffeine people say, cause it's a diuretic, So that means it makes you have to go to the bathroom, whether it's pee or the other one. So it's like, you have to drink enough water then, And that means you need enough sodium. So like you can

probably not have any caffeine and be fine, but we're talking about like 70.3 or full or even a marathon. Like it really becomes more a performance enhancer. Like if you're out there for longer.

or if it's a shorter race, a Olympic or something, it kind of blunts the pain. They've shown that it reduces the RPE. So, I mean, there's so many benefits of caffeine. It's one of the most studied performance enhancers that's out there. I think a long time ago, it used to be banned. it was banned by WADA like a hundred years ago or something, cause it was that good. But what I said, a hundred milligrams in my four by one rule, like it's, I would not go more than like a hundred milligrams per hour.

Aubrey Hayes (12:26)

Wow.

Joshua (12:34)

there's some research out there like you can go up to three milligrams per kilogram per hour So for me that'd be like a little over 200 milligrams I've rarely sometimes I would maybe take 200 milligrams in once and then i'll take any for a few hours But like over the course of like, you know a four-hour race like I wouldn't take more than like 400 milligrams of caffeine That's a common dosage. if you get a morton or ph gel, It's like 100 milligrams of of caffeine

Aubrey Hayes (12:47)

Mm-hmm.

Milligrams, yeah.

Joshua (12:59)

Yeah, and so if I'm running a marathon I would take like one of those per hour at most I'm not gonna take like every single gel to be caffeinated

Aubrey Hayes (13:07)

Yeah, I think for me what's worked is I stick to the just the carb gels all the way up till half marathon and then I take a caffeine every every other time I take a gel from that point on. on the back half, but I try not to get like too, like hyped up in the beginning with caffeine and then

Joshua (13:19)

Mm-hmm.

Aubrey Hayes (13:25)

and have one those crashes and I used to do that and then that night after the race I couldn't go to sleep because I was running on four or five hundred milligrams of caffeine it's like my god yeah so I had to yeah

Joshua (13:34)

yeah. That's the one downside of this approach is like I remember

after a few of my Ironmans when I was really doing the caffeine I could not sleep you know you're all amped up and then but yeah

Aubrey Hayes (13:45)

That on top of the recovery and

you're like sweating in your bed. Yeah. I know.

Joshua (13:49)

I

always say the day after the Ironman I feel really good, I could go do another workout but it's two days later when you like to crash, you know, from all the carbs and caffeine and everything it's the worst. That's like two days later is the worst.

Aubrey Hayes (13:55)

Mm-hmm. yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Because I like try to

go out and do a bike ride, like spin the legs on stuff. And then like you said, like two or three days later, I'm not doing anything. I'm out of it. I'm so spent. So all right. So we got a basis of the components. So when we say components, carbohydrates, fluid intake, sodium intake, and caffeine intake. So now let's look like how we how do we adjust this?

Joshua (14:08)

Yeah.

Exactly. For sure.

Aubrey Hayes (14:26)

for our race length and I kind of mentioned at the beginning like sprinting Olympic ⁓ the fueling isn't as important not saying it's not important but pre-race fueling is good are you taking electrolytes the day before are you taking in sodium how are you eating you know the morning of that race are you taking a like most I take in a caffeine gel before an Olympic or a sprint ⁓ like 15 minutes before a swim and then I may take a gel

at the end of the bike just to give me something to feed off of but I don't really have like a huge fuel plan for Sprinter Olympics. So jumping into those 70.3s and 140.6 what's that fuel plan look like and how do we adjust?

Joshua (14:54)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so like you said beforehand that's a whole other topic. It's like carb loading and the day beforehand but like ⁓

Aubrey Hayes (15:11)

Yeah.

Joshua (15:14)

I would actually personally for 70.3 it's shorter so like I actually and the intensity is higher right so I take actually less grams of carbs per hour on a 70.3 than I do on a full distance for Athlon because like I can't you can't really absorb as many and you're not going to be out there for like as long right so I might only take if you average it over the whole race you know I might only take like 90 grams an hour but like in an iron

Ironman

I might average like 110 or something right and so It's the same with fluid almost like I on 70.3

Aubrey Hayes (15:45)

Okay.

Joshua (15:50)

the, you you get dehydrated at a certain rate, you know, and you're gonna, the race will be ending. It depends how long you're out there. Of course, if you're out there for seven and a half hours, it becomes, you need to take a lot more fluid, right? But like, I'm the 70.3, I actually take significantly less fluid than I would in a 140.6 because like, it's gonna be over sooner and like, you're gonna, you know, not be having to worry about becoming too dehydrated.

Aubrey Hayes (16:14)

Yeah, I think so and especially for 70.3 to full Ironman. So it's not as simple as taking 70.3 nutrition strategies and just doubling it. I think people probably will just double it. Well, that's like you're saying it could be intensity, could be time ⁓ that you have to weigh and then environment, which will touch on a little bit. But for like 70.3

For most people, they're at their threshold. So it's going to a little faster, a little peppier. You may be burning through carbs. those seven hour people, I think they need a fuel just like they're going to do a full distance Ironman, honestly. Yeah, because they're out there. But if you're competing and you're in the top 10%, 15 % of your age group, we're looking at like, five hours and below maybe? Maybe five and a half hours and below? Yeah, I would take your strategy where

Joshua (16:50)

Yeah, yeah, the longer you're out there, yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Aubrey Hayes (17:07)

It might not be as much carbs, but more of ⁓ sodium intake and water intake is what you're going to really thrive off of. and then, and then for that full, full distance, man, it really becomes important to train. I'm not saying you shouldn't train your gut in 70.3, but training your gut in the full distance is definitely needed because we're looking at anywhere from, you know, elite age groupers at like an eight and a half hour.

Joshua (17:16)

Yeah. In like one? Mm-hmm.

Aubrey Hayes (17:35)

all the way up to people at 17 hours. So 17 hours of taking in nutrition, I mean, yeah.

Joshua (17:40)

Yeah, then you need to switch to like solids

and such. The longer you're out there, the more real food you should probably eat. ⁓ I mean, seven...

Aubrey Hayes (17:47)

Mm-hmm.

Joshua (17:50)

A full Ironman, there's a lot of complexity with how do you carry all that nutrition. basically the key difference is, I'll just say it, I over concentrate my bottles. So if I carry three bottles, I'll put 200 grams of carbs per bottle for an under five hour bike split. So then you have to take in all the rest of the fluid has to be coming from water. Because if I start drinking from my bottle and it's 200 grams of

carbs in an 800ml bottle, that's a 25 % solution. You know, that bottle could have multiple grams of sodium. I can't just drink it like it's a, you know, a normal Gatorade, right? And so then you have to start like iterating between your nutrition bottle, nutrition sodium bottle and water, And so there's like some, you know, it's kind of a balancing act that you have to really figure out for yourself. Like other people, they'll go like pure gels or something. They fill a bottle with just like 500 grams of

Aubrey Hayes (18:22)

Mm-hmm.

Joshua (18:46)

And it's like, you know, and so this comes back to like we'll talk about how to experiment and check it out for yourself But fueling for a 70.3 is much you have a much more higher art margin for air So that's why a lot of people can get away with like never really figuring it out And that's why that a lot of the reason why jumping up from like 70.3 to full It's a totally different ballgame and because a lot of people just never master how to feel properly or they bong

Aubrey Hayes (18:47)

yeah.

Joshua (19:14)

You have a lot of pros that are really good at 70.3 but they cannot do a full Ironman because they just burn through all their carbs and they can't ever you know absorb additional nutrition

Aubrey Hayes (19:23)

Mm-hmm.

Joshua (19:24)

Yeah, so.

When you're in the race itself, let's say, it doesn't really matter. This will hold between 70.3 and full Ironman. ⁓ Basically, how do you distribute your carbohydrates and your sodium and so forth at different portions of the race, Let's just walk through it from the like 15 minutes before to the end of the race, So right before the race, what I would do is have a gel. I usually have like a caffeinated gel or Red Bull or something within the last 15 minutes before the swim, because you're not going to be having

anything in the swim. And I hear all these questions like, ⁓ some people should I carry a gel in the swim and eat it? I've heard that from multiple people. Have you heard that before? Okay, I...

Aubrey Hayes (19:53)

Yeah, of course, yeah.

No way. No. That can't be like, what are you

going to, I mean, the long distance swimmers do that. They're turnover on their back and they have a support canoe and they hand them a bottle and they're drinking and swimming, but you don't have that out there. Yeah. Don't, don't be the guy that's rips a gel out. Yeah. Maybe you should try it. Just tell us how it goes.

Joshua (20:11)

I would say don't do that. You could just put it in your sleeve. Yeah, put it in your sleeve and then just like...

No, this filming's

already... yeah, enough. But,

Yeah, then after the swim, in the bike is when I would take most of the nutrition for the race, because there's a few reasons for that. One, it's easiest because you have the most control, you have your bottles. I mean, some of my, could, I think I can carry like three or four liters of water on my bike, depending on the setup that I'm using that day. Right. And so know exactly what's in each bottle, how much sodium, caffeine, carbs, and then, you know, it gives you full control and then you're not pounding, You're not, job.

Your your stomach's not moving up and down as much so you should plan to take more carbs per hour on the bike than you should on the run and There's this goes back to the original four by one rules because on the run Not only are you having this loading force of jumping up and down? But you're not able to consume as much fluid unless you're carrying a camel back Which I would really recommend you can't really take in a liter of water Right like so if you're gonna you're gonna have a lower carbohydrate intake on the run than you would on the bike

Aubrey Hayes (21:06)

Yeah.

Joshua (21:19)

Thank

Because like simply you cannot consume enough fluid to balance that out without having some risk of GI distress For the average person like you could probably train it. Yeah, I take 90 grams of carbs an hour on the run But like if you try to if I try to take 120 I have to be taking like you see that like Ironman, Texas or whatever They take all the cups like 10 cups, know, like you see Christian Bloomingfield running through it's like

Aubrey Hayes (21:42)

yeah, like assembly Yeah.

Joshua (21:45)

Because he can't, if he's taking 120 grams of carbs an hour, he needs over a liter of fluid to balance that out. Otherwise, you know, he's gonna have stomach problems and he's had a lot of stomach problems. You see the face of the volunteers. I watched, what's that? St. George yesterday? Some of the faces of the volunteers, you could see the guys and they were just like, you took all my cups. They were just like, yeah. So I...

Aubrey Hayes (21:54)

Taking a leader to the face at every aid station.

Yeah, yeah.

No Well stop using

little bitty like Dixie cup mouthwash cups, you know, I'm not trying to wash out my mouth after brushing my teeth man. I'm trying to take in some fluids here ⁓ Yeah, so with that yeah with the jostling piece a hundred percent man I Think most people experience the most GI distress on that run and it could be it could be a multitude of things but like

Joshua (22:14)

I hate that. I hate that. Yeah.

Yeah.

You've experienced that before?

Aubrey Hayes (22:37)

Like you said, taking all those fluids, taking your carbs on the bike and salt or in sodium as well. like you said, mix those bottles and then that way when you get on the run, you're kind of managing, managing at that point, a little bit of water, maybe some carbs here. But yeah, when you're trying to like shove down multiple gels and carbs and everything on the run, you're definitely going to, you're to be bending over at like mile 15, hurting. I've seen it a hundred times, man. like dudes just like, ⁓ and then.

Joshua (22:49)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (23:06)

When I was an hour man Tulsa I saw this lady her coach was there walking on the because it was it was just a back and forth on this rope path and her coaches there is like He's like are you okay? And she was like my stomach hurts. I told you it wouldn't work and he was like well you messed up your nutrition plan He was yelling at her and mile 16 like

I was dying. was like, man, I hope that's not me. And literally at mile 19, I'm like, my God.

Joshua (23:32)

Let me let me

say exactly what I do for An Iron Man because it might be of interest to somebody because I've had some pretty good runs I've never had like stomach issues in a run So like it changes all the time because they've changed the course, you know, like they used to have Gatorade now They don't So I'll just tell you exactly what I'm gonna do for my next race I think I won't I don't know what they're gonna have in Roth, but

Aubrey Hayes (23:40)

Okay.

Yeah.

Joshua (23:55)

Let's say what I did in Arizona or Kona or something, basically on every aid station, I will take two glasses of water and one of those like mortal cups that they have. So like I go face, you know, I throw the water just like those guys in the, in the pros, right? And then I take like mortal and I drink it. And then I put more as much water as possible on my face and my, my head. And then what I do is I also carry

Aubrey Hayes (24:05)

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Joshua (24:18)

⁓ We in our kit we have those pockets or I have a race triathlon belt You know I try to take one 30 gram gel like for me every 20 minutes So it's not by distance. It's because like there could be hills There could be heat, know, I want to get 20 grams 30 grams carbs every 20 minutes and that's been fine for me. And then what I'll do is I'll take one caffeinated gel Every hour so I'll have some of my gels will be like I'll carry three caffeinated gels I'll take the on course one and so basically

try to take as much water as possible and then I know exactly I'm getting 90 grams of carbs from my gels so I don't have to worry about getting calories at the aid station it's just fluid and sodium it works yeah

Aubrey Hayes (24:55)

Okay. Nice. Yeah.

Man, that's good. So hopefully everybody could take that. And then one of the key things that you mentioned there was talking about hills, and then you also mentioned kind of your environment. I would consider terrain being part of your environment, but specifically talking about heat, humidity, could be cold, altitude increases, things like that. So one of the big things that...

Joshua (25:05)

Mmm.

Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (25:17)

that you should definitely be looking at as you're leading to your races. What time of the year it is, what the average temps are. If you look at Ironman, they give you kind of the averages. Is it going to be a hot swim? Is it going to be, you know, a hot run? Especially looking, depending on what time you're you're planning on racing as you get closer, you can look at, all right, I'm going to be on the run at this point and there's no shade on this run. So I'm going to be in full sun or hey, by this point during the bike, it's going to start hitting 80, 85 degrees.

And so basing your fueling plan and hydration off of that. And one of the big key things that I would tell people is we talk about being proactive with this is don't wait till it gets hot to hydrate properly. Right. So like like you talked about preparing on the bike prior to taking in all your nutrition on the bike.

Joshua (25:53)

Hmm.

Aubrey Hayes (26:02)

You should be doing the same thing. if I know it's going to be a hot day the next day, it all starts the day before, two days before with hydration, with sodium intake. And then the day of, as soon as I get out of the swim, I'm immediately being conscious of taking in fluids and taking in my nutrition so I can beat the heat later on in the day. What are some key things that you do to ⁓ look at that?

Joshua (26:07)

Mm.

Yeah.

I think you you just hit the nail on the head. mean it's training in the heat is important for racing in the heat, right? Like knowing exactly how much fluid you can intake and how much you're going to sweat all those sweat tests, you know, and then like it's there's actually a hot race versus a cold race. They both present their own unique challenges. Like if it's cold, it's very hard to drink enough fluid because then you have that problem because you can't take enough fluid because you're so then you're peeing all the time. So you need more sodium.

Aubrey Hayes (26:31)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah.

Joshua (26:53)

Right, and so I think if you have a race that's on either side of the spectrum Really hot or really cold you need to specifically train for that and prepare for that and have a very tailored strategy And so you need to do your own research I would say what I said in the beginning is kind of the general rule but take you have to tweak those knobs, you know for hot or cold and that's gonna be like down to Experimentation and then your own physiology

Aubrey Hayes (27:16)

Yeah, how your body reacts and that should come into play when you choose your race. I don't choose hot races because I know I will struggle. So I race the beginning of the season, like February, March, April, and then at the end of the season, closer to October, because the hot races just destroy me. I've done we've done a couple of hot races and.

Joshua (27:22)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Aubrey Hayes (27:36)

Yeah, I it's tough on me every time. so maybe it's just I need to take my own advice here and work a little bit more with some heat work and things like that. So I know. So all right. So we know the role in the environment, nutrition, periodization, adjusting for that race length. So how about those common mistakes and the consequences that come from common mistakes?

Joshua (27:46)

sure.

Hmm.

Yeah, mean, we've probably both seen them all, but like the common mistakes, one, the first one is pretty dire, and you don't wanna do this, because people do die, right? You see this like on the news sometimes, hyponatremia. So that happens when you just don't have enough sodium for the amount of fluid that you consume, right? So it's not only about taking in liquid.

Aubrey Hayes (28:03)

Yeah.

Joshua (28:22)

that's you have to combine sodium with liquid if you're especially if you're taking in a lot of liquid and that can manifest itself in not dire ways like you'll be okay, but you'll just feel bad, And that's what happens to most people I would say and then it could be also do like deadly. So don't mess around with that. The other really common thing that I've seen is

Aubrey Hayes (28:37)

Yep.

Joshua (28:42)

You know, people are so focused on getting enough carbs. They hear, they read, I already said this, but they just aren't able, they just only have like gels and they don't have enough water. Say it's like a cold race or something. And then they're like, why does my stomach hurt at mile 15 in Ironman? It's cause like they're just like so focused on, I ate all these calories, I ate all those calories. Oh, what about the other salt in the water part? And then they have stomach problems. Those are the two main ones. I mean, then the other kind of things are

Aubrey Hayes (28:54)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Joshua (29:07)

Ignoring the opportunity to use caffeine I remember in one of my early races in my career I got super tired like sleepy as the Sun was kind of going down at the end of an Ironman I'm like I need caffeine, you know, I didn't know any better back then and then the other the last probably obvious one is to practice right like ⁓

Aubrey Hayes (29:15)

yeah.

Thank

Mm, yeah.

Joshua (29:25)

You know, don't start taking Morton gels because they're offering them on the course if you've never tried a Morton gel, you know, or all these other things that we're talking about, right? You don't just like start taking 100 milligrams of caffeine per hour if you've never taken five milligrams of caffeine per hour. Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (29:34)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I would I want to talk on the caffeine piece real quick. like neglecting kind of that, like you were saying, being tired, a good substitute for most races will have coke on the Coca Cola on the course. It's a good substitute if you're not trying to take in more carb gels, but you're just looking for a quick hit like a cold Coke. Five, six hours into the race is like.

I don't know. It's amazing. nobody could tell me any different. And no, man. No, no. Just. yeah. It's amazing. And then what race was I at? I can't remember, but they had RC Cola. I was like, I'm not drinking that. I want Coke. I paid so much money for this race. I want Coca Cola, not RC Coke. But yeah. So that is a good substitute if you're like, man, I can't take another jail. Find those.

Joshua (30:07)

Is it flat? The flat Coke? Just full of bubbles and everything? Okay.

Aubrey Hayes (30:32)

It's usually in the run on an Ironman. ⁓ Some marathons do it, some don't. And then when you talked about not gut training in advance, so that kind of jumps into our next element, which is testing and tuning ⁓ in training. So gut training comes from that testing and tuning piece. And something you mentioned about like don't take Morton gels on the course if you've never taken Morton gels. Well, guys.

Joshua (30:32)

Yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (30:57)

Ironman and all these races put out who their nutrition sponsors are prior to so if you're one of those people like I don't want to carry stuff on me I don't really know how to deal with it then Practice using what's on the course leading up to the race and not the week before that's not gut training you need to do that in advance So yeah, let's that's my my biggest piece on ⁓ Gut training for like nutrition on the course. So what do you think about like testing and tuning in training?

Joshua (31:13)

Yeah, for sure.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean, there's I think we talked about some of this in one of the previous episodes, but there should be some minimum amount of fueling for every session, pretty much every normal workout, but there will be key workouts and any good plan that are race simulation workouts. Your big peak week peak days, you know, you're if you're doing a 70.3, it's like a three and a half hour ride with intensity or an Ironman. It's like 100 plus miles, right? Those are the days that you need to feel exactly like you're going to feel in the race, That's

Aubrey Hayes (31:37)

Yep.

Joshua (31:50)

your

chance and then I promise you will be grateful that you did because you're gonna see what worked what didn't work and maybe you're taking too many carbs maybe you could take even more carbs maybe by the fifth hour of your ride you're like this drink that I bought tastes horrible right and so you have to practice I know it's it's blasphemy to say that you you need to practice most likely you should be practicing this outside also as we talked about with wind and how you're gonna drink from the bottle

Aubrey Hayes (31:51)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Joshua (32:19)

when you're tucked out. Because your stomach could get messed up when you're in TT position. That's a whole other topic. But you need to practice in this situation that you're going to be in for various reasons. And so, yeah.

Aubrey Hayes (32:20)

Yep.

Yeah, like 100 %

like where you put your bottles, where you put your nutrition, can you actually reach it in aero or do you have to come up and become a wind cell and slow yourself down to take drinks? ⁓ Are you comfortable actually drinking while riding? yeah, there's a lot of testing.

Joshua (32:41)

Okay.

Yeah, when I was in Galveston,

I wasn't because it was like a 25-mile-an-hour crosswind. I didn't, you know, and I was like, I didn't want to even like get up an inch, you know? So what I did, I adapted in the moment. it was cold and I just started taking Morton gels because it was gonna be like 25 grams every time and I wouldn't have to lift the bottle, you know? Cause it was just every time I lift it up, it was a massive crosswind, So.

Aubrey Hayes (32:53)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Joshua (33:11)

Those

kind of things, you can figure out if you're experienced, but if you're inexperienced, you have to try it and then you have to see, okay, the sodium, the carbs, the caffeine, you know, how much fluid can I take? If it's hot, it's cold. So basically like...

You can just do experimental design like we do in statistics. say, okay, I'm going to try this, this workout, These are the parameters. Next workout, I'll try to increase amount of carbs, decrease amount of sodium, et cetera. Kind of get a matrix, you know, of what, how it felt and how you felt the day after, et cetera.

So it of sounds like a lot and it is but if you're serious about it I mean you can just be methodical about like a scientific method kind of thing and then optimize it and there's there's stuff out there like that app Saturday app they can do it for you you know or you can talk to us we can help you do it for sure

Aubrey Hayes (33:54)

Yeah. Yeah, we can help you as well all day.

So with that being the last of the five elements that we talked about, let's get some final takeaways on what we talked about today on that four by one rule and go from there.

Joshua (34:10)

Yeah, so just to recap it and summarize, basically the rule is 100 grams of carbs.

one liter fluid, one gram of sodium, and 100 milligrams of caffeine. And if you do that, you're most likely gonna be having a very good nutrition strategy. And of course you can tweak it beyond that, but if you just take one thing from this episode, it's to, you know, try, get a baseline to try it, and then start tweaking it for yourself from there.

Aubrey Hayes (34:40)

Okay, yeah, I like one thing that you've said before and we hear this a lot, know, no plan survives contact ⁓ with race day or you know, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face, So it's the same thing. We use the same concept. I believe everybody uses it, but same concept in the military, you know, no plan, ⁓ last pass first contact. So but the framework ⁓ builds you that that base.

for what it's gonna be and then you can always adjust from there. But practicing in different conditions is what is going to make you resilient against those changes on race day. okay, I've been through this, here's how I changed this. Okay, this isn't going how I planned, but like you did with the Moritz and Joe's, like I could take on other nutrition. knowing what you need every hour is the most important thing because in most of these races are gonna be supported and you're gonna be able to find the nutrition that you need.

Joshua (35:28)

Mm-hmm.

Aubrey Hayes (35:32)

like 100 % or over plan sometimes hey, I'm going to shove a couple extra gels in here or I'm going to have another bottle at transition just in case I lost some nutrition on the bike somewhere. I can take some, you know, in T2 leading into the run. You know, I always have an extra bottle that I take with me the first like 10 minutes of a throwaway bottle on the run so I can get some a little nutrition in at the beginning of the run and move out. So, yeah, 100 % using this as your as a base.

Joshua (35:57)

Sorry.

Aubrey Hayes (36:00)

to build on your nutrition for race day.

Joshua (36:03)

Sounds great, yeah.

the final thought about this is that fueling isn't about perfection, it's about preparation, pattern recognition and personalization. The rules that we talked about today are just to get you started and so yeah, if you wanna get a more tailored plan, like please feel free to reach out to us and we're happy to help you out with that.

Aubrey Hayes (36:23)

And then would like to add that our partner, Precision Fuel and Hydration, also does an online sweat test. You go on, you answer some questions about how you sweat, what your race plan is, what your goals, and then it'll spit out ⁓ essentially an IA generated nutrition plan for your race day. And then you could take that, apply it this four by one rule, and adjust it to your needs. So I wouldn't say go on there and buy.

Every item that it tells you need to buy you probably need to test some of those products out, but it's a good deal. And then they also have locations across the world that they do the actual sweat test at so you can go there and get a sweat test done. So highly recommend precision fuel and hydration and they've been great for both of us and we use them during race day. So with that, under this podcast, there's a button that says text here.

Send us any questions you need from there. If you want to reach out to us at our website, you can submit questions at precise multisport at gmail.com or precise multisport.com forward slash contact us as well. Make sure you click the follow button and we're always taking on new athletes. So reach out and

Thank you guys for joining us today. I hope you got some good ⁓ key points for nutrition during race day and that you're able to apply these to your training and future races. Have a good one.