How To Create Your Race Plan – Part 1: Nutrition
A lot of triathletes think the Race Plan is all about when you take on gels and fluids. The truth is, there is so much more to putting the plan together. You won’t be wasting potential gained through training if you follow these steps:
It’s heart breaking hearing about athletes who have been training the house down with solid commitment, only for them to have disappointing race days because something went wrong. Yes of course, nutrition and hydration play a huge part in your performance during the event, but a Race Plan needs to expand to adopt a selection of wider strategies. And the more detail you provide, the better:
- Nutrition Plan (Including hot and cold weather strategy)
- Transfer And Arrival Plan
- Kit and Transition Plan
- Pacing and Tactical Plan
There’s enough to think about in triathlon before you even consider that each race course, climate and location is different. If you’re an athlete wanting to take the sport a little more seriously, the odds are that you’re planning races interstate or internationally at places you’ve never even visited. You wouldn’t just arrive at the airport one morning hoping the airline can take you, or ask someone else to pack your luggage, or assume that there is an available hotel right next to to the venue when you arrive without a booking. But often is the time that I hear of athletes with zero to little race planning, when they’ve gone to so much effort making other arrangements.
The biggest travesty of all is the months of training that someone has been going through, the sacrifices, the early starts, missed celebrations, and money spent, only for a lack of planning to render it a missed opportunity. Failing to plan is planning to fail and all that. So let’s look at each segment of the Race Plan one by one. This week…
Nutrition
Not only does this topic dominate most conversations I have when I ask about Race Planning, but it’s very commonly miscalculated. Using middle distance triathlon [70.3] as an example, a lot of people don’t take on anywhere near enough calories during the event. This is partly because athletes underestimate how long they will be on course, and partly due to those graduating from Standard (Olympic) Distance and not adjusting their intake accordingly.
A great rule of thumb is to look at our beloved data for a race-specific workout. In the case of a 70.3 race, the goal intensity would be Zone 3 Power and/or Heart Rate (give or take). Therefore, the 10-12 weeks of training before the event should aim to hone in on that intensity to be SPECIFIC for the demands of race day. If an athlete looks at the data for – say – a key bike workout carrying out 20-minute intervals in Zone 3 Power with 5-minute recoveries, it would be quite easy to establish how many calories were burnt in one hour at that intensity. The same would apply for a key run session at Zone 3 heart rate. I’ve seen a lot of flared eyes when athletes truly find out how many calories they are burning in workouts, when they realise that one average sports gel holds about 120 calories.
I should say that we’re not aiming to take on 100% of those workout calories when we race, because typically we’ve had a decent racing-specific breakfast and ideally loaded carbs for 48 hours, meaning our glycogen stores just need a constant top up. Generally speaking, 60% of the workout calories should be taken on during the event because we can only burn so many when we are racing at certain intensities. The best way to describe the strategy is through an example:
I’ll keep the maths simple: let’s say you analysed your cycle workout and found that in Zone 3 HR/PWR you’re burning 700 calories in an hour. You can then also look at your data to find the average speed you move at in Zone 3, to (very roughly) estimate how long the 90km ride might take you. (Side bar, if you know the course is hilly, you will of course be riding for longer). So again – simple maths – the ride is due to take you 2.5 hours. That’s 0.6 x (2.5 x 700) = 1,050 Calories. The next step is to look at the nutrition you have been using during your training, and gauge how to get that into your system during the 2.5-hour bike ride. If an average gel is 120 calories and a chewy energy bar is usually about 290 calories, you would plan to take two of each, combined with sipping on some energy drink. These are rough numbers, but they are so much better than guess work. Athletes new to 70.3 might be on the cycle course for 3.5 hours, which could increase the number of calories used BUT they most likely won’t be working in Zone 3 for that amount of time, so their calculations need to be based on the zones they have been training in.
Don’t forget: your nutrition plan starts a couple of days out from the race; it’s not just the few hours you’re on course. That might include caffeine fasting for a couple of days, but should definitely limit spice, fibre and protein for 48 before the gun goes off. This isn’t a page dedicated to Fat Adapted athletes who have trained their bodies (usually for full distance events) to be fine without carbs – although they have their place – so I’ll encourage everyone to carb load before a race. Rice, pasta, oats, sweet potatoes, cereal bars, energy drinks etc. are the sort of things I used to go for. I’m not saying remove fish and meats altogether, they just don’t need to be your focus if that’s your normal diet. A baked potato with tuna mayo makes a great dinner for example. High fibre and spice are things that no-one should be experimenting with! And please test bananas in training before using them in a race; they might be great complex carbs but they have a tendency to cause slushy stomachs and stitches.
“A marathon at the end of an Ironman isn’t a test of who is the fastest runner. It’s a test of who has managed their fuel and hydration the best” – Mark Allen, Six-time Ironman World Champion.
Race Day breakfasts are more crucial to get right: You need Low GI foods taken 90-120 minutes before your start time to allow time for a loo visit before you get ready with race suit / wetsuit. So again, porridge, muesli, honey on wholegrain bread, or anything else in that vein. You’ll notice I don’t say white bread which is High GI and will be through your system and making you feel sleepy much too quickly. For most event distances, it’s also advised to sip on a bidon of energy drink from the moment the alarm sounds – you want your glycogen stores completely topped up before you start racing because you can’t burn too much at race intensity.
One more note on the ‘feeling sleepy’ point is not taking your pre-swim gel too soon. I see people warm up (which is great!) then take on their pre-race gel 40 minutes before the gun and stand around. If you take on sugars (simple carbs) from gels more than 20 minutes before racing or exercise, your body will produce insulin to flush it through the system. This may well have you feeling like you’re going to nod off – just like a sugar crash – which isn’t exactly what you need prior to calling on your body to perform.
Hot and Cold Weather Strategy
If you train and race for a few years, chances are you will need to adapt to the climate conditions at least once. If you screw it up you won’t forget it, so it’s best to keep it at the forefront of your mind before you cross that burning bridge. Once upon a time in a World Champs Qualifier in Mandurah, Western Australia I truly screwed up and did not respect the heat and conditions. It was “only” an Olympic Distance event, but lest we forget we should be preparing for a hot ride and run WAY before they actually start. I had travelled from a much cooler State, and although 33 degrees doesn’t sound crazy hot, when your head is locked into a teardrop helmet with no ventilation the effects are compounded. On top of that, I had a really ill-thought-out breakfast of high GI carbs, I did nothing to cool my drinks for the bike, and didn’t adjust my bike intensity in what felt like a warm fan forced oven. It seemed I wasn’t the only one with poor planning, and the run course – two out and back 5km loops – was like a war zone. We were walking through aid stations like it was Kona, and when I got back to town after the first 5km run loop, all I was thinking was “please don’t make me go back out there!”. There was zero shade, and I pretty much bonked as I got off the bike… horrendous. I rolled over the line in 18th place. I was fuming in more ways than one.
From that day forth, I made sure my planning was spot on when it came to Hot Weather Planning. Luckily – living in Australia – I haven’t had much cause to use a Cold Weather Plan, but it can happen. For the heat, I made sure I froze a half-full a cycling bidon to ensure I had reliable ice cubes for one of my drinks. Don’t fill them up to the top because if you freeze the drinking spout you can’t get anything out! I find, half fill them and leave them in the freezer lying on their side so the ice can be used on every sip. Make sure you freeze it for at least 24 hours, so the thing is solid ice and doesn’t defrost while you’re swimming. I used to freeze one bidon just for water, because if I needed to throw some down my front, it wasn’t all sticky with energy drink sugar. On that note, once you hit a hot run course, it’s likely there will be ice at the aid stations. Grab that and shove some down the front of your race suit and under your hat… anywhere close to the blood flow. I also used to just hold some ice in my hands until it melted.
Athletic performance degrades significantly when the human body expends excessive energy regulating its core temperature. The images below provide an actionable strategic breakdown for triathletes competing or training across varying climate conditions, outlining precise thermal thresholds and critical nutrition modifications.
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