Gordo Byrn's Group - FULL (Page 47)

Few ideas for you to bear in mind...

Hydration -- easy to get a low level of chronic dehydration through the warmer months -- in Hong Kong, I need to make sure that water was available everywhere in my life -- beside bed, every meal, in car, beside desk... everywhere I went

Stress -- increased HR is a sign of increased stress -- it is tempting to adjust zones upward to get 'normal' (perhaps more accurately, 'desired') training paces/powers -- this is often a mistake -- if you accept lower pace/power then, for your endurance work, you will gradually adapt. For your higher intensity work, you will need to train indoors with air conditioning and/or accept a lower work rate.

Racing -- there is the pace that you can sustain in a temperate climate and there is the pace that you can sustain under heat stress. Living in Florida, you'll learn the difference. Many athletes that live outside of extreme heat forget this when they face heat stress -- result is underperformance. We must train/race at the effort appropriate for the conditions we face.

Electrolyte Panel -- certain athletes can lose significant amounts of key electrolytes -- if performance drops significantly then ask your doc to check your electrolyte levels to ensure that the heat has not depleted you.

Recovery -- if you live in extreme heat then phasing your year to have an unloading period in the hottest months can make a lot of sense. You may also find that you have a key advantage when racing temperate athletes in early season races that are prone to heat.

Fluids -- I have found that the body's ability to process fluids is highly trainable -- this is a key adaptation that needs to be achieved to have success with long term training in the heat.

For me, the range is 0-1000 mg per hour on my 8-9 hour days. For my story, as my fitness increased, I cramped less. In other words, early career cramps were due to fatigue (from eccentric load?) in my running muscles, rather that electrolyte issues. As my fitness increased, I removed all sodium supplements with no issues.

Some of my pals report gastric emptying slows/fails in heat with low sodium intake. However, I am not sure if there is any research to support. There is a lot of anecdotal reports, though.

General point is that 'salty' beverages are more tasty then 'sweet' once they warm up and over time. The the beverage that tastes best when sipped in the kitchen (sweet) will likely not win after 6-10 quarts have been consumed on a toasty day in Jackson.

High Sodium Diet -- chronic sodium supplementation would likely be equivalent to placing one's self on a high sodium diet. The docs are better placed to advise on the implications of that. I'm on a low sodium diet as I don't eat much processed food (although our week at Hotel Arizona probably topped me up -- bacon, Larry, bacon...)

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More from a very experienced ultra guy that I coach...

Obviously I don't have Ironman experience, but I have a good amount of experience at events lasting 8 to 30 hours. Given that the only similarity is duration of events and not direct sport specificity, this should be taken with a grain of salt (excuse the pun!). First of all, in terms of body size, I am about six feet and 185 lbs. I shoot for 300 to 600mg of sodium an hour. Supplementation is a bit of an art as far as I am concerned. Some basic rules I consider

1 I always supplement 300mg per hour minimum. If it is really hot like sweat dripping off my sunvisor and arms, I will take a 300mg capsule every 30 min. After dark I drop my sodium to 300mg every hour as my sweat rate usually falls.
2 If I start to feel nauseated, bloated, or just blah and have been sweating alot, I will up my sodium to 300mg every 20 min for and hour or so until the above symptoms abate. These symptoms are commonly due to low grade hyponatremia.

My experience parallels Gordo's, in that when I started triathlons, I was taking endurolytes for every race for the 1st year or two and would occasionally have cramping issues. I haven't taken any additional sodium supplementation the past 5 years in any race or training and haven't had any cramping issues. I attribute that to gains in fitness rather than any electrolyte issue.

The scientific literature hasn't been helpful to me in sorting this question out. There is really little evidence that supplementation with any substance reduces cramping.

I suspect that it is more important to get sodium levels correct in regard to osmolality of your nutrition (drink mix) for gut absorption than cramping prevention.

Having said that, there must be considerable individual variability. Guys who clearly have remarkable fitness have demonstrated increase sweat losses determined at centers like the Gatorade institute. The famous commercial with Chris Legh reporting his increased sodium needs is an example and I believe that Molina had similiar high requirements.

Hey G team hope you are all well.
Had my race today, the anniversary of my first ever tri and the race I had an issue with as last year was a disappointment to me when I bonked after the bike badly. Last year took just under 1hr 42 for 750m lake swim 20k bike and 5.4k run. This year I was much better prepared thanks to Gordo's advice with my training and was ready to go for it.
Had a gentle jog warm up and put the wetsuit on in plenty of time and made my way to swim start. Got in the lake and did a bit of swimming to get used to the cold water and on the klaxon got going and seemed to find a nice bit of space despite the 249 others around me. All was going to plan for about 200m until I breathed in just as a large handful of water got swept into my mouth. lots of choking and trying to maintain calm for about 20 seconds before I could get going again albeit still struggling to breathe. Eventually I settled into a good rythmn and was passing slower swimmers and drafting well and exited swim bang on 15 minutes right on schedule. A long uphill run to T1 and a good transition out onto the bike. Its a hilly course and was tough but I did ok although a minute or 2 slower than I would have liked. T2 uneventful and had taken my feet out of the shoes on the approach so jumped off running like the pros. Straight into the run being mindful not to go too hard and was surprised when both calves started to cramp 400m into the run so eased the pace but upped the cadence and this helped along with a downhill section. Had no idea of my race time as the stopwatch had stopped when I took my wetsuit off so just went as hard as I could using the footpod to monitor speed. As I came into the finish straight i felt strong so put in a sprint finish and made it under my target of 1hr30.

Official finish time 1:29:50 I finished 713 out of 3500ish. So happy.

Gordo thankyou sir for your wisdom and thankyou fellow mentees for the encouragement over the last few months you have all helped more than you know.

Dave