The Winning Endurance Formula
Are you an endurance athlete looking for a winning nutritional plan? Winning IronMan, Allan Pitman has trialled and tested many nutritional plans and here is his most successful formula.
- Spend the week before avoiding foods which are hard to digest such as wheat, dairy, beans and beef. Choosing more rice based dishes is a good idea.
- Take a probiotic like Inner Health Plus each day of the week leading up to your event, as you need your stomach in great shape for race day.
- For the two days before race day, load by drinking two 750 mL of Endura Optimizer and two 750 mL of Endura Rehydration drink each day between meals. Extra sea salt in each meal helps with mineral loading.
- On race morning mix six scoops of Endura Optimizer in 500 mL of water for breakfast and then 90 minutes before the race starts (practice this many times before race day when completing long workouts).
- Take a double espresso, or can of energy drink 10 minutes before the race starts and drink 500 mL of water.
- When you get out of the water, drink 750 mL of Endura Rehydration drink (six teaspoons with added sea salt) in first 20 minutes of the bike leg (this is probably the most important bottle of the day).
- Drink one more Endura Rehydration and one Endura Optimizer with four to five scoops by half way, pick up water only from aid stations.
- At half way, pick up two Endura and one Endura Optimizer (four to five scoops) at special needs.
- Carry a few Endura Gels (three to four) on the bike and take with water when needed, don’t take with sports drink.
- Start run with run belt carrying two flasks with 12 teaspoons of Endura Rehydration and sea salt in each one (this is concentrated so take water from aid stations to dilute). I drink at every aid station, sometimes taking coke and diluting it with water, two water to one coke. It is important to remember that every gel needs to be washed down with two cups of water. I start with four gels.
- At the run special needs, I have two more flasks, one with concentrated Endura Rehydration, the other with concentrated Endura Optimizer and three more Endura Gels. I may not use all the gels, I may take more coke instead, but I carry them anyway.
- I carry celtic sea salt in a waterproof container and do not take the sponsor’s electrolyte drinks.
- This plan has been practiced many times. Then on race day it may change to suit conditions. If it's going to be a very hot day, I'll drink lots of water early on bike and run.
- Feed to preserve the body's reserves, not to fuel the whole performance. As a general rule, the body can absorb, 1-1.5 litres of fluid and 40-50gms of carbohydrate per hour. More for big people, less for small people.
