Nailing Triathlon Fueling

After my disastrous run in last year's 70.3 I decided to take a closer look at my fueling strategy. It needed some work. And I found a new favourite carb/electrolyte drink from No-Nonsense Nutrition. Check them out at www.nnfuel.com And come join our growing triathlete community at www.patreon.com/thelonelytriathlete TRANSCRIPT Episode: Fueling the Engine — Hydration, Electrolytes, and Why Simpler Might Be Better INTRO Sun, May 24, Victoria BC , Canada Welcome If you are a Patreon member remember to stick around after the episode ends for some bonus content. If you aren't a Patreon member, what's wrong with you? Kidding. But go to patreon.com and check out my membership options and join a growing community of triathletes so you don't have to be a lonely triathlete anymore. Today we’re talking about one of the biggest performance limiters in endurance sports — and often one of the most overlooked. Fueling. Not just carbs. Not just hydration. But the balance between carbohydrates, fluids, and electrolytes… and how getting this wrong can completely derail your training and your racing. Because here’s the thing: You can have the perfect bike. The perfect aero helmet. The perfect pacing strategy. But if your fueling plan falls apart halfway through a race… your race could be over. Like last year during my Victoria 70.3. In retrospect, I am pretty sure I didn't hydrate enough during the bike. But even if I did (and I didn't) I was definitely low on electrolytes. I even added salt capsules to my drink but clearly not enough because my legs almost did not function for my run. The entire run my quads would not relax. There were moments I thought I'd fall on my face. I was in agony for the whole 2+ hours of that run. Now, I can't say for certain that it was related to electrolyte loss but I have a pretty strong suspicion that it was. So, since that race I’ve been rethinking my own fueling strategy. For the last couple of years, I’ve been using Allmax Nutrition CARBION+ as my primary carb drink during training and racing. I've loved it. I think it tastes fantastic. But recently I started asking myself a bigger question: “Am I actually getting enough electrolytes for the amount of work I’m doing?” And that question sent me down a pretty deep rabbit hole. Eventually, I came across a company called No-Nonsense Nutrition and their product called Race Day Formula. And today’s episode is really about what I learned through that whole process. Not just comparing two drink mixes… …but understanding: how much fluid you actually need, how much sodium you probably need, how to estimate your sweat rate, how to know if you’re a salty sweater, and why simpler fueling formulas may actually work better when intensity gets really high. So let’s get into it. Part 1 — Why Fueling Gets Harder As Fitness Improves One thing I’ve noticed as my training volume and intensity have increased… …is that fueling becomes WAY more important. Because when you’re training easy? Almost anything works. You can survive on water and vibes. But once you start doing: long tempo rides, threshold intervals, race simulations, brick workouts, or hard long runs in heat… …suddenly your stomach matters. Your gut matters. Your hydration strategy matters. And one of the biggest issues endurance athletes run into is simply this: They stop being able to tolerate sweet drinks. Especially when intensity gets high. You’re breathing hard. Your heart rate is elevated. Your stomach is bouncing around. And suddenly that super sugary drink that tasted amazing sitting on the couch… …starts tasting like melted candy syrup. That “too sweet” feeling can become nauseating. And once your gut shuts down, everything falls apart: carb absorption drops, hydration drops, energy drops, pacing drops. It becomes a domino effect. Part 2 — My Experience with CARBION+ Now to be fair… I actually really liked CARBION+. It tastes good. It mixes easily. And it’s definitely designed for endurance athletes. Looking at the formula, it uses a combination of highly branched cyclic dextrin and maltodextrin-style carbohydrates, along with a hydration blend containing sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium. Each serving provides: 25 grams of carbohydrate 190 mg sodium 100 mg potassium plus smaller amounts of magnesium and calcium. But as I started training harder and increasing carb intake… …I realized something. To hit modern fueling recommendations — somewhere around 60 to 90 grams of carbs per hour — I had to drink a LOT of CARBION+. And even then… …the sodium numbers weren’t especially high. And the formula itself is pretty engineered. It has: absorption blends, specialized dextrins, sweeteners, flavoring systems, and a whole bunch of extras. Now maybe that works fantastically for some athletes. But I started craving simplicity. Part 3 — Discovering No-Nonsense Nutrition That’s when I found No-Nonsense Nutrition Race Day Formula. And what immediately stood out to me was how simple it was. Basically: two carbohydrate sources, electrolytes, done. No giant ingredient panel. No “hyper-performance absorption matrix.” Just carbs and electrolytes. And honestly? That simplicity really appealed to me. But the biggest difference… …was the taste. Or more accurately: The lack of taste. It’s incredibly mild. And that turned out to be a huge advantage. Because now I can mix: 60 grams, 75 grams, even 90 grams of carbs into a bottle… …and it still doesn’t taste overwhelmingly sweet. That’s massive. Because modern endurance fueling science has shifted pretty dramatically over the last several years. A lot of athletes are now targeting: 60–90 grams of carbs per hour, and some elite athletes go even higher. But your gut has to tolerate it. That’s the key. And a lightly flavored drink can make a gigantic difference in gut comfort. Part 4 — Electrolytes: The Missing Piece Now let’s talk electrolytes. Specifically sodium. Because this is where a LOT of endurance athletes underfuel. When we sweat, we lose: water, sodium, potassium, chloride, magnesium, and calcium. But sodium is the big one. And here’s the tricky part: Sweat rate varies wildly between athletes. And sodium concentration varies wildly too. Some people lose relatively little sodium. Other people are absolute salt factories. You know who you are. If: sweat burns your eyes, your sweat tastes insanely salty, your clothes dry with white streaks, your skin feels gritty after workouts… …you’re probably a salty sweater. And those athletes often struggle the most in long races. Especially in heat. Part 5 — Estimating Sweat Rate Now ideally, you’d get professionally tested. There are actual sweat testing services that can analyze: sweat sodium concentration, sweat rate, fluid loss, and help create a customized hydration strategy. But honestly? You can get surprisingly useful data yourself. Here’s the simple DIY method. Before your workout: weigh yourself naked. Then: do your ride or run, track exactly how much fluid you drank. Afterward: towel off, weigh yourself again naked. The difference tells you how much fluid you lost. For example: If you lost: 1 kilogram of body weight, and drank 500 mL during the workout… …your total sweat loss was about 1.5 liters. If that workout lasted one hour… …your sweat rate is roughly: 1.5 liters per hour. And that’s incredibly useful information. Because now you can start replacing fluids more accurately instead of just guessing. Part 6 — How Much Sodium Do You Need? Now this is where things get interesting. Average sodium losses during endurance exercise are often estimated somewhere around: 500 to 1,000 mg per liter of sweat. But some athletes lose MUCH more. Especially heavy or salty sweaters. So where should you start? For many endurance athletes, somewhere around: 500–1,000 mg sodium per hour …is a reasonable starting point during long or intense sessions. Then you experiment. Because this is highly individual. And symptoms matter. Things that MAY suggest inadequate sodium or hydration intake include: headaches, excessive fatigue, dizziness, declining performance, nausea, feeling “flat,” or severe cramping late in long events. Now to be clear: cramping is complicated. It’s not always sodium-related. Fatigue and pacing play huge roles too. But sodium intake absolutely matters for fluid balance and maintaining performance during long efforts. Some athletes — especially very heavy sweaters — may end up closer to: 1200, 1400, even 1500 mg sodium per hour. But again: You TEST this in training. Never on race day. Part 7 — Why This Matters for Training Too And this is important. This isn’t just about racing. Good fueling improves training quality too. If you fuel properly during training: you maintain power better, pace better, recover faster, reduce post-workout fatigue, and probably improve consistency. And consistency is everything in endurance sports. The athlete who recovers better… usually trains better. And the athlete who trains better consistently… usually races better. Fueling is not just survival. Fueling is performance. Part 8 — Cost Matters Too Now here’s another thing I noticed. Cost. Because endurance fueling can get expensive FAST. Especially if you’re training: 10, 12, 15 hours a week. And when I compared the cost per 30 grams of carbohydrate… …I found the No-Nonsense formula was actually cheaper than CARBION+. And over: multiple bottles, long rides, race prep blocks, Ironman training… …that difference adds up. So now we’re checking a lot of boxes: tastes lighter, easier on the stomach, simpler ingredients, higher electrolyte content, easier to hit modern carb targets, and cheaper. That’s a pretty compelling combination. Part 9 — The Bigger Lesson But honestly… …the bigger lesson here isn’t about one brand versus another. It’s about learning your body. Because hydration and fueling are incredibly individual. Your sweat rate is different than mine. Your sodium losses are different than mine. Your gut tolerance is different than mine. And the only way to really dial this stuff in… …is to practice during training. Experiment. Track. Adjust. Repeat. That’s how you build a race nutrition plan. Closing So if there’s one takeaway from today’s episode, it’s this: Don’t just train your legs. Train your fueling strategy too. Because the stronger and faster you become… …the more important fueling becomes. And sometimes… simpler is actually better. If you’re interested in checking out the Race Day Formula I mentioned, you can find it at No-Nonsense Nutrition. I’ll also put a link in the show notes. That’s it for me today. Thanks for listening to The Lonely Triathlete. Until next time… Peace.