Now With 100% Less Ralph

For the past few seasons I have had some strange issues with leaving my stomach content all over race courses. That and bonking here there, and everywhere. In 03 and 04 my nutrition was so rock solid? What had gone wrong?

Since then it's been a year plus long study in tonicity, hypertonic, hypotonic, grams of CHO versus ounces of H20. Lucky for me I coach some very bright people. And I have a very bright coach.

At Ironman this year I tried Infinit, and didn't have good results. I have always had good results with Carbo Pro... when I could use it a certain way. But I didn't know that way. A few times I stumbled into it with luck.

Last week I needed simplicity. I can't deal with grabbing X bottles at this station, drinking Y oz by this station and then Z bottles lasting me here. Confusing. I reverted back to the simple way. The Carbo Pro way that I had found luck with before.

I enlisted The Boon, and Coach T. The Boon is unbelievably bright. Want to see her get excited? Ask her to calculate your race day nutrition. Or show her a disc wheel and give her wind tunnel results.

And Coach T...... we know he's a smart egg.

My question to them was.....

I need to make my solution hypertonic when it hits my gut. I need to know;

Take ______ oz of H20 with ______ oz of Carbo Pro every ______ minutes.

And together they figured it out.

Saturday it worked. Today it worked. I felt stellar. 2 X 5 hour rides at Ironman wattage pace. Bingo. A few more to go and I believe we have nailed it.

I am so damn lucky to be surrounded by good brains and good people. I always say that we are the sum of all our parts. And just like it takes a village to raise a child.....

It takes an army to get Mary through an Ironman.

:-) Mary