Running the carb consumption strategy through my head. I plan to follow the Western Australian Method for Carb Loading again this time. Although, I'm going to do it on Thursday (10/4) instead of Saturday (10/6). The research shows that as long as the running is kept to 20 min or less at nice and easy paces and you replenish right afterwards, then you'll maintain glycogen super compensation.
So Thursday will look like this for me:
165 pound (a guess) male. The time shown above (1:33:00) has no impact on the amount of carbs to consume in a day. So to reach 10.3 g carbs/kg bw, then I need to consume 772.5 g carbs. I've done this a few times and it's been tolerable. I actually went back and looked at my diet tab and determined that I normally consume 5.1 g carb/kg bw on a non-running day, 5.9 g carb/kg bw on an easy running day, 8.1 g carb/kg bw on a moderate running day, and 9.3 g carb/kg bw on a very long running day. So 10.3 isn't that much of a stretch for me already.
So 772.5 total carbs needed, of which 80% will be liquid sourced (618 g carbs). Every time I've done this protocol prior, I've used E-Fuel (Crank Sports and makers of E-Gel). But this time around, I'm trying Maurten Drink Mix 320 primarily because it requires significantly less water for it to be absorbed. So, I'll need to consume 7.8 packets with 133 ounces of water (just over a gallon) over the course of Thursday. So, I'll probably do a packet an hour for 8 hours.
In addition, I'll need to consume 154 g carbs, 64 g protein, and 9.5 g fat from actual food sources.
The hope is this will provide a boost of glycogen storage from 100% to 190%. Thus, enabling me to store 2394 kcals of glucose rather than 1260 kcals.
During the race, I'll have 4 E-gels and 4 packets of 100mg RunGum with me. I also plan to drink 8 oz of Maurten Drink Mix 320 at the starting line (instead of the 79g I consumed at the Madison Mini, followed by carrying the Maurten and getting to about 112 in an hour or above the maximal consumption rate). So since the 8 oz of Maurten is isotonic it requires no other water to absorb. So the key is making sure I time the other water intake to allow the E-Gel to be absorbed. At 37g per packet, that means I need 18.5 ounces of water consumed prior to each packet. Since the weather looks nice, I probably won't have to go higher than this.
So I checked out the race map:
Normally, I would have broken up the consumption into 30-45 min chunks, or around 5 miles. But in looking at the aid station locations that might get tricky. There are only two aid stations between the start and mile 5. So that would require about 10 oz of water to be consumed at each to have enough water on board to take on an E-gel. 10 oz at a water station is probably tricky since each cup usually has about 3 oz in it. So I'd probably have to triple cup to get enough water. But if I moved that first E-gel to mile 6, I gain another 2 aid stations. So first E-gel at 6 miles, if I get two cups per station. Mile 11 would be the next logical place for another E-Gel with another 3 aid stations between. Then Mile 15, with 4 stations between. Then Mile 20, with 4 stations between. The moral of the story though is in order to consume 4 E-gels throughout the course, then I need to drink 2 cups of water from every aid station.
In addition to the E-gels at Mile 6, 11, 15, and 20 (which will all be 30-45 min apart), I will also be taking a RunGum 100mg at the start, mile 7, 14 and 21 (another maximum at 400mg caffeine in a day).
So the consumption rate of E-Gels gets me to about 55 g carb per hour (give or take depending on finish time).
So if I go back to the math, then with a Western Australian Carb Loading method I'm estimating that I probably wouldn't even need to consume any carbs while running. But if I choose to consume carbs at a rate of 55 g/hr, then I'm looking at being around mile 33 (or long after I'm done) before I would hit glycogen depletion. So why even consume carbs during the race at all? Well, I'm hedging my bet on the carb loading doing anything. If the carb load fails to hit an average performance (190%) and say 130% instead, then I'd need about 55 g carbs per hour to make it to mile 26 at a 83% VO2peak. So I'm trying to achieve the same goal from two different angles.
