Full transcript of the episode:
Hey, everyone.Welcome back to another episode of The Fuelled Triathlete. I’m your host, Andrea. And today I want to talk about something you may have heard it’s a rumor, or I don’t know if it’s more than a rumor at this point, but there’s probably some truth to it. But at an upcoming Ironman, Texas race, they’re not going to be serving Gatorade endurance anymore, they’re going to be serving a drink called mortal hydration. So whether this is just for iron man, Texas, however it could be for all future ironman events, I wanted to talk about that today. So I want to talk about what mortal hydration actually is. How does it compare to Gatorade? Is this an equal swap?
Is this something that you can just use? And, yeah does it hold up to what it needs to do? So a goal in a race for nutrition, you know, when it comes to a half or full iron man, your goals for your nutrition plan are that it should prevent dehydration. So we want to prevent becoming more than two to 3% dehydrated, so more losing more than two to 3% of our body weight. That’s going to mean you need to drink adequate. Fluids. So this is a very individualized amount of fluid that you need to consume and should involve doing some sweat rate testing, leading up to it. But that’s going to come from fluids is also going to come from getting adequate sodium as well, to maintain proper hydration and help your body retain fluids. The other goal with nutrition during Ironman race is that you consume enough calories, mainly carbohydrates that you consume enough carbohydrates to keep your energy levels consistent during the race and to prevent you from hitting the wall.
So we see from research that carbohydrate intake at half or full iron man should be at least between 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour, or for some up to 120 grams of carbs per hour. So. Can mortal hydration help you do that? We’re going to talk about it. The other goal is that we want to have a nutrition plan, that’s going to prevent GI distress.
So prevent us from having gas, pain, bloating, diarrhea, runners trots, all that stuff. So we need the right type of plan to get the adequate nutrition and fluids in a way that we can tolerate it and it’s going to help us perform and feel our best on race day. So, like I said, in today’s podcast, I want to compare mortal hydration. With Gatorade. If it doesn’t pan out, you know, if we learned today that it’s maybe not. The best choice then what you can do instead. Should you carry stuff with you? What products can you use? We’re going to get all into that
Okay, so let’s compare the two.
So Gatorade endurance, let’s start with what was being used. Gatorade Endurance is a bit different than your regular Gatorade thirst quencher beverage that you can get at a grocery store or gas station. It is higher in carbohydrates and sodium. But the main ingredients of where you’re getting your carbohydrates are sugar. So sugar typically means that it’s sucrose, which is about 50% glucose, 50%. Fructose. There’s maltodextrin, which is a source of glucose and then Fructoes. So when we’re looking at a sports drink and when we are consuming something that’s more than 60 grams of carbs per hour, which is typically what you’re going to do in these Ironman events.
We want to have multiple transportable carbohydrates. Basically, what that means is where we want a product that’s going to have about a one-to-one mix or a mix of the two of glucose and fructose. You can only really consume up to about 60 grams of carbs per hour of glucose or fructose. If you’re trying to get 90 grams of carbs per hour, just from glucose, you’re probably not going to absorb it all. And can have some, some stomach upset? So over 60 grams, you want to have a combination of the two.
In 24 ounces of Gatorade endurance, you’re getting 44 grams of carbohydrates. 600 milligrams of sodium, and 280 milligrams of potassium. Now when we’re building our nutrition plans, the main thing we’re looking for is going to be, does it have enough carbohydrates? Does it have enough sodium . Sodium is also totally variable as well, but a starting point, probably about 500 to a thousand milligrams of sodium per hour. And in some cases, if you’re drinking high amounts of fluid, you’re drinking close to your sweat rate or you have very high sodium sweat losses you may need more than a thousand milligrams of sodium per hour.
Now let’s compare that to mortal hydration. So looking at the nutrition facts online, it gives me the nutrition for a packet or one serving.
And it tells you to mix that in 22 ounces of fluids. So let’s say about 22 ounces of this mortal hydration. It has 10 grams of carbs. Much lower. 150 milligrams of potassium. And 460 milligrams of sodium. There is a salty version as well. I’m not sure if this is the one that they are going to be serving, but that has 900 milligrams of sodium per hour. In terms of the ingredients list and where the carbohydrates are coming from there’s cane syrup. Cane syrup is made from cane sugar, which is typically sucrose has a mixture of both glucose and fructose there’s dextrose, form of glucose and then as well, there’s beetroot juice and Stevia.
So these are the two ingredients that gets me a little bit. Which I want to come back to. When we look at different types of beverages, that are available, I kind of think that we have like a sports drinks so that these are high carb sources of sodium.
And then there’s electrolyte beverages, which typically tend to be lower in sugar or no sugar with a lot of sodium. So mortal hydration reminds me more, this is more of like an electrolyte beverage. This would be something like Pedialyte, which has some carbs, but mostly sodium for rehydration or Liquid IV, Redmond Relytes, Nuun those type of drinks.
So some of those that I mentioned have no carbs, but 10 grams of carbs per serving is quite low. If you’ve ever done a half iron man or a full iron man, or you plan to do one, they will provide a bottle of Gatorade endurance. So about, I think it’s about 24 ounces.
So you’re getting kind of similar to that nutrition that I mentioned for Gatorade endurance. But if you’re getting a serving of this mortal hydration, You’re getting a lot less carbs. Basic starting point recommendations for fueling during these races could be, have a bottle of your nutrition and hour, and then maybe supplement that with some additional gels or chews or foods. So if you’re choosing a bottle of this mortal hydration, With only 10 grams of carbs. There’s a lot more carbs that you’re going to need to make up with, and that’s a lot of extra gels to get to 60 to 90 grams of carbs per hour. Let’s just say you did want to go and do that you know, that’s three gels an hour. So to me that doesn’t seem like the best option. But, you know, going back to what I wanted to talk about with this podcast is that, is this a direct split? So as you can see, When we look at the nutrition, when we look at the ingredients, Mortal hydration is not going to be a direct replacement.
If you were someone who used the Gatorade on course, on the run or on the bike, and then you just didn’t change anything else. And you started using mortal hydration, you’re likely going to be very under fueled, not have enough carbohydrates and. It is also lower in sodium as well.
Not to mention the the Stevia is something that is, to me, it’s counterintuitive to really have in a sports drinks that you’re taking during an endurance event.
To keep our energy up, to keep us from hitting the wall, we want to have enough carbohydrates per hour. Stevia it is what’s known as a non-nutritive sweeteners. So it provides that sweetness, but without the extra calories and without the carbohydrates, So it’s not necessarily needed.
Usually when it comes to GI tolerance, artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols these tend to be something that is likely to provide GI upset and distress. but could it happen with Stevia? Potentially. So the thing is you always want to try your race plan before race day. So it’s really important that if this is something you do want to try and you do want to use, you want to order some, and you want to practice it out on race day. Keep in mind, it’s very low carb and you need to get those carbs from other areas.
So, what can you do instead if this is not a direct replacement, what should you do? How should you address your nutrition plan?
If this is maybe throwing everything out the window, or maybe you’re new to this? So it’s probably a good idea to bring your own nutrition with you on race day. So when I’m working with clients, usually we have the option. Do you want to use what’s on the race course? Or do you want to pack your beverages with you?
You know, you may probably more likely you’re going to be starting to pack things with you. If you’re aiming for about a bottle an hour and your bike is going to be around three hours, if you don’t have three bottle cages on your bike, is there some way you can add an extra bottle cage? You can carry all of your nutrition with you and you want to choose a high carb sports drink with sodium as well. The same thing on the run, you likely wants to bring a belt where you can have some bottles and you can pre make some nutrition.
So let’s come back to the run, but let’s talk about the bike. Maybe you can make all of your bottles have with you on the bike, supplement your carbs with others sources as needed. If you’re doing a full iron man, you’re not going to be carrying all bottles with you, could be up to six, it could be more.
So what you’d want to do is in the special needs bag that you’re going to stop at about half way, have the drink mix. So usually your drink max is going to be in a powder form. Put those into your bottles. And then when you can refill with some water at the aid station, you can add some water into the bottles.
Some of my clients have also like just pre-made their bottles that they have in their special needs bag and froze them. So they may thaw over time, depending on how the temperature and the weather is, but if you just want to not risk, maybe it not being thawed again, have your drink mix that you can pick up those three extra bottles, have the drink mix like the powder in each of the bottles, and then fill up with water at the aid station so you can get cold water.
Now, when it comes to the run you can do something similar.
So have the drink mix already in your bottles on your water belt and then when you get to that aid station, fill them up. Carry extra drink mix with you as needed on the run course.
So there’s so many different types of sports drinks, or beverages out there. I think the benefit is that maybe if Gatorade is not there, you have more flexibility in your choices, and you’re not necessarily relying on that, but you can again be flexible with what you can choose. So a couple of options. One is I’m from Windsor, Ontario, and local to Windsor that is made here is a drink called Gruppo. So this did used to be called infinite nutrition. Grupo has ride mixes, it has run mixes which a lot of my clients who are local will use. So that is something that you could look into.
It’s called G R U P P O. It’s high sodium, multiple transportable carbohydrates. Skratch is another brand. It’s also has a couple of options. So there’s the super high carb mix and seven scoops is a hundred grams of carbs and 400 milligrams of sodium. They also have scratch hydration per scoop is about 20 grams of carbs and 400 milligrams of sodium. Some other great options, precision hydration, tailwind. If you kind of have some specific questions about how to choose a sports drink, I do have a podcast episode all about, should you use gels choose sports strengths or send me a message if you have some questions about that, work with a sports dietician to help you pick a good drink. So you want something that’s gonna be higher in carbs, so like I said, you can take out a serving and put in a Ziploc bag that you mix into your bottles but some of these also they’re sold in single serving packets. Maybe sometimes it’s a little bit easier to mix .
So there is maybe some pros with that. You can be more flexible with your nutrition. You have a little bit more control, especially on the run.
If you’re carrying your fluids, you don’t necessarily have to wait until each aid station to drink something, you can drink something in between as needed.
Now. What if you wanted to use mortal hydration, how could we improve this? So we know there’s not a lot of carbohydrates. If you like the taste of it, if you can tolerate it. So again, you always want to try this before race day, it looks like mortal hydration is available on the feed. And from their Instagram page, it says only available on the feed.
Google the feed. That’s where you can order sports, nutrition products, you could add sugar to it. What you’re going to do is if you grab a bottle of this mortal hydration, you’re going to add sugar to it. You’re going to add table sugar. So that is a mix of glucose and fructose, gives you those multiple transportable carbohydrates. A tablespoon of sugar has about 12 and a half grams of carbohydrates.
So this is something that you could test, you could play around with, if you want to use what’s on course again, if you’re,, on the bike. But if you’re running, you’re not going to be able to just add sugar to each little cup of mortal hydration that you consume.
So I guess the thing you want to consider again, this beverage, I have not tried it personally, but because there is Stevia in it, it could be very sweet.
So the flavor may be overpowering, it may be difficult to be drinking that for three to six hours. So again, the best thing to do is practice what you want to do ahead of time, create a race day nutrition plan that you’re going to practice before your race, and maybe that’s using another product that you can carry with you on the race course.
Okay, so I think that’s everything that I wanted to talk about today, but if you have other questions about these products. If you’re wondering what you’re going to do on race day, send me a message and let me know I also have a podcast episode, episode, if you scroll back you’re going to find the three parts to our race day nutrition plan. So this goes over how to figure out that your fluid, carbohydrate and sodium needs for race and some general guidelines to be able to put together your race, nutrition plan. I hope that helps answers questions about this new change and bottom line,
they are not completely interchangeable. So you kind of need to find some other alternatives if you were planning to use the same thing you had done in the past. Or if you’re starting from scratch, you can try different products. Yes you may have to bring more things with you, but like I said, you’re in a little bit more control, sometimes you don’t know how they’re going to mix drink mixes on the course. Like on the run course, sometimes it’s diluted, sometimes it’s strong. Sometimes they run out of things.
One thing I did want to touch on a little bit too, is just like, what else is available at aid stations? So it looks like on the bike, there is water, they’re gonna have mortal hydration, Maurten gel 100 and the Maurten gel 100 with caffeine, bars and banana. On the run, it looks like they’re going to have water ,mortal hydration, pop, the two types of Maurten gels, one with caffeine one without, fruit like bananas, oranges, grapes, pretzels, chips, bars, and broth.
If you need some help with creating race day nutrition plans, send me a message as well, or fill out an application to work with me one-to-one.
I did also want to let you guys know for any listeners who are local so I’m in Windsor, Ontario. If you’re in that area, something soon I’m going to be offering is sodium sweat testing. I’m going to be offering testing to help you figure out what’s the concentration of sodium in your sweat.
And this is really important to know when you get into endurance events. So half and full iron mans, because it does help you determine how much salt you should be replacing. So once we figure out how much fluid you need per hour, we can figure out how much sodium you need to keep your sodium levels in your blood, help you hydrate well. Keep an eye on out for that, for some more information about when I’ll be offering testing and how you can sign up for that. Okay, so thanks so much guys, and have a great day.