Hey What's up guys Taren here if you're getting ready for your first triathlon you're not
sure how to approach the nutrition aspect of it as far as what you should eat the day
before and the day of the race stick around because we're going to go through at the 24
hours leading up to and getting it through your first triathlon now addressing what beginner
triathletes should be eating the day before and the day of their first triathlon we're
going to assume that you're starting with a Sprint or an Olympic distance even a super
sprint the people would start off with Ironmans and half-ironmans there are a whole different
bunch of business so what you should be eating the day before the race is this not a whole
heck of a lot more a lot of people think that they need to carb load a huge amount the day
before a race and that's not the case only eat about 10 to 15% more than you normally
would make it carb-based as opposed to protein or fat based because you need to replenish
your glycogen stores get them pumped up before the race stay away from things like fiber,
dairy, greasey foods, anything new, basically you don't want to be *fart sounds* yeah you
doing that the next day so eat a little bit more focusing on carbs that you normally eat
day to day as far as hydration goes definitely drink a little bit more water and you can
even add a little bit of a light electrolyte powder but you don't need to go crazy the
morning of the triathlon do not I repeat do not eat a big breakfast all of your carb and
your electrolyte and water loading should happen the day before so your body has time
to soak it in and get rid of what it doesn't need if you have a big breakfast the morning
of your first triathlon you're gonna be making a lot of porta potty stops to have a light
carb-based carb-based is very tough to say carb base breakfast with foods that you normally
eat about 4 hours before the start of your racethat'll give your body enough time to
get it out of your stomach so that breakfast isn't sloshing around when you're starting
the triathlon if it's a really hot day something that I've had a lot of success with is something
called hyper-hydrator and what that is is a really densely packed electrolyte drink
that you can sip on during breakfast and I found that takes a lot of the aches and pains
away during those hot days were sweating really hard so you can give that a try but I certainly
wouldn't try that for the first time in the morning of your race give it a try in the
weeks leading up to it to see how your stomach handles now leading up to your race what I
like to do is get one of those super cheap 500 milliliter bottles that you don't mind
tossing away fill it up with a really light electrolyte drink I often don't even drink
the whole thing that I just sip on it in between that 4 hours between breakfast and the start
of the race if you down a whole bunch of water before the race again you're going to be making
a whole lot of porta potty stops about 15 minutes before the race you want to eat something
that's very easy for your body to digest and for this I'd recommend either gels or chews
these are things that your body is going to be able to start breaking down in just 15
minutes before you start the race at this point I probably wouldn't be getting into
bars because they're little denser and tougher for your body to digest I love my coffee I
love my coffee so every single race without question I make sure that I have some caffeine
you can have a little bit of coffee it's not going to kill you you can have some caffeine
in your gels or your chews or what I like to actually use as a natural caffeine Source
this is something that I reviewed last year these are Voke Tabs and this is natural caffeine
that gives you the same sort of energy is caffeine but it doesn't give you that jitteriness
so I really like that now during your race if you're going any longer than about an hour
and 15 minutes you're probably going to want to take in a little bit of calories even if
you're going faster than that you should probably just a few sips of at least some light electrolyte
fluid because they going to be sweating a lot you obviously can't have anything during
the swim so don't worry about once you hop on the bike give your body about 5 to 10 minutes
before you start taking on calories this allow your legs to get into a nice Rhythm and allow
your body to Route all the blood flow where it needs to go and settle down during the
bike definitely have a little bit of electrolyte fluid you can sip on that probably once every
5 to 10 minutes make sure that you take it on even if it doesn't feel like you need to
and then what you want to do is take on anywhere between 90 and 120 calories every 30 minutes
or so how you can monitor that really easily is that the serving sizes of gels and things
like chews are often portioned out in that exact calorie dose so for every half hour
you might take one serving of gel and one serving of chew again I would probably stay
away from bars if it's just a Sprint or an olympic distance because it takes a long time
for your body to break these down in the last 5 minutes of the bike you don't want to take
on too much you want to let everything just kind of settle down in your stomach and digest
so that you don't have a bunch of things sloshing around in your stomach as you start the run
and then for the first five minutes or so of the run again let your blood flow figure
out where it needs to be in your body let your body get into a rhythm before you start
taking on calories so about 5 to 10 minutes into the start of the run you can start taking
on calories and if it's just a sprint or an Olympic distance you can probably get away
with just stopping at every aid station to take on some Gatorade and unless you're taking
an hour or an hour and a half for the run you probably don't need to take on much more
than whatever drinks are available at the aid stations and like I said with the entire
plan leading up to this point you don't need to overdo it you can just sip on a little
bit of electrolyte fluid you don't even need to finish the whole cup after the race is
over it as much as you friggin want stuff your face and be proud that you got yourself
through it there's obviously a lot of little nuances with the nutritional aspects of triathlon
training the best thing that you can do for yourself is try out a lot of things in your
training see what products work see what a timing works for you See how many calories
you can consume work on all that figure it out in the weeks leading up to the race but
this should get you started as always happy and hard training go out there and kill your
next A-race