Internal Mono(b)log

I’m in the final ramp-up to Ironman Muskoka 70.3 on Sept 11th. I have to admit, I’m really happy with my training and progress to date. I feel that my 3 disciplines have all progressed nicely, that I have cleaned up my transitions and that my nutrition choices are dialed in and good to go.

One thing that I have been working on lately is trying to increase my fueling while on the bike. I know from my power-meter that I burn about 700 cal/hr on the bike, and I know I’m about the same running (10.7 cal/min according to my bodybugg). Optimally, I’d like to leave the bike segment with a caloric surplus, or at least as little deficit as possible. Many complain of gastric distress when onloading that many calories, so I’ve started ramping up my consumption to find my tipping point.

My typical race nutrition is composed of EFS liquid shot, EFS sport drink, Carbo-pro, and chia-chargers for solid nutrition. I have already written about liquid shot and how great I think it is. In my caloric ramping, EFS Sport Drink is playing a vital role, and having some nice byproduct effects.

Paraphrasing their site: EFS sport drink is sold in powder form, each scoop containing 100calories of complex carbohydrates, dextrose, and sucrose along with the highest concentration of electrolytes in any sport drink on the market (1160mg of all 5 electrolytes/serving).  EFS contains the purest, most- bioavailable source of free-form amino acids (AjiPure amino acids which are 99-100% pure) .  Finally, EFS sport drink contains malic acid which stimulates oxygen consumption by increasing mitochondrial uptake, improving mitochondrial respiration and increasing energy production. Malic acid is essential in the formation of ATP, the body’s energy source. Malic acid allows the body to make ATP more efficiently, even under low oxygen, or hypoxic conditions.

This all sounds great to me, and I know that First Endurance spends a lot of time and money researching their formulations and operating a very clean (both from a hygiene and a drug testing perspective) facility and finding their other products so effective, of course EFS sport drink would be in my pantry – provided my gut tolerated it.

As I have been ramping my caloric intake, I’ve been building the number of liquid calories that I consume/hour. Typically, this means mixing more and more concentrated bottles of fuel that I stow behind my seat on the bike. I started with 160 calories in a bottle (1 scoop efs, 1 packet hornet juice), then 260 (2 efs, 1 hornet), then 460 (4 efs, 1 hornet – here I found the flavouring in that concentration of efs to be getting a bit strong for my palette, so I started adding caro-pro). Last weekend for my 100km hills ride, I packed 2 bottles each with 860 calories (4 efs, 4 carbo-pro, 1 hornetjuice). I am happy to report that I still suffered no GI distress consuming all that, plus a flask of liquid shot and several chia-chargers even doing a short brick run off the ride.  Awesome!

If you’ve done the math, you know that I was still in a deficit (consumed about 2200 calories, burned 2500), but not a terrible one! ;).  Definitely completely manageable.

All of this speaks to the great osmodality of EFS’s products. Yes, I still consume a lot of water with all this fuel, but its all well tolerated and fuels my ride well. An nice and unexpect benefit of EFS drink, is that with the high eletrolyte concentration, I don’t feel the need to suppliment with salt tabs and don’t/haven’t experienced any cramping. 1 fewer thing to worry about while racing is a win in my books!

Yes, it’s true, I am a big fan of FirstEndurace products, but with good reason: product after product they just work and work well! If you haven’t yet tried EFS sport drink, give it a go. I don’t think you’ll be dissappointed, I know I’m not.