This is everything I ate leading up to Ironman Florida. I think my nutrition was pretty much spot on for this race as my stomach and energy levels felt great. I’ll leave a couple notes at the bottom on some things I can probably tweak to get an even better result.

2 Days Before Race

Breakfast:

  • Normal breakfast of what I usually have, don’t think its necessarily a huge factor so early before the race so stick to what you usually eat for breakfast
  • Spinach omelet on sourdough toast

Lunch:

  • Slightly more carb heavy lunch but still same meal prep i’ve had, just a little bigger serving size
  • Butter chicken mac and cheese slow cooker meal prep (~18oz)

Snack:

  • Pretty sure I had a bagel with butter or peanut butter in between lunch and dinner

Dinner:

  • Started the carb loading phase, so went for heavy carbs and not much else
  • Emmy Squared Classic cheese pizza detroit style 8x10
  • Basically just ate a whole pizza, didn’t add protein on top of it cause I didn’t want it to be in my system by race day, but probably would’ve been fine

Late Night Snack:

  • After arriving at airport hotel, I had a bag of chips at like midnight

Day Before Race

Breakfast:

  • Had hotel breakfast buffet
  • Scrambled eggs, potatoes, 3 sausage links, 3 mini pancakes, and a bagel with butter

Snack:

  • Had a pack of m&m’s while driving to the athlete village

Lunch:

  • Ate this at the athlete village, they had a food truck/tent setup
  • Basket of chicken tenders and french fries

Snack:

  • Had a bagel with some a small amount of peanut butter a couple hours before dinner

Dinner:

  • Had dinner at around 7pm, would probably prefer to have it closer to 6-6:30 but not a big deal
  • Fettuccine alfredo, no chicken, just the pasta, and 3-4 garlic bread rolls

After Dinner:

  • Drank a liquid IV before bed

Race Day

Breakfast:

  • At around 4:20AM (Race started a little before 7am)
  • Toasted bagel with honey, no butter or peanut butter
  • Maurten solid bar (~40g of carbs)
  • G1M sport+ (150mg of caffeine, 20g of carbs)
  • Decided to have caffeine this early cause I figured it would make me 💩 and I wanted to do it then instead of later, and I knew the energy from the caffeine would last multiple hours
  • I 💩 in the morning right after my bagel, and then again in a porta potty about 25 min before my race start

Swim:

  • Didn’t eat anything else before the swim, I felt good after my breakfast and gave it enough time to digest
  • Just sipped on water leading up to the start

Bike:

  • After swim, I actually did feel fairly hungry, so finished the first bottle in probably 45-50min
  • 80g of carbs, 1000mg of sodium in each bike bottle (3 bottles)
  • Finished 2 bottles in the first 2 hours (1 bottle per hour)
  • Half of a maurten solid bar (~20g of carbs) between the first 2 bottles
  • Finished half of the 3rd bottle at roughly the halfway point of the bike (2hours and 30-45min)
  • Switched to Maurten caffeine mix (100mg of caffeine, 80g of carbs)
  • Finished maurten caffeine mix at roughly 3hours and 30-40min
  • A little less than half of a maurten chocolate solid bar (~18g of carbs)
  • Finished second half of the 3rd bottle by 4hours and 15-30min
  • Maurten gel (~40g of carbs) just before cutting off carbs
  • I finished the aero bottle first and kept feeling it up with water at a few (probably most) of the aid stations and was constantly drinking that after taking my carbs in to help digest
  • With roughly 45min left on the bike, I finished the 3rd bottle and the maurten gel, and then no more carbs for the rest of the bike
  • With roughly 30min left, I stopped drinking any water, took like one small sip with 15min left to wash out my dry mouth
  • This helped me digest everything and avoided any stomach cramps on the run

Run:

  • Did not drink or eat anything, no water or carbs, for the first ~30min of the run
  • I probably could’ve started sipping on water within the first ~20min, but I was a little paranoid about my stomach issues
  • After ~30min, I took a sip of water every ~10min
  • A little hard to remember, but I think around ~1hr to ~1hr and 10min, I put my liquid IV in my run bottle and took a couple sips of that, and again took a sip of that every ~10-12min
  • I went to a porta potty on the way back of the first loop and it was just pee and lots of farting lol
  • Just after the halfway point on the run, I took the maurten caffeine gel (~40g of carbs and 100mg of caffeine)
  • At probably around mile 16-17, I threw away my run bottle cause carrying it caused my arms to cramp
  • This is when I started to walk at each aid station and take in two small cups of water, and pour a 3rd on myself
  • On the way back of the last lap, my legs were dying, I would stop at each aid station, take in two-three small cups of water, get the juice of an orange slice, and grabbed a handful of chips at probably 2-3 of the aid stations

Things to Improve

  • Could consider increasing to 85-90g of carbs per bottle on the bike, but definitely be careful with how it feels coming off the run, although I think if you do 90g of carbs per bottle for the first 3 hours, and then do the maurten (80g of carbs), and make sure stop 45 min before running, you should be fine
  • On the run, its a little bit trickier cause I honestly felt great for the first 17-18 miles, but the last 5-6 were brutal. I think I probably could’ve taken a gel earlier, didn’t have any carbs until the I took the maurten caffeine at mile 13.1. Probably should’ve taken more of the liquid IV too, I only had maybe half of it, but I was worried it was upsetting my stomach so need to do a bit more testing/training with that.