Triathlon Nutrition Blog

Quick Answer 

No, carb loading is not a myth. The 2026 commentary behind the headlines was not a new performance study. It reviewed 14 existing studies, only 2 of which were double blind placebo controlled trials, and most tested carb loading with no fuel taken during exercise at all. Those studies...

Quick answer: Most endurance athletes lose around 1,190mg of sodium per hour of hard training, but the honest range sits somewhere between 550mg and 1,830mg per hour depending on how much you sweat and how salty that sweat is (Barnes et al., 2019, Journal of Sports Sciences). Sodium for triathletes ...

Triathlon nutrition is not the same thing as healthy eating. Healthy eating asks what is on your plate. Triathlon nutrition asks how much carbohydrate you need for the training load in front of you, when to eat it relative to your session, and what you take in while you are actually moving. Plent...

Quick answer: In the Maurten vs Precision debate, there is no single "best" gel, but there is a best gel for your gut, your race and your wallet. Maurten Gel 100 (25g of carbohydrate, a 1:0.8 glucose to fructose ratio) is the smoothest hydrogel but the most expensive per gram of carbohydrate at arou...

Carb loading for triathlon means topping up your muscle glycogen above its normal resting level in the two to three days before you race. It is not one giant pasta dinner the night before. Done properly it is worth a 1 to 3% performance gain in events lasting longer than about 90 minutes, which cove...

The best triathlon gel for you is the one that delivers the carbs you need, in a glucose-fructose ratio your gut can absorb, at a price you can afford to use in real training volume.

On the numbers that actually matter for age-group triathletes, three gels lead the pack in 2026: Maurten Gel 100, Pr...

Challenge Roth nutrition needs to be planned as carefully as your training, because the race's own on-course sports nutrition will not necessarily suit your gut. If your race is going to run beyond 2.5 hours, aim for up to 90g of carbohydrate per hour from a mix of sources you have already trialled ...

 Most triathletes need somewhere between 60 and 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour during a long race, in line with the standard sports nutrition guidelines. Elite athletes who tolerate more than that, up to 120 grams per hour or higher, have built that capacity through months of deliberate gut train...

Triathletes who swim three sessions a week can absolutely get faster if each session has a specific purpose. The key is structuring your three weekly swims around three distinct goals: building aerobic capacity, pushing your threshold and developing race-specific speed. Three purposeful sessions d...

Calorie tracking apps were designed for sedentary people trying to lose weight, not for triathletes training 10 to 20 hours a week. For athletes, the apps get the baseline equations wrong, set protein targets that are backwards for performance, and cannot account for the daily variation in training ...

First Ironman nutrition requires consuming 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour on the bike and run, spread across gels, chews, sports drink and real food, with fluid and electrolytes calibrated to sweat rate and conditions. Athletes who use multiple transportable carbohydrates - a mix of gluco...

The five race nutrition habits that get triathletes to the start line ready are: banking your training adaptations and protecting the taper by keeping fuel intake up (not slashing it), recovering properly from every session so those adaptations actually stick, rehearsing race fuelling on every long ...