Triathlon Race Nutrition Tips For Beginner Triathletes

So you’ve put in the time and effort to training for your first triathlon, and you’re ready for your race. But have you considered your nutrition?

Nutrition can make or break a triathlon and without giving it proper attention your hard-fought efforts during training could go to waste. These triathlon race nutrition tips for beginner triathletes will help you to feel and race better.

If you’d like to watch a video for this topic instead, here it is!

Out with the old, in with the new? Not quite.

Now the first tip, and this is maybe the holy grail of tips is to never try any new nutrition on race day.

If you've got a friend who on the morning of your race tries to give you a couple of gels or tells you to use this supplement and you've never tried it before then don't use it.

Likewise, if you’ve got your nutrition plan in place and you see people slurping down a coffee, cramming in a bacon roll or whatever else they’re doing, don’t feel intimidated and cave to peer pressure.

I actually saw that by the way at a triathlon I raced at. There was a guy next to me who had just bought a large milky coffee and a bacon roll and was frantically trying to eat it before we started about 10 or 15 mintues later.

Don’t do that. You’ll ruin your race. Probably vomit. Probably not want to race again.

It’s far better to stick with what you’ve practiced. If you’ve got to that point and things haven’t gone too badly, don’t risk it by venturing into the unknown.

Listen to the rest of this video and then go with your plan on race day and you’ll stand a much better chance of racing well without anything like tummy upset.

Practice, practice and practice again

This links to the second tip which is to practice your nutrition beforehand. By this I don't mean practice just using some gels or drinks that you’ve got in the cupboard. Practice the specific gels or drinks you're going to use. Make sure you can tolerate the brand, the taste, how easy whatever you’re using is to open.

So for example in the weeks and months build up to your race, try your bike nutrition during some turbo sessions.

Work out how much you’re planning on using during your whole race and practice the right amounts in relation to your training session duration, and make sure you're comfortable with that.

If you try it and you end up with stomach discomfort, bloating or you try to run after and get a stitch then you know something isn't right and you've got time to change it.

Practicing the exact nutrition will really help to reduce race day stress and make it all so much smoother, and you’ll go into it feeling much more confident and that you’ve got this!

Really, how important is breakfast?

So the answer is that breakfast is not vitally important. I would always recommend it if you can have it, but the aim of your triathlon race day breakfast is not to be super filling and power you through your race.

The aim of breakfast is to give your energy stores a bit of a top up and to generally make you feel good before a race.

The main bulk of the energy you need for your triathlon is actually from the food you've eaten in the days before your race and the nutrition you have during it, not from your breakfast.

A big breakfast is much more likely to cause tummy upset yet it won't actually help much with performance.

As with most things it’s also worth practicing your breakfast well in advance of your race too to make sure it’s ok for you and finetune it if you need to.

One of my favourite foods, the good old bagel. With a (small) amount of peanut butter and some jam, this could be a perfect race day breakfast for many triathletes

Peanut butter sandwiches during a triathlon?

If you're new to triathlon or this website then you may not have heard this before, or you might have heard conflicting opinions on it...

So, allow me to set the records straight. When it comes to performance in a triathlon, carbohydrates are king.

There is so much evidence out there clearly showing this, so your nutrition focus during your race should be on carbohydrates.

Picking the wrong types of food for your racing, including high fibre and fat foods, is a mistake you want to avoid.

Generally you want to be aiming for simple, easy to digest and absorb carbohydrates and these are usually in the form of drinks, gels, chewie blocks or sports bars.

The turbo is good, real life is better

Now the next bit of advice is a culmination of everything that we've just talked about. It's so important but it commonly gets overlooked, and that's to practice your nutrition in real life scenarios.

So let's go back to when I said about practicing your nutrition on your turbo sessions, and you definitely should do that.

But you should also practice it outside, in your race suit. You'll be amazed just how much harder some things will be and you might come across some unexpected difficulties.

I actually had this when I was doing my first triathlon. I put some gels into my tri suit back pocket in the first transition so I could have some on the bike. Seemed like a smart idea and I didn't have any bike storage otherwise.

However once I was riding I found it was incredibly awkward to get them out. The pocket angle made it difficult and although I managed it I spent a while fafing around with it and had to really slow down.

The same goes for bike bottles behind the saddle. It's far easier to do that on the turbo or in a controlled environment, so make sure to try it on the road when you're working as hard as you expect to be during your race.

Now if you put all these tips into practice then you're gonna put yourself in an awesome nutritional position come race day and I'd love to know how you get on.

Enjoy your training and racing!