Triathlon Race Nutrition Planner: Carbs, Gels and Fluids per Hour

About 30 to 60 g per hour for races of one to two and a half hours, 60 to 90 g per hour beyond that with a mix of glucose and fructose, and 100 to 120 g per hour only with a trained gut. The planner suggests a bike rate from your race duration and gut training and gives the run three quarters of it, and you can overwrite both.

Only on a bike leg of three hours or more: the first 90 minutes in, then every 90 minutes, none in the last 90 minutes before T2 and never on the run, and only in the places the carbohydrate gels leave free. Fat gives no performance in a race: 85 g of MCT over two hours cost cyclists 17 percent of their time-trial power through gut cramps (Jeukendrup 1998), about 26 g per hour over 270 minutes slowed sprints and gave half the riders gut symptoms (Goedecke 2005), and the body oxidises at most 7 to 9 g of ingested MCT per hour. One gel per 90 minutes keeps a race at 10 to 20 g of fat, which the gut tolerates, and the 90-minute lead and stop keep slowly emptying fat out of the first hour and out of the run, where symptoms cluster (Rehrer 1992). A fat gel is a change from sweet on a long day, not fuel; its carbohydrate still counts.

No, and neither does your height. Carbohydrate per hour is limited by what the gut can absorb, about 60 g of glucose and 90 to 100 g of a glucose and fructose mix, and that capacity hardly varies with body size, which is why the guidelines give it in grams per hour by race duration (Jeukendrup 2014, Thomas 2016). A heavier or taller athlete burns more carbohydrate at the same speed and starts with bigger glycogen stores, so the deficit is larger, but the intake ceiling is the same; a 2025 study found larger riders oxidising somewhat more of 90 g per hour of plain glucose, not yet enough for a rule per kilogram. The planner uses your weight for the breakfast, the caffeine budget and the sweat-rate check only.

Impact and the blood flow shifting away from the gut make the stomach more sensitive while running; most athletes tolerate 60 to 75 percent of their bike intake on the run. That is why the bike leg is where you bank carbohydrate.

A breakfast of about 0.5 g carbohydrate per kg of body weight for each hour before the start (1 g/kg two hours out, 1.5 g/kg three hours out), low in fat and fibre; the position stands allow up to 4 g/kg, but real race breakfasts sit at 75 to 150 g. Then a gel 10 to 15 minutes before the swim, not 30 to 90 minutes before. The planner shows your target, the reference window and label values of typical breakfasts.

By temperature about 400 to 800 ml per hour, more in full sun, rarely above one litre, scaled by your body weight: sweat follows the heat you produce, which rises with your mass when running and with your power on the bike, so the position stands tie their 0.4 to 0.8 l/h to "heavier, faster, warm" against "lighter, slower, cool" (Sawka 2007), a 50 kg runner gains weight on the rate that leaves a 90 kg runner short (Montain 2006), and low body weight is a risk factor for hyponatraemia (Almond 2005). The planner scales the rule by your weight over 75 kg, held between 0.8 at 60 kg and 1.2 at 90 kg, never below 400 or above 1000 ml/h; height plays no part. If you have measured your sweat rate, enter it: the planner drinks 80 percent of it, above one litre for very high sweat rates, but never more than you lose. In cool conditions drinking to thirst is enough.

For races over two hours and in the heat about 300 to 500 mg per hour, up to 1000 mg if you are a salty sweater. The plan shows how much sodium your gels and drink mix already carry and how many salt capsules close the gap. More is not better: the fluid you drink cannot usefully carry more than about 1.5 g of sodium per litre; above that it only raises thirst and is passed in urine, and salt does not prevent low blood sodium, which comes from drinking more than you sweat.

Everything the slots on your bike do not hold: filled bottles, gels, a solid bar for variety. The planner works out what is missing after your carried load and lists the bag contents for the bike and the run.

Yes, if you know the product and have tested it in training. Enter the drink and gel of the event and the planner counts them; otherwise carry your own concentrate and take only water on course.

Fluid sets the frame and is never raised to fit anything else: the planner drinks what the conditions need, at most one litre per hour and never more than is lost, because over-drinking is the one acute danger. Carbohydrate is the target it works towards, into the drink up to the strongest mix, then gels, the special needs bag and the course, and what is missing is shown as a gap. Heat thins the mix and lowers the rate by a tenth, the rest goes into gels, because gastric emptying follows energy density and the gut suffers in heat; a thin bottle delivers fluid better, not worse. Sodium is dosed to the sweat loss but capped at 1.5 g per litre drunk and never holds a plan back, because there is no evidence that replacing it improves performance. Caffeine is a budget of 3 mg/kg, never a need. The Science page lists the studies behind each rule.

Yes, and the evidence is good: replacing the sports drink with cola in the last stages of a two-hour ride made a time trial 3 percent faster on about 1.5 mg/kg of caffeine (Cox 2002), 100 to 200 mg of caffeine taken 40 minutes before the end of a two-hour ride made the time trial that followed 4 to 7 percent faster (Talanian and Spriet 2016), and sugar late in exercise reverses fatigue once blood glucose falls (Coggan and Coyle 1987). Take it flat, alternate with water because it is hypertonic at about 11 percent sugar, and count it: the planner takes cola as a course offer with its caffeine against the budget and adds salt capsules for the sodium it lacks.

Only three things have evidence for a long-distance triathlon, and two of them are food: carbohydrate loading for the two days before (10 to 12 g per kg per day), caffeine on the day (3 to 6 mg per kg, in the plan), and on a hot day a sodium preload 90 minutes before the start (about 1 g sodium in 500 to 750 ml water, planned when you list a preloader, an electrolyte drink or salt capsules). A beetroot shot with at least 300 mg nitrate 2 to 3 hours before the start is a small bonus for recreational athletes and hardly anything for elite ones; the planner schedules a listed shot. Buy only batch-tested products (Cologne List, Informed Sport).

Sprint, Olympic, half and Ironman®-distance racing, with your own leg times: the presets set typical splits and you can import the splits from the triathlon planner or type them.

Yes. List any product; the presets carry the manufacturer's label values with a link to the source page and stay editable, drinks per single scoop or sachet. Nothing is sponsored and no brand is preferred.

You list your bottle cages, aero bottle, bladder and run flasks by size and count, and the places for gels on the bike, in the tri suit and on the run belt. Each leg's drink is dosed into the containers up to a maximum strength in g per 100 ml over the volume you actually drink; the rest of the carbohydrate goes into the gel places, then into the special-needs bags, then to the course. The preparation list says how many scoops go into each bottle.

List a product with and without caffeine, for example a gel in both versions, and set a caffeine target in mg per kg: the caffeinated variant is used up to that target, spread over the race, the rest is the caffeine-free one. Caffeine from salt capsules and the pre-race gel counts too, with warnings above 6 and 9 mg per kg.

Yes. "Download PDF" writes the whole plan (targets, before the start, preparation and packing, aid-station plan, timeline) plus a page with two race-day cards to cut out: the bike card for the top tube, the run card for the race belt. "Share as image" makes a portrait picture with the targets and the two cards for your phone; on a phone both open the share sheet, on a computer they download. The race plan's own PDF on the home page carries the nutrition targets per leg as well.

Yes. The km/mi switch in the site header shows distances in miles, bottles and servings in US fluid ounces, body weight in pounds, temperature in °F and the sweat rate in oz per hour; the mix strength becomes per cent carbohydrate, which is the same number as g per 100 ml. The plan itself is the same; carbohydrate stays in grams, sodium and caffeine in milligrams.

No. The plan is saved in your browser, there is no login and no e-mail, and the page works in English and German.

No. The numbers are ranges from sports-nutrition position stands; tolerance is individual. Test every plan in training at race intensity, nothing new on race day.