Getting To Zero

I had an interesting conversation today with central Maryland triathlon coach David Flynn, trying to learn more about his approach to fueling for iron-distance and other long- to ultra-distance events. David is writing a book right now, so he probably would like to preserve a full exposition of his ideas for the book, but he did discuss with me his methods.

What David factors into his calculations that nobody else does is the speed of the athlete. So, for a long- or ultra-distance event, David develops a spreadsheet that uses the athlete's weight, rate of speed, and the duration of the event based on the speed they're traveling. "Humans are like automobiles. You need to know all three. It's the only way of doing an accurate energy assessment," he says. He builds in some assumptions about the athelete's level of glycogen stores, and also assumes that 50 percent of the energy will be derived from fat. From that basis, he tries to derive how many calories the athlete will need, and a feeding schedule to match intake with output. The goal is to finish the race with a net of zero. With the CheseapeakeMan experiment referenced before, he says he was able to identify when one of his athletes participating in the experiment hit the wall, based on a missed drink bottle or two.

Again, all other training guides use duration as the only factor in the energy consumption calculation. Factoring in speed is something fairly innovative, if not revolutionary. As David puts it, "I wonder why it's not in any triathlon book in print."

If you're interested in hearing more, David can be reached here.