Race Smart Athletes

A year after consulting Race Smart’s Susan Kitchen for a lifestyle nutrition consult, I found myself with a new fueling challenge. Without question I sought Susan’s help to design my race day nutrition for my first ironman race. Susan created a plan and reviewed it carefully with me. She explained the rationale and importance of each element in the plan. Calories, fluids, electrolytes, sodium, caffeine. Each was important in its own way to keep my body moving all day long. The biggest benefit of working with Susan right from the start was that I did not waste workouts and time trying to get the plan right. Susan and I discussed certain nutrition items that I could and could not tolerate. She designed the plan specifically around the brands and flavors of fuel that I like to use in a race.

When I was lost for ideas, she made several recommendations. Though her plan was pretty close to perfect from the start, I had several training opportunities to practice this regimen. After each one, Susan was quick to respond to any questions I had, and to help me tweak the plan so it would be perfect on race day. Her attention to detail was extremely valuable. She did not just focus on calories and fluids. Susan asked about my bike and how it was configured to carry everything. Thanks to her clever assessment, we realized I did not have enough storage for bottles, and that I would not make it to special needs unless I added an extra cage on my bike. Carrying pills was a new concept for me. Sure enough, Susan had a suggestion for keeping them easily accessible yet dry.

She took the time to ask questions after my workouts, which helped her understand how my body was feeling with the fueling she designed.

Before the race she checked it to see that I had everything ready to go and to answer any last questions I had. Her thorough nutrition plan along with her personal attention to detail were invaluable to the success of my day. Here I am crossing the finish line of my first ironman… you can see that Race Smart got me there feeling great!