How to Fuel an Ironman When You've Only Ever Raced 70.3

You can get away with a fuelling gap over five hours. You cannot get away with it over 13.

Stepping up from 70.3 to Ironman is the exact moment most triathletes work out that their fuelling needs attention. Julie Whitton is 13 weeks out from Ironman Western Australia, her first full distance race after a decade of racing halves. She is a paramedic with New South Wales Ambulance, she has been a shift worker for 21 years, and she trains off a nine day roster that changes constantly. In this episode she takes Taryn through exactly what she has had to upgrade to get to that start line, and where the gaps showed up once the hours went up.

This is not a first Ironman story. This is the step up story, for the triathlete who already races 70.3 well and assumes that skill carries over.

IN THIS EPISODE

• What changes in your bike and run fuelling numbers when a race goes from five hours to 13 hours
• Why a small hourly shortfall you got away with at 70.3 compounds into a walk at full distance
• The shift from liquid fuel to solid food on long rides, and the trap of swapping over too fast
• How to gut train on gels without hitting flavour fatigue weeks before race day
• What Julie was doing at 70.3 that stopped working the moment the volume climbed
• Why she moved her recovery from 90 percent to 100 percent, and what that changed in her week
• Fuelling your body for what you want it to do rather than for how you want it to look

TIMESTAMPS

04:37 Training for Ironman around shift work
07:12 Bike fuelling from 70 to 80 grams
13:25 Run fuelling and flavour fatigue
17:35 What stopped working at full distance
23:35 Fuelling for performance not appearance

ABOUT JULIE WHITTON

Julie (Jules) Whitton is an age group triathlete and a paramedic with New South Wales Ambulance, where she has worked shift work for 21 years. She has been a Triathlon Nutrition Academy athlete since January 2023 and is now part of the Supercharged Squad. After a decade racing 70.3, she is stepping up to full distance at Ironman Western Australia on 6 December 2026. Julie was last on the show in Episode 119, Juggling Shift Work and Triathlon.

If you have a couple of halves behind you and a full quietly sitting on your list, the athletes who come unstuck are almost always the ones trying to learn how to fuel and how to train for 226 kilometres at the same time. Do one of those things first. Get your name on the list for our next cohort of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy at [dietitianapproved.com/academy](https://www.dietitianapproved.com/academy) and you will be the first to know when we open doors.

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