Case Study · Triathlon · 15 June 2026
Aaron Imbach
IRONMAN 70.3 Cairns.
Sub-five in the heat. The fuelling plan, the sweat numbers, and the M0VE features behind a 4:59:03 second 70.3.
Race-day numbers.
Carbs · bike
100g
per hour
Carbs · run
60g
per hour
Fluid · bike
1L
per hour
Sodium · bike
1000mg
per hour
No issues with nutrition at all. Even during the stitch I never had issues getting fuel down. That came from getting the numbers right in training, not race day.
Aaron Imbach, M0VE athlete
What we planned.
Cairns 70.3 is hot, humid, and the swim is in open ocean. Most athletes go slower here than their flat-and-cool PBs. Aaron's second 70.3 ever, off the back of a 4:53 Geelong debut three months earlier.
The brief was simple. Race the conditions, not the number. Stay on the per-hour carb and fluid plan. Don't try to chase a PB on a course that punishes athletes who turn it up too early.
Carbs.
100 g per hour on the bike. 60 g per hour on the run. Carbs are the engine. The bike was front-loaded by design because the run rarely takes 100 g/hr in the heat. Bank carbs early, ride the bank later.
100 g/hr
2h 40m on the bike.
Trained at this rate for months. Race day was just a repeat of what the gut already knew.
60 g/hr
1h 38m on the run.
Honest drop. 100 g/hr while running in heat is asking for GI distress. 60 g is sustainable on the move.
~370 g carbs
Across bike and run.
Plus a pre-race meal at 4:30 am and a start-line gel. Tank stayed open.
Fluid.
1 L per hour on the bike. 500 ml per hour on the run. Both well above his cool-weather numbers. The Cairns humidity does work the bike fans can't help with.
The starting numbers came from his M0VE Sweat Test. He pushed both up another step for race conditions. Drink to your number, not to thirst — by the time you're thirsty you're already behind.
Salt.
1,000 mg of sodium per litre on the bike. 1,000 mg per litre on the run. Concentration stayed flat as fluid volume dropped, so the electrolyte balance held from swim exit to finish line.
This is the thing Aaron says M0VE changed for him most. Before the app, sodium was a packet on the side. After, it's a number per hour he trains and races to.
M0VE in the build.
Three features did the heavy lifting. None of them are guesswork.
His own sweat rate.
Logged once. Used every race.
Sweat-rate test in training turned into a fluid and sodium per-hour target. Generic guidance becomes a number that's his.
Per-hour targets.
Conditions in, plan out.
Plugged Cairns conditions and estimated split times in. The number that came back became the race-day plan.
Day-before macros.
10 g carbs per kg body weight.
M0VE flipped his macro split to a carb-loading day automatically. No spreadsheet, no maths the day before a race.
What he raced on.
Precision Fuel and Hydration carb mix, PF&H gels, PF&H electrolyte tabs. Pre-race meal at 4:30 am: toast, banana, honey. Two hours out is long enough to digest and short enough that the tank's still full at the gun.
How it went.
Choppy water on the swim. He found his line past halfway and came out faster than planned.
First half of the bike on a tailwind. From 45 km the wind flipped. Heavy cross and headwind into the back of the leg. He held the effort instead of chasing it.
The run opened with a stitch that wouldn't let go. He kept moving and kept fuelling. It passed. He finished strong.
Splits.
33:47
1.9 km. Choppy ocean.
Better than planned once he settled past halfway. Held the line in difficult water.
4:52
First fuel in early.
Started carbs at T1 so absorption was already running before he clipped in.
2:40:48
90 km. Tailwind, then headwind.
100 g/hr carbs. 1 L fluid. 1,000 mg sodium. Held the watts when the wind turned.
2:00
Quick swap.
Pre-loaded gels and salts so the run started topped up, not chasing it.
1:37:48
21.1 km. Heat plus a stitch.
60 g/hr carbs. 500 ml fluid. 500 mg sodium. Stitch passed. Finished strong.
4:59:03
Sub-five in his second 70.3.
On a course where most athletes go slower than their flat-and-cool PBs.
On the numbers.
Fuelling figures self-reported by the athlete. Sweat numbers from a M0VE Sweat Test logged in training. Splits from IRONMAN official timing. Rounded to whole grams and millilitres so the page reads.