IRONMAN Cairns fuel plan: carbs, fluid and sodium per hour.

June 13, 2027, Cairns, Australia. Set your finish time and the plan follows.

Distance
226 km
Climbing
Not published
Typical temperature
18 to 29 °C · 64 to 84 °F
Aid stations
See below

Your numbers

Sport
h:mm, like 5:30
kg
Keeps fluid loss under 2%. Never shared.
ml/h
Don't know it? Work it out
mg/l
From a sweat sodium test. Leave it empty if you haven't done one.
Conditions
Gut training
How used your gut is to taking carbs while you train.

Your plan

IRONMAN (full distance) · 12 h

Carbs an hour

75g

The research range for this race is 60 to 90 g; your gut training sets where you start. Above 60 g, use glucose and fructose, about 2:1.

Jeukendrup 2014Viribay 2020+4 more

Fluid an hour

To thirst

Without a sweat rate the research says drink to thirst. Do the sweat test to get a range.

NATA 2017ACSM 2007

Sodium an hour

300 to 1,000mg

Nearer the top in the heat. A sweat sodium test gives you your own number.

Baker 2017NATA 2017+1 more

Leg by leg (typical splits for this distance)

  • Swim1 h 12 minNo fuel
  • Bike6 h 7 min460 g carbs
  • Run4 h 26 min335 g carbs

About 810 g of carbs over the race (bike and run). That is a 25 g gel every 20 minutes, or the same carbs from drink and chews.

Rehearse it in training first: the gut adapts in 2 to 4 weeks. Costa 2017

Hand it to your AI

Your AI can check these numbers against your training and adjust them. The prompt has your results filled in.

See the prompt

I'm racing a IRONMAN (full distance) and expect to finish in 12 h. I haven't measured my sweat rate. Conditions look hot, and my gut is in some training for fueling. A race fuel calculator built on the research (Jeukendrup 2014, the ACSM 2016 position stand) gave me: 75 g carbs an hour (glucose and fructose, about 2:1), about 810 g in total; fluid: drink to thirst, no sweat rate yet; 300 to 1,000 mg sodium an hour. Check this against my training and how my gut has handled fueling, then build my race day plan: what to take and when, leg by leg, with real products I can buy.

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Gemini, Grok Bot, Dots, Muse and Cue: copy the prompt and paste it in.

See the card

With Memory.fit, your AI would already know your sweat rate.

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The course

What to know about IRONMAN Cairns.

A 3.8 km beach swim at Palm Cove, up and back along the beach. The bike follows the Captain Cook Highway along the Great Barrier Reef coast toward Port Douglas. The run is four laps on the Cairns Esplanade. Cutoffs: swim 2 h 20, bike 10 h and run 16 h 30 from your start.

Aid stations about every 2 km on the run, per the organizer's course page.

Race details checked November 9, 2026 from ironman.com, ironman.com. Courses and aid stations change: check the official page in race week.

Train for it

Train for IRONMAN Cairns with your AI.

With Memory.fit, your AI reads your real training, sleep and fuel, plans your weeks toward race day and shows the plan in the app.

Build a prompt for your AI

Questions

IRONMAN Cairns: questions.

  • At a typical finish of 12 h, the research range is 60 to 90 g an hour, as glucose and fructose, set by how trained your gut is. Enter your own finish time above for your number.

  • Temperatures run from about 18 to 29 °C (64 to 84 °F): Typical race day low and high air temperature published by IRONMAN on the race page. Heat raises your sweat rate, so do a sweat test in similar weather.

  • Aid stations about every 2 km on the run, per the organizer's course page. Check the athlete guide in race week, as positions can change.

More races

Fuel plans for races like this one.

Every race fuel plan →

Not medical advice. Memory.fit is not affiliated with IRONMAN Cairns or its organizer.

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