Over the past several years, I have traveled to dozens of athletic events, working with hundreds if not thousands of clients, and have found several constants among a majority of athletes. These things especially seem to hold true for triathletes, mountain bikers, endurance runners and road cyclists who race events lasting longer than five hours.

First of all, protein seems to work well for activities that run several hours. Most of the athletes I work with really like the way protein eliminates the need to eat anything solid. Obviously, this is a huge benefit, because if you do not have to eat, you do not have to stuff your pockets full of energy bars and gels. It doesn’t need to be a lot of protein— three to four grams is usually enough to do the trick. Higher levels can lead to gastric issues.

Secondly, it’s much easier to regulate calories and electrolyte if you know exactly how much you are consuming per hour—no guesswork. Simplicity is the key to most race-day successes. Almost all of my pros and age groupers have eliminated the need for extra food, gels or salt pills, and protein seems to be the key. Without protein, people cannot go much longer than four hours without needing to eat something. With protein, I have some of my athletes doing full 24-hour mountain bike races on nothing but liquid. Truly amazing.

Third is that protein seems to work for a significant percentage of athletes for a certain number of hours before they get “backed up” and feel bloated. They use protein for most of their training with zero problems, but after about five to seven hours of racing, they start to get backed up. Perhaps because protein is more difficult to digest, many people have problems with the absorption rates of protein drinks after long periods of use.

The system I use for most of my pro athletes who race for periods longer than six hours is twofold.

They start the race using a drink with the correct amount of calories and electrolytes with three to four grams of protein per serving. This normally works for about five to eight hours. Obviously, this will vary depending on your system.

Then they have second formulation that has slightly fewer calories (-15 percent), the same amount of electrolytes without the protein. This makes the drink much lighter and therefore easier to absorb and digest. I also like this formulation to be more glucose based, as glucose absorbs almost instantaneously. Just having a second formulation will almost instantly clear your system of any of the bloated feeling that may have occurred from taking protein. Many choose to include some caffeine in this formula for a boost at the end of the event.

This two-step system allows you to train and race for long periods and adjust depending on how your gut feels. Here is an example: I was at the U.S. 24-hour national championships for mountain biking crewing for Pua Sawicki. She ran with a higher-calorie drink with protein for about the first eight hours of the race when she started to feel bloated and her gut quit processing efficiently. We then switched her to a lighter formula that had a little less calories and no protein. Almost immediately, her stomach cleared and she was back racing with no distress. We kept that up for a few hours and then went back to the protein formula. Whenever she felt a little bloated, we switched her back to the non-protein formula. The result was her winning the women’s race by over an hour and she placed fourth in the pro men’s field. She did this entire 24-hour race on nothing but liquids and a few banana fourths.

The bottom line is that racing exclusively on liquids can be done for very extended periods of time. With a little planning, you can adjust your drink to match the way your stomach is processing for the perfect day.

Michael Folan is president of InfinIT Nutrition. He’s an avid runner, mountain and road racer and a 10-time Ironman finisher with a PR of 10:14.