the good stuff

andy05
andy05 Posts: 12
edited April 2008 in Training, fitness and health
you see in the shops all these amazing supplements that will make you cycle better and all this
but do they really work and what works for you ?
pre ride food
during the ride
and post ride

drinks and food would help allot guys as im doing an endurance event soon and need some advice
thanks

Comments

  • guinea
    guinea Posts: 1,177
    I'm keen to see what comes up here.

    I did 70 miles today @17.5mph on 100g of Alpen and 150ml of semi skimmed. My only supplement on route was water.

    I had no energy problems and no bonk. When I arrived I had a sandwich, an apple and a flapjack. I'm sure there'll be lots of folk who can tell me that I've done something wrong here, but my attitude has been to solve problems as I find them. So far I've not had any problems based around energy or hydration levels, so I'll keep going.

    When I go for a 30 mile run before my commute to I usually eat nothing. I just drink a litre of water. Before cycling to work I have 80g of museli + milk so I doin't get hungry before lunch.
  • andy05
    andy05 Posts: 12
    thanks guinea thats really interesting about not using much so thankyou very much

    thanks xx
  • CrookedCucumber
    CrookedCucumber Posts: 324
    100g of Alpen (say 400 Calories, for the sake of argument) or, indeed, of anything won't provide the energy you need to cycle 70 miles. Happily, it doesn't have to, because you'll be running on the energy stored as glycogen from the day before. The release of that energy will not be significantly affected by what you eat immediately before training -- it's largely irrelevant if you ate properly the day (or a few hours) before.

    When I was young (and that wasn't very recently) I could cycle 70 miles without eating during the ride. These days I can't, because I weigh more, and therefore use more energy to cover the same distance than I used to.

    But if you're fit and quite thin, you'll probably be consuming about 600-700 Calories per hour to maintain a distance racing speed. If you can store 2000 Calories as glycogen, you'll probably find that you don't need to eat during a ride if it's less than 3 - 3.5 hours or so. Say 4 hours with the Alpen :)

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