pre hill rep food

marylogic

Just a quick query really -

I am doing one session a week of either hill reps or intervals

I usually feel a bit sick during the session and don't want to eat just beforehand. Often I'll train in the evening and I'll last have eaten a light lunch (small sandwich + fruit) about 5 hours earlier.

I don't feel particularly lacking in energy during the training.

Is there any problem doing this or should I try to force something down? I've read about training fasted but I wasn't sure if it was ok with the more intense sessions.

Thanks

imposter2.0

Nothing wrong with what you are doing and probably best not to eat to soon before an interval session. It isn't 'training fasted' by the way - especially if you have eaten a normal lunch a few hours previously.

TakeTurns

Well done on the hill reps. Good to see you're sticking to them.

I'm vegan, so my dietary plans may not necessarily suit you. Most of my training is done after breakfast, which consists of lots of fruit blended with water. I've never had an upset stomach. In fact, I can spring out straight after having downed a litre.

By no means am I an expert, however I would have assumed 5 hours to be plenty of time for the food to have settled in your stomach. Is it unusual that you feel like this? Or a frequent occurrence? Do you do a proper warm up before you go all out in the intervals?

jibberjim

Last night I ate my last food at 8pm, this morning I got up and I watched a bike race whilst supervising a small child and about 2pm I started my bike ride, I'd eaten nothing in between. That wasn't training even fasted as my glycogen stores were likely reasonably full - not completely of course, and I even had to lay off the intensity a bit later in the 3.5 hour ride - I had 400calories during the ride, but I burnt over 2000 according to my PM, and whilst some of it was social paced riding - I still had over 60 minutes in threshold watts zones where I could only be consuming glycogen.

So no, not eating that close to your ride is not going to leave you short of energy. It may well be that your body will not let you go quite as hard as it otherwise would, but not anything like significantly. However the gut is trainable, and it's a useful adaptation to get, the more you can eat, the better it is.

simon_e

If it's working then you're probably doing fine, though you may feel you can go harder towards the end of the session with a top-up. If I'm taking the long route home I have a handful of raisins an hour before leaving work. For intervals or hill reps I'd not try to do it all 'on empty' but take an energy drink / some squash to have between reps.

ride_whenever

why would you want to eat straight before hill reps, firstly you'll puke and secondly that's more weight to carry up the hill.

marylogic

Thanks for the replies.

I usually feel nauseated if I go all out whether I am just warmed up or have been out for hours. I had found that I wasn't getting my heart rate up with my usual reps so I have taken to sprinting the first rep and then I can usually get up to about 95% of my MHR during the session.
The nausea doesn't really bother me, but planning eating ahead can be problematic with work and family. If I get a chance to get out on my bike I'm usually on the road before I realise I've not eaten for hours.

I'm not really worried about running out of energy, I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't wasting my time doing the session on lower fuel stores (granted not truly fasted). I'd read somewhere that you should stop your session if the "quality" of your intervals started to drop and I wasn't sure of the relevance.

Thanks again

danlikesbikes

Sounds like your eating enough before & leaving it long enough (5 hours is a good time) to not really cause you an issue.

However if you feel like you might need something before riding why not try half a banana and some fluid about 30 minutes before you go, that way you not riding on a full stomach but having something small my stop you getting nauseous.

I often find training after work its easy to get a 'down' feeling mid afternoon & if I'm training after work and don't sort it out I suffer a bit but often only in feeling rather than performance.

jibberjim

Danlikesbikes wrote:

However if you feel like you might need something before riding why not try half a banana and some fluid about 30 minutes before you go, that way you not riding on a full stomach but having something small my stop you getting nauseous.

But how much difference is the 50 calories in a banana going to make?

danlikesbikes

jibberjim wrote:

Danlikesbikes wrote:

However if you feel like you might need something before riding why not try half a banana and some fluid about 30 minutes before you go, that way you not riding on a full stomach but having something small my stop you getting nauseous.

But how much difference is the 50 calories in a banana going to make?

For me it was not the calories but the empty stomach that was causing me to feel nauseous if I left it 5 hours between eating and completing a hard session. So how much difference to me was a lot, to others maybe not but it might help the OP is she is feeling this way too as she is asking for help hence me posting my solution.

barrybridges

To be honest, I'm not a doctor, but I would probably investigate a bit further as to why you're feeling nauseous. You really shouldn't feel nauseous when training. Even if you put in an all-out effort that is, in theory, enough to make you sick, you still ought not to feel 'nauseous'.