Double century eating advice - very early start

Southgate

I'm doing my first double century (actually around 220 miles) on Saturday, and I have an early start. When I say early, I mean really early, like 3am! I'm wondering what to eat on Friday night / Sat morning, and when to eat it. Should I move my meals a few hours backwards, or just eat my evening meal of spaghetti at the normal time of 8pm or 9pm, followed by a porridge brekkie at 2am? I need to be properly fueled but obviously I don't want digestion probs on the ride.

PS: I'm an experienced rider who is used to doing up to 150 miles so I don't need general advice on pacing, eating on the ride etc.

ju5t1n

I'd start eating now if I were you! Good luck on Saturday. What's the event – or is this just for fun?

Jim C

What U suggest is fine. Good porridge breakfast. Add honey. Nuts. Dried nuts and fruit. Eat normal the day before. Maybe a bit bigger portions. On the ride- real food all the way. Don't over complicate
Keep well hydrated. Water. Tea. Juice. 50 50 full fat coke and water

Southgate

Cheers guys. I'll be starting out slow, so I guess my spaghetti can digest as I ride.

Just doing the distance for fun (if you can call it that) with a couple of guys from the club. London - Oxford - Cambridge - London. If I feel in good shape when I return on Saturday night, I might do another loop ;-)

mrushton

That distance is actually 'only' an over distance 300km audax which a lot of people do regualarly. Sensible food at café stops and some stuff on the bike. You can pick up fruit etc at garages. My gf used to do a lot of audax up to 600km and ate regular food regularly - she said it was bloody expensive tho' especially in out of the way places where a m-way service station was the only place for miles around

Southgate

Well, it was a lot of fun, apart from two blowouts and two f***** tyres! I carbed up for two days and ate meals at normal times on Friday, with a porridge at 2am Saturday morning before I left. I felt a bit bloated on the London to Oxford leg, but that was fine because we were going slow and I figured I would be burning mostly fat and would be able to digest the food as we rode. This seemed to work fine, which was a bit of a relief to be honest.

Between London and Oxford, and I regularly ate small pieces of bagel and peanut butter, and munched through a couple of energy bars and a large cookie. Between Oxford and Cambridge, we turned up the pace to average around 18mph to 20mph and I switched to mainly gels plus a pasty at a cafe at around midday. Along the way we merged with an Ox to Cam sportive that happened to be on that day (nice to have signposts for a while), so at their finish I bought a bowl of paella (no we didn't use their feed stations / facilities etc) and lazed around for an hour or so in the Autumn sun.

Then back on the bike for the 60 miles home to London, staying on gels and bickies for the first 40 miles or so, before stopping at a garage where I had a double espresso and a couple of ham rolls. Curiously this worked like rocket fuel, and without us particularly deciding to, we ended up in a super-fast mini chain gang for the home straight, which felt pretty good as we had over 200 miles in our legs at that point.

This was the longest ride I've ever done and beforehand I was a bit nervous about what shape I'd be in after 150 miles. On the day though, everything went really well from a fueling point of view and I didn't even feel close to bonking at any time. The only thing I did differently from a century ride was to carb up for two days and drink much more energy drink than usual. I was absolutely religious about eating at set intervals on the ride, especially the first leg where I really didn't want to, and if there one specific thing that made it work out right on the day I think it was probably this. I felt surprisingly good at the end of the ride, no aches or pains and still a bit hyped-up, and I could happily have gone on for a little while longer!