Fuel and food for 100 mile hill ride

diy

Depending on fitness/DNA etc you basically get the first 1-2 hour for "free" as you burn the bodies sugars (glycogen) after that you either need to have replaced it with a variety of carbs etc and/or burn fat. To avoid bonking you can make the glycogen depleted state easier to get through. 1. Train for it to improve your ability to perform when burning fat or lower the intensity of the exercise to cope after the first 2 hours. I'm guessing this ride is going to take something in the order of 4-6 hours so its should be easily possible to take on caffeine (start and 2/3rd of the way through) regular nibbles of food and a gel or 2. to get through it. More important than anything is to stay hydrated. If you start to feel that you are bonking, grab a booster in either a gel or cereal bar (ideally both as the gels work fast but contain little energy) and a hit of caffeine. Back off the intensity and you'll get through it even if you are well and truly in the fat burning zone.

If you are serious about endurance events. I would recommend some form of bonk training. I stumbled across it as part of my fasting diet and a desire to train on fasting days and have noticed substantial improvements in my endurance ability as a result.

The problem with this thread - is things that work for experienced endurance cyclists wont work for others.

marcusjb

diy wrote:

The problem with this thread - is things that work for experienced endurance cyclists wont work for others.

100% true.

apreading

Yeah - I think we kind of lost the OP along the way - this was someone who was bonking on 60-70 mile rides, with a 100 mile ride this weekend - no time to train or adapt his body and not good time to bring in massive change to diet.

They key parts for the OP was, make sure you stay hydrated and eat a little more (of whatever you eat) and a little earlier in the ride. If you wait till you feel thirsty/hungry/low on energy then its too late.

olake92

I'm still shouting out to the OP; follow my advice and you should get round with no problems. If you do bonk following that, I'd love to know. However, I'm confident that you won't. Try it a on a ride before the event just to make sure it all agrees with your stomach.

My advice is grounded in science, not anecdote and hopefully laid out in a straightforward manner. If you need more explanation, just give me a shout

Grill wrote:

Blood glucose meters? Really? I don't know anyone who races that would use one, much less for a sportive. If you can't figure out when you need to eat and drink fro[sic] experience, then you probably shouldn't be doing any serious physical activity.

You can always improve! It may seem excessive for a sportive but I race and it sounds good to me. There's a pro team of diabetics who would use it and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if World Tour teams did this too. I don't think they do but that's probably because they know the science behind race nutrition.

dwanes wrote:

I think if I took my food intake this seriously I would need to go on another ride afterwards to burn off all that excess food.

That's the point :P

diy wrote:

grab a booster in either a gel or cereal bar (ideally both as the gels work fast but contain little energy) and a hit of caffeine. Back off the intensity and you'll get through it even if you are well and truly in the fat burning zone.

This is good advice, although I find I never truly recover in that ride; I'll be a little off the pace until the end.

MancMissile

Cheers for the advice guys, my plan for Sunday is to carb load today/tomorrow.. I eat a lot of carbs anyway but a big pasta meal the night before and big bowl of porridge & banana on the morning. Ride starts at 8am so will have breakfast + a coffee in the morning. I've got some high 5 4:1 carb:protein energy drink which I've been using for the past month or so in training. I've got a couple of caffeine gels and taking some energy bars from work and gonna aim to keep the food and drink intake regular. There are 3 feed stations on the way so will be able to top up my supplies of drink/food if necessary. Will let you know how I get on

meanredspider

Grill wrote:

Blood glucose meters? Really? I don't know anyone who races that would use one, much less for a sportive. If you can't figure out when you need to eat and drink fro experience, then you probably shouldn't be doing any serious physical activity.

I'm not suggesting everyone do this but it's interesting how often nutrition comes up on here and the differences in opinion (not surprising given how different people are - I'm surprised how assertive some people are that they're way of eating is best for everyone), then spending probably less than £20 and actually measuring what's going on might be a good idea. It's a bit like a cadence meter - I've measured it enough to know pretty well what I'm doing - same, to some extent my HR. You don't need to be doing it often but it might tell you something interesting about something you're doing wrong with your nutrition and what happens to your glucose levels with different foods. I'd only do it on training rides. Where's the problem?

It was actually the Team Sky coach that gave me the idea on that programme where the two brothers were eating sugar and fat. I'm also not suggesting for one second that we all need to behave like Team Sky either. But if you're interested in getting your nutrition right and maybe struggling (plenty on here have bonked at some point or another), it's an option..

meanredspider

legendary27 wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

I disagree with this. Your body can't function on fat on its own. It needs glycogen in order to burn fat - that's exactly what bonkng is: running out of glycogen.

I am confused by the first part of this statement. I thought that ketosis occurred once you had exhausted your glycogen stores. Is this not the case ?

You don't entirely exhaust your glycogen/glucose else you'd go into a coma (I'm pretty certain your brain can't use the products of ketosis). But you run so low that fat burning becomes very inefficient - else, it's true - none of us would need to eat at all on a ride.

diy

MancMissile wrote:

Cheers for the advice guys, my plan for Sunday is to carb load today/tomorrow.. I eat a lot of carbs anyway but a big pasta meal the night before and big bowl of porridge & banana on the morning. Ride starts at 8am so will have breakfast + a coffee in the morning. I've got some high 5 4:1 carb:protein energy drink which I've been using for the past month or so in training. I've got a couple of caffeine gels and taking some energy bars from work and gonna aim to keep the food and drink intake regular. There are 3 feed stations on the way so will be able to top up my supplies of drink/food if necessary. Will let you know how I get on

Don't over do it - too much is just as bad. Last thing you want is a belly full of breakfast - just a normal portion will do. If there are 3 feed stations, you really wont need that much. Key thing is not to hang around too much at the stops. more than a minute or 2 and your body goes WTF when you try to start up again. On endurance rides when I stop I keep it to just enough time to top the water up grab a bite and go. If you start hanging around - its 10x worse than not taking a break.

olake92

So, how did it go? Well, I hope!

MancMissile

Went very well thanks... feeling pretty awesome right now.

Didn't bonk and completed the 100 in just over 7 hours which I'm happy with considering there was over 10'000ft of climbing.

Had a massive pasta dinner last night with chocolate fudge brownie dessert (amazing).... scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast then my ride went a little like this....

I had 3 high 5 caffeine gels at roughly 30, 60 and 85 miles which definitely do the trick! Stopped at one of the feed stations which was about 56 miles in, was flying up to this point. Had half a banana, fig role and half a flapjack. Also filled my 2 bottles with carb drink as I'd just finished the took I started with. I was drinking the 4:1 carb/protein drink which I've been training with and love.

All in all I managed the 100 and my legs were relatively fine, no cramps no bonking and finished strong. Had a bit of a lull after 60/70 miles where I lacked energy and got dropped by a few people but after my last gel I had a 3rd wind and boosted to the finish.

Thanks for the all the advice people, definitely helped #respect!

olake92

That's great news! Hopefully this can be applied to your regular long rides to make sure you don't suffer at all (living the dream eh? :P )

hypster

meanredspider wrote:

legendary27 wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

I disagree with this. Your body can't function on fat on its own. It needs glycogen in order to burn fat - that's exactly what bonkng is: running out of glycogen.

I am confused by the first part of this statement. I thought that ketosis occurred once you had exhausted your glycogen stores. Is this not the case ?

You don't entirely exhaust your glycogen/glucose else you'd go into a coma (I'm pretty certain your brain can't use the products of ketosis). But you run so low that fat burning becomes very inefficient - else, it's true - none of us would need to eat at all on a ride.

It takes several weeks of a very low carbohydrate diet for the body to make the switch to producing ketones that can fuel the brain etc. I know, I tried it a couple of years ago. The problem is you can only ride at about an average speed of 14 mph otherwise your muscles need carbohydrate to burn.

If you want to know what bonking feels like big time go on a ketogenic diet for a few weeks and then try and ride too hard for a few hours without consuming any carbs. I was hallucinating following my mate's wheel and then gave up the experiment. Luckily as soon as I started consuming carbs again my fitness came straight back so I didn't suffer any ill-effects.