-
My typing teacher (yes, motherfucking typewriters, how old am I?!) said "Practice doesn't make perfect, but it does make you better".
Before I started training for 24hr TTs I'd got out with one bottle and a couple of energy bars and ride 200k and then demolish everything in the house on my return, unable to touch a bike for a week because I was so destroyed. After getting into the habit of regular eating and drinking (helped by a Garmin or watch alarm) it's much easier to regulate intake and keep the bonk at bay.
Of course now I've intentionally gone back to my old ways because I'm training my 'unsupported ultra racing' skills.
What I did was read a lot about performance nutrition and then try to apply it. Aim for a minimum of 60g/hr of carbs - I tried up to 120g/hr and found for me 90g/hr was optimal.
Take note of what you ate on a ride and then put that into MyFitnessPal or add up the carbs using the nutrition panel or estimates, divide by the hours spent riding and then see what you consumed. For example, my 200k on Sat I was only at 45g/hr (actually less because I only ate more stuff right near home - actually ~250k ride total)
So, my 'self-selected' service station junk food diet only got me half of what I usually take in for a 24hr race. So, next time I go out I will be eating more than I did and find new things to increase my carbs and decrease my fat intake.
This all needs to be balanced against intensity - I was riding reasonably hard compared to an audax and balanced against what you can actually tolerate and like the taste of.
Also, not eating anything for ages then stuffing yourself right before a big climb.. not sensible so you need to think about intake timing a bit.
You are reading a single comment by @hippy and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
hippy
ough
Can we chat a bit more about this 20-30 eat-drink business? Pretty interested in that, I suspect that most times I'm struggling is because of nutrition. I'm basically really bad at listening to my body until it shuts down on me.
My curiosity is: when you knowledgeable folk say 'eat', what kind of quantity are we talking about? Let's say I eat every hour, how much are we talking about? A couple handfuls of trail mix? More?
(I know nutrition is one of those things that's very individual, I have to have a mix of sugary and salty things, for instance, otherwise I saturate either way)