I am riding the Parker Dam Gravel Grinder race/ride this Saturday in Western Pa. It's 80 miles with 6+K of climbing, so medium-ish by gravel race standards. I cannot for the life of me recall exactly where I heard this (maybe an "Ask a Cycling Coach" podcast), but somewhere I swear I heard some "expert" suggest not starting to take in sugar until 1.5-2 hours or so into the ride. The logic (if I recall correctly) was that as soon as you start ingesting sugar, your body starts relying on it primarily for fuel, no matter what zone you are riding in. And, since on a 5 or 6 hour gravel ride you're going to be riding upper Z 2/low 3 most of the race, you could ride for quite a while at the beginning of the race burning primarily fat, and in the process save precious glycogen stores for the last 1/2 or 2/3 of the ride.
If I did this I would be afraid that I would still be burning some non-trivial amount of precious glycogen right from the go, yet I wouldn't be replenishing it at all for the first part of the race in my ingest-water-only attempt to trick my body into using fat for fuel.
Is there anything to this? Is this just common practice? On long rides that I have done in the past, I have started fueling (gels, etc) right from the go, so this would be a real departure for me.
Any input is appreciated in advance, and yes, I realize my results my vary.
It takes a while (maybe 20 minutes) for your body to break down fat to use for energy, fat simply isn’t a readily available energy source. Glycogen, but more importantly blood sugar are going to be your primary energy source during that time. When you start eating will also depend on when your last meal was. If it’s been about 3 hours, then you’ll probably need to start fueling as soon as you start. However if you just ate within an hour, eating during the first couple hours is unnecessary and just going to stress your digestive system. This is all very oversimplified and it can get kind of complex and even vary by the individual. Figuring out when to eat and what to eat should be part of your training. You don’t want to wait until race day to figure it out.
Everyone responds differently. For a long ride I try to eat early, eat often, and eat real food. For me gels and similar concentrated high-sugar foods are not a good way to fuel a multi-hour effort — they’re reserved for when I need a quick hit. Things like homemade rice bars with some protein and fat do a much better job maintaining a constant energy level with no gut issues.
Dramatically changing your fueling pattern — or any part of your routine or gear — is NOT something you should try on race day. Do your experimenting on training rides.
Yes, I get that making a drastic switch to one's regular fueling protocol on race day would be foolish, and I wasn't asking if I should do this (although I see from my post why it might sound like that).
I was really asking for myself moving forward into the future. (after this weekend's race)
I had not heard of actually racing fasting. Expecting a mid-race shift in energy systems sounds dubious. To me it makes more sense to try to preserve stored glycogen by adequate fueling.
Nutrition intake varies greatly from person to person. I'm not very fast, nor very good but I need to take in calories every 30min or so. If I wait an hour or more, I start bonking. The gels will help, but at that point I've depleted my sugar store enough that I can't seem to get my energy back to where I'd like it. For me to perform, I drink Scratch every ~15min (24oz in an hour) and a gel every ~30min. I've used this to make it through a full IM ride and it worked well. My slow run was good, I finished with a smile and felt really good after 140 miles of activity. My wife who is faster then me, can go an hour without any intake at a short race. Food upsets her stomach when racing, so she drinks Infinite (220 cal) on longer courses. Everybody is different.
What you don't want to do (giving secrets away here...) is eat within the 3-3.5 hrs or so before the event because that will spike your blood sugar and blood insulin levels and the latter will prevent you from accessing fat stores for the first part of your ride. As a consequence, you'll be burning through your liver glycogen at a faster rate and risk bonking earlier. On the other hand, if you've started your ride with baseline blood insulin levels, hormonal influence on fat stores will keep them accessible and you can then consume whatever carbs you choose. 1.5 to 2 hrs into a ride seems like a long time and I don't know what that's based on, but whether it's 30 min or 2 hrs probably doesn't matter much in the big picture on a long ride because it's not too long after you start that your metabolism shifts into exercise mode.
If you're poorly adapted to fat burning, then you're stuck eating your way through a long race and riding the line between bonking and upsetting your stomach. If you train fasted or partially fasted, then that will stress your metabolism such that it increases "fat burning enzyme" levels which allows you to burn fat at a higher rate and can make you essentially bonk-proof. You'll still want to eat carb snacks during a long event for a little extra boost, but you'll come to find that it's really not necessary for 6-8-10... hrs if you're only going at 50-75% FTP or so. Since fat-adaptation is a species specific human thing, we can all do it. It might take a couple or few weeks to get there if you're the type that has been in training to be a diabetic, i.e. eating many small meals throughout the day.
The other way to adapt to being a good fat burner is to just train like a pro with lots and lots of 3+ hr rides.
Good subject here... I wish I could figure out how to avoid the late race collapses that I seem to have to deal with. I've tried Gels and Skratch powder drinks and while I think they help they also give me some pretty serious heartburn. I think Clif bars are pretty magical, I always get a boost and feel better when getting run down and I eat one but it takes a half bottle of water and a long time to get one down.
I really don't like trying to eat while riding and then having to drink way too much of my water supply in order to do so compounds the problem. Is there something that contains more moisture that would be easy to eat while riding but isn't so full of sugar that I get tummy issues? I don't normally eat sugary foods so my system just doesn't like those gels and drink mixes.
Pipeliner wrote:I really don't like trying to eat while riding and then having to drink way too much of my water supply in order to do so compounds the problem. Is there something that contains more moisture that would be easy to eat while riding but isn't so full of sugar that I get tummy issues? I don't normally eat sugary foods so my system just doesn't like those gels and drink mixes.
Try homemade rice cakes. Basically sushi rice mashed together with whatever else appeals. The rice is wet and so doesn’t require much extra liquid to eat. There are lots of recipes online. Allen Lim at Skratch first popularized them with a bacon-and-egg version, but you can use fruit, dried fruit, nut butters, whatever appeals. I like making savory ones because it’s a nice change from sweet and the rice provides the simple carbohydrate. I often add a beaten egg or two for easy-to-digest protein.
I usually make a batch using 1 cup of rice the night before a big weekend ride.
I’ve done “Thai-ish”: cook the rice with minced fresh ginger & garlic, mix rice with natural peanut butter and lime juice. Egg, a little cheese, season with garden herbs or smoked paprika. I did a feta, olive, oregano batch that was tasty, but a bit sour for the bike. Apple, walnuts, cheddar
I'm an experienced endurance racer. I can provide credentials upon request. 😉 But, how you need to eat, also has to do with how you have trained for the event. If you have been training anything close to the event miles, you probably have a pretty good start for what you need. If not, then here are my recommendations: 1) eat a good high carb meal the night before. 2) eat a small, low sugar breakfast in the morning, not too big (the night before is gonna be the fuel that's immediately usable), then keep the carbs flowing (snacks, power drinks, etc..) in small portions throughout the ride, and don't wait until you are hungry, because then it's too late. Good luck.
My food intake for past Dirty Kansas 200 events (3) have been to avoid the blocks, jells and other foods you don't eat on a regular basis. I don't know anyone who is out there training for these types by riding that distance or more on a regular basis. You don't need to. My first DK I finished fine and I only did one 100+ mile ride before hand.
As for food, I keep it simple. Foods are a combination that give me a 3 to 1 carb to protein balance. So what do I eat? I like PBJ's or use almond butter and different jams for variety. I like payday candy bars (the small snack sized ones), I like chips, pickles, cold cuts, stuff like that. I like dates or other fruits like dried bananas. I eat real food washed down with water or cold flat coke. It works and I never have bonked.
To help hydrate and to word off cramps I like cold flat tonic water. Pickle juice is also good and I'll drink a cup or two of at the check points. I like Starbucks Double shot energy drinks (15oz) I take em and freeze them and they thaw as I ride. They're loaded with potassium! I drank one of those at Alta Vista and I was juiced all the way to Council Grove.
As far as other drinks I'll take a bottle of Scratch or Tailwind with me and replenish at each check point. Other than that, just lots of water.
If I'm going hard for more than four hours, I'll take salt tablets (Thermotab, Saltstick, etc) starting in the second or third hour depending on distance and temperature. I think it's the same effect, but I find that more palatable and portable than the pickles and pickle juice that some others have mentioned.
I train fasted - empty stomach, no even coffee, just a couple glass of water - 2x week - first thing in the morning. They are shortish 60-90min sessions. No water bottle either. It's mostly Zone 2 efforts. But I do bang out some intervals as well - so can bump to Zone 3 a bit and Zone 4 occasionally. Do I get max power output fasted? - probably not - but I get a much better control and management my energy levels without reliance on external sources during training - absolutely
Once you ween yourself off the constant drip of sugar - it's really not that hard to run yourself off your body's energy stores. On my weekend MTB rides - I don't snack on anything for rides shorter than 3 hours. Longer - yes, I have a bar or two.
For a long race like OP is doing. You'll need to refuel - but in that type of race, I would probably not take anything until 2hrs into it - I would stick with real food bars like Larabars - and can not fathom popping gels and sugar water for 6hrs straight. I might reserve those for when the going gets tough in the last couple hours only if needed.
But yes - you'll need to train and ween from the constant sugar feeding first before you body learns it will be OK running off energy stores.
For me I have found that 1 hour or less rides just water, and at least 1 hour after a normal meal. Just to get my digestion started without stressing it. If is mote than a 1 hour ride , I usual find a halfway point, stop for 5 minutes have water and a Cliff Bar. Then I finish it out. This seems to work very well for me. Not having done any long rides ( beyond two hours) it is hard for me to comment. But I think training would preclude sugar input as you want the body to get use to running of energy stores. This is for training. For maximum output I would do energy bars and water on a consistent basis, as this will allow you to push your body to output where you get to energy sores rather quickly. Just my opinion not founded in any actual fact as I have not trained for these types of outputs.
I'm old and slow so I can't ride hard enough to need food before 2-1/2 or 3 hours of riding. But when I get home I eat everything in sight. I drink around a quart of water right before going out and invariably find I've lost that and another couple of pounds when I return. More on a hot day - I once lost 7 pounds (out of 165) between weighing in and getting the boat out of the water after a 2000 m rowing race.
stu wrote:I'm old and slow so I can't ride hard enough to need food before 2-1/2 or 3 hours of riding. But when I get home I eat everything in sight. I drink around a quart of water right before going out and invariably find I've lost that and another couple of pounds when I return. More on a hot day - I once lost 7 pounds (out of 165) between weighing in and getting the boat out of the water after a 2000 m rowing race.
I'm with you on all the above...except 7lbs in 2000m race?!? - that at race pace is 6-10mins depending on what discipline/bracket you are talking about. Even with warm-up and cool-downs and sitting around for an hour....that's an impossible amount of water to lose - that nearly 1 gallon in such a short amount of time.
smoothmoose wrote: I'm with you on all the above...except 7lbs in 2000m race?!? - that at race pace is 6-10mins depending on what discipline/bracket you are talking about. Even with warm-up and cool-downs and sitting around for an hour....that's an impossible amount of water to lose - that nearly 1 gallon in such a short amount of time.
I was rowing a pair. Between waiting to launch, rowing to the start line, waiting for the start, rowing the race, and getting the boat out of the water I was probably out there about an hour. It was midday in the bright sun with the temp around 110F. Not a good day - I finished last and tore a meniscus during the race.
stu wrote:I'm old and slow so I can't ride hard enough to need food before 2-1/2 or 3 hours of riding. But when I get home I eat everything in sight. I drink around a quart of water right before going out and invariably find I've lost that and another couple of pounds when I return. More on a hot day - I once lost 7 pounds (out of 165) between weighing in and getting the boat out of the water after a 2000 m rowing race.
And here I thought I swear alot! I often train in 90+ temperatures and high humidity, losing a kilo (2+ lbs) of weight in a 10k run is normal for me. I drink 24oz of an electrolyte/water mix every hour, sometimes every 45min when hot. I've done many long distance trainings, a 1/2 ironman distance in 100+ degree weather, many 100+ mile rides at 18~20mph in high 90's/low 100 temps. I've found that for me to do this, I need to eat constantly. I train with gel, bars and 120 calorie electrolyte drinks. They work for me. I know ultra trail runners who are trained for fat fueled runs, but that is a different type of race. When I run long, I prefer less sugary fueling, when I ride at a faster pace, sugary stuff works for me.
