Fuel Review ~ opinions?

[Nokomis]

I'm wondering if I got enough fuel on my ride yesterday - I thought so, but could use another opinion or 12. I want to learn

63mile ride

Breakfast: toaster biscuit w/ almond butter & jam, egg, 1/2c hash browns, 4oz juice, 1/2c yogurt w/ 1/2c berries, rice milk latte.

On Ride: 1 bottle w/ Emergen-C, majority of camelback
Stop 1: 1/2 lara bar, 1/2 banana, orange slice
On Road: 1/2 lara bar
Lunch Break: Whole Wheat sandwich w/ Almond Butter, 2 sweet pickles, 1/2 lara bar
On Road: 1 Gu
Near end of ride: 1/2 Gu

I felt cold the first half of the ride, and fatigued the second. Legs got crampy trying to push up the one "hill" at the end of the ride - took significant distance to recover to our traveling speed. I was never hungry en route, but rather felt the need to get fuel to keep my legs a'movin.

Does this seem about right? Far too much or too little? Thanks!!

[SadieKate]

Nokomis, did you ever feel that you rode your pace on this ride? Did you feel you had lots and lots of time to ride easy at the beginning, almost stupidly slow? Did you feel like you had to keep up with the two guys?

My overall impression is that your fatigue at the end wasn't due to lack of fuel, it was due to riding at someone else's pace. Maybe I'm wrong.

PS - that much food would have me feel like crap but others maybe able to tolerate that much.

[Nokomis]

Nokomis, did you ever feel that you rode your pace on this ride? Did you feel you had lots and lots of time to ride easy at the beginning, almost stupidly slow? Did you feel like you had to keep up with the two guys?

Good point! The only road training I do is with DH - I've never been on the road without him. I'd say most of the ride I was at the top end of my speed... if the wind changed or we got a gust, it'd push me off the back and I'd either have to hussle to keep up, or just dog along until they slowed down At the end, I did tell the guy pulling our line to slow down; his computer wasn't working and his legs were easily pulling 23mph - and wanting to do more even with a slight tail wind, I wasn't feeling that strong... 21 was as much as I could sustain.

[SadieKate]

Ah ha! I think we have the solution. Dump DH for the ride and ride your pace. Trust me, you have the legs but you must ride your pace. Lots of warm-up time and no more than a comfortable pace for the middle portion. You know the hills are at the end (wasn't that in Susan's post about the ride?) so save your energy for them.

Not that I don't have fun riding with my DH, but sometimes they are just a hindrance.

[SadieKate]

Just to give you a comparison for fuel intake. Sunday's ride was 60 miles, 2,500 ft of climbing, windy (strong enough to make the flags whip and snap straight out) and I'm 135 lbs.

Breakfast -
Medium size bowl of hot multi-grain cereal with butter and brown sugar
Iced latte during 20 min drive to start

On ride -
A bit more than 2 bottles Cytomax
About 1.5 bottle water (so close to 4 bottles of liquid total)
3 servings HammerGel - nanner flavor (thanks, MP, the flask worked great)

This is the absolute max effort I would do without some kind of solid food like a PayDay or a Mojo Bar. I would have eaten more on the ride but I rode to a restaurant at the end so I knew I didn't have to fuel up too much.

[snapdragen]

Just shows how different we are - I'd need something more solid than what you ate sadie. 'course, I'm not a gel fan, so I'd probably have a mojo bar, oh, and I like the cliff nectar bars too. (dark chocolate and walnuts)

And my brand new favorite after ride snack - 1/2 a Mission Turkey Sandwich I'll have to see if I can copy it on my own, I can't always get to Mission Coffee after a ride!

Turkey
Cranberry sauce
Walnuts
Lettuce
7 grain bread

Am I missing anything jo?

[maillotpois]

3 servings HammerGel - nanner flavor (thanks, MP, the flask worked great)

Glad it worked!!! Now you have my secret weapon!

[Nanci]

Well, you probably burned 2900-3250 calories, depending on how much you had to fight the wind. You (anyone) could put through, at the most, 1200-1600.


Ride:1282

Emergen-C: 14x20= 280
Lara Bar: 1.5x240= 360
Gu: 1.5x100= 150
Banana: .5x112= 56
Orange Slice: 1x59= 59
Whole Wheat Bread: 2x65= 130
Almond Butter 1Tbsp: 1x88= 88
Sweet Pickle 1/2 cup 1x159= 159

So, if I guessed right on the Emergen-C, if you drank it all, you were right at the low end of what your stomach could process.

Plus the good breakfast that we didn't even count.

At the most, you could try adding in 100 more calories/hour- but any more than that is too much for your stomach to process.

http://tinyurl.com/jvcwc

This is a really good generalized nutritional article by Steve Born, just to give you some basics. Also on the website you can find all you need to know about electrolytes/hydration.