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Long Distance Competition/Ultracycling, Randonneuring and Endurance Cycling Do you enjoy centuries, double centuries, brevets, randonnees, and 24-hour time trials? Share ride reports, and exchange training, equipment, and nutrition information specific to long distance cycling. This isn't for tours, this is for endurance events cycling

Nutrition on our first century

Old 08-11-18, 04:53 PM
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124Spider
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Nutrition on our first century

Hi,

There are all sorts of sites out there discussing this, but I'm hoping someone can distill it to its simplest for us.

We're a tandem couple, 129 years old (evenly split). We've trained very hard, and are confident that our conditioning is adequate for the task.

But we're a bit up in the air about nutrition during such a long ride. We've gone as far as 80 miles in training, and were ok (but tired at the end). We're planning to go a bit slower on the real ride (190 miles over two days/108 and 82) than we normally go in training, to conserve our energy for both days. The ride is supported, with stops about every 35 miles. We can carry a fair amount of stuff with us, and we'll be going through a lot of towns on the way, so can easily restock.

We figure that the first day will involve no more than 9 hours of riding (we averaged 16mph on the 80-mile ride, and on most rides, but we'll be going slower), and a couple of hours of resting/eating/drinking.

In short, here are our questions:

How much should we eat, on what schedule? Should we plan on a real lunch, or just nibble every hour or so? What kind of things should we eat? We normally have a peanut butter sandwich, some GORP, and some M&Ms.

As a data point, we did 60+ miles both days last weekend, and I kind of ran out of gas at 45 miles both days, but was fine again by 50 miles after some M&Ms at 45 miles.

Thanks!

Mark
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Old 08-11-18, 05:20 PM
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Stop for a nice sit down meal every three hours. Have something small in between. Enjoy the day as well as the ride.
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Old 08-11-18, 07:12 PM
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Well, I never really understood all this obsession with food during rides and guys who are non-stop shewing on club rides, this just doesn't make sense to me at all. Really, you don't need anything special for such a ride. Basically, just eat well before the ride (like a couple of hours before, also on a previous day) and after the ride. During the ride, especially a slow one and with the stops every 35 miles, eat whatever you like but in moderation, don't eat much - it'll be difficult to ride on a full stomach and you don't want to make your stops too long because then your muscles will cool down and it'll be harder to continue riding. Just eat something during these stops and rest a bit, you don't need anything every hour. I, personally, usually just grab some coffee + sandwich or bagel with cream cheese or ice cream (particularly good on hot days).

Now, it looks like I'm more than 20 years younger than each of you, I've done centuries several times and I don't really feel tired after finishing. However, next day I can't put the same effort as on the first day - by far. Yeah, I can still easily do, say, 30 miles. But 80? I know for sure that I'll not enjoy doing 80 miles on the second day, I'm not in such a good shape yet. So, if your longest ride so far was 80 miles, you'll probably find it very, very challenging to do 108 + 82 in a row. Good luck!
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Old 08-11-18, 08:47 PM
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This is what works for me on a century or longer ride ...

Eat about 500 calories for breakfast ... eat whatever works for you.

Aim to eat about 200 calories per hour while riding. I say "aim" because I don't usually actually hit that. I've found some granola bars that are about 180 calories, or cookies, or gummy candies or whatever. I have them in my handlebar bag and bento bag and just eat while I ride or when we stop to use the toilet or whenever.

If there is the time and opportunity to sit down and have a meal mid-ride, I'll do that.

Tuck a couple gels into your handlebar bag just in case. Sometimes late in a ride, my stomach will decide it doesn't want solid food and that's where those gels can come in handy.

Drink approx. one 750 ml bottle of water every 1 to 1.5 hours.

Consume electrolytes in food or in capsule-form.
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Old 08-11-18, 08:57 PM
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Our team is 142, 285 lbs. I've been doing long distance rides for 20 years, first on my single, then starting ~10 years ago on the tandem. We both use my same system which I developed doing really long hard day rides, up to 400k and 15,000'. We've done RAMROD on our tandem, but only once. Stoker forbids a repeat, though I've continued to ride it on my single, which is almost the only time I ride that bike since we got the tandem. I always ride for time on long event rides like I've been talking about, i.e. like very long TTs. That said, on ordinary 40+ mile rides, we still use the same fueling system, though we stop for social breaks. I got started using this system because of fueling problems on RAMROD, arising from doing long high effort climbs in the heat. Now I fuel this way all the time because it works. BTW, on the bike I don't eat - I fuel. It's not for enjoyment, it's as the randos say, "to get 'er done."

I started out using Clif bars. That works, just not as well as what I do now. To fuel with Clif bars, open the packages you're going to use ahead of time and put the open packages in your jersey pocket(s). On the bike, take out a bar and break it into quarters, Put three back in the pocket, eat one, then continue to eat one about every 15 minutes. That gives you 200 calories/hour, which is about the recommended dose for long rides. Now, it's not always necessary to fuel with 200 cal/hr. Riding easy, one can do less.

In general, I eat to hunger. The old story was "eat before you're hungry, drink before you're thirsty." That's ingrained in the culture to some extent, but it's silly. Our bodies are not that stupid. They have very sensitive mechanisms to tell us when to eat and drink: hunger and thirst. Eating before one is hungry can lead to upset stomach. Drinking before thirst can lead to hyponatremia. Be that as it may, it's never a mistake to shoot for 200 calories/hour because you'll always burn more than that and eating small amounts frequently is the friendliest approach to stomach comfort and energy levels on the bike.

I stopped using Clif bars on the bike long ago, though I still use them or similar products hiking and backpacking. Now I fuel with nothing but maltodextrin and flavored whey protein. I buy the malto in 50# bags from a local homebrew supply house and use Optimum Nutrition chocolate flavoered whey protein though other brands will work just fine. I mix the powders up 7:1 by weight in a large tub ahead of time. Two cups of this mix is about 750 calories. Mixed with plain water in a 24 oz. or liter bike bottle, it's at least 3 hours fuel. The other bottle has plain water. I carry extra powder in a saddle bag, 1 c. in each ziploc baggie. I use a total of 4 or 5 cups of powder on RAMROD or 14 oz. per 100 miles. After ~200k I do get tired of it and have something more interesting to eat, a sandwich or a Hostess Fruit Pie, something like that, which will last me about 45' on the bike.

My wife doesn't care for the taste or mouth feel of my mix, so she does about the same thing I do, but mixes Ensure (not the Plus) into one of her water bottles. She puts out about half my power and thus fuels more lightly. 2 bottles of Ensure will get her ~60 miles, extra Ensure in the saddle bag or purchased from a store along the way. For my part, I don't care for the taste of Ensure, but that's fine.

On event rides, I don't eat anything at the rest stops. They're just for water, sanican, and adding more powder to the fuel bottle if necessary. Reason being who knows what that stuff will do to my stomach.

Note no electrolytes. That's because I carry Hammer Endurolytes in a little coin purse (Hammer sells those, too) up my shorts leg or in a jersey pocket. If I'm not feeling thirsty, I take 1 or 2 with the objective of being able to pee about every 3 hours. That varies with the individual as some of us sweat more than others. On cool rides I don't need any, on hot rides I might take 1 every hour or two.

I don't eat a big breakfast, but almost all carbs, trying for 300-400 calories. Because we've been fueling all day, dinner is our normal size, about half what US restaurants serve, so we split one. Obviously we don't eat lunch, in a restaurant or rest stop. I've seen too many people fall apart after lunch, either stomach not working, bonking because of that, or just not feeling strong.
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Old 08-11-18, 08:59 PM
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What I do on brevets is we stop about every 30 miles and I eat whatever I feel like eating at the time. That may be a deli sandwich, bananas, PB crackers, ice cream bars, just depends on what's available.
You can complicate that to no end and count calories with a stopwatch and drink Perpetuum and Spiz or whatever other stuff you care to glug, but you're not gonna fall over dead because you just ate regular food when you were hungry.
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Old 08-12-18, 07:53 AM
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
...Now I fuel with nothing but maltodextrin and flavored whey protein. I buy the malto in 50# bags from a local homebrew supply house and use Optimum Nutrition chocolate flavoered whey protein though other brands will work just fine. I mix the powders up 7:1 by weight ...
I learned this from Carbonfiberboy and do something similar. I mix the malto and protein into individual 350 cal servings in ziploc bags, and get my electrolytes from gatorade powder. I have one bottle of each every 30-40 miles, so on a century I would have 3 of each.
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