Pakiwi

I guess I am still trying to figure out my nutrition / hydration for rides.
I am a clyde at 225 lbs 5'6" and have been riding 2.5 years
So far this year have around 1100 miles in and most trainer rides have been strength training and mixture of low cadence hi power and hi cadence work. Have about 20,000 ft of climbing on the road due to weather keeping me inside more than I wanted. I am in much better shape than I was a year ago.

I am training for some big rides this year. The first one in 2 weeks which is 75 miles with 5800 ft of climbing.
Saturday I went out and did 3 hours with a mixture of hill repeats and a loop ride. Stats were 30 miles 3500ft of climbing. I felt really good, felt strong and could have repeated without any issue.
Yesterday I went out and was to do 4 hours on a flatter ride. I cut short after 3 hours. Legs felt fine, couldn't get heart rate over 145. Rode 40 miles 1500 ft of climbing. I ate before I went out. 2 pieces of toast and peanut butter. I ate on the ride a protein bar, a gu gel and scratch labs chews, about 500 calories as well as 3 bottles of fluid. So not sure what my problem is. Saturday was a much harder day.
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Allan

baron von trail 

That's a lot of calories for a three hour ride. I typically eat very light before a ride (one cliff bar max), and then I live on Gu for the rest of the ride, taking one gel every hour, no more no less. Oh, I always take one gel before setting out.

On hot days, I'll also take in one Emergen-C powder every two hours. I usually just pour the powder directly into my mouth and force it down with some water. I never eat solid food while riding.

I do feast when it's over though.

dr_lha

Sounds like the effects of over training to me. Your legs were likely more tired from the ride on Saturday than you realized, and the Sunday ride, despite being flatter, had you run out of steam. I doubt nutrition was the issue, based on what you ate, more likely just fatigue.

Pakiwi

I am trying to figure out what my issue is as last year when I did Storming Thunder ridge, I hit the same issue after 65 miles and couldn't finish the ride. Thinking it was either hydration or nutrition, decided I would eat and drink more on the bike. Storming Thunder ridge is a 100 mile 10000 ft of climbing with a 3300 ft climb at mile 30 which I got over, but then hit the wall when I hit the next hills at mile 65.
I know it was cooler Saturday when I was doing the hill repeats

Pakiwi

Thing is I felt fine. I felt strong Saturday after the ride, and felt like I could have done another couple of repeats no problem at all.
I felt good yesterday, not tired or sore.
Today my thighs are achey.

dr_lha

Yes, your thighs are telling you that you did too much over the weekend! Rest/recovery days are as important as training days.

Pakiwi

Today is a recovery day. Zone 3 on Tuesday.
Agree recovery and rest days are important and built into my schedule as well as good sleep.

ypsetihw

+1 it just sounds like you're tired. treat yourself to some carbs and get a good night of sleep, and you'll probably feel much better.

Jarrett2

This.

Jarrett2

The longer I ride, the more I realize that I feel the effects of a hard day on the day(s) after than I do on the day. So its up to me to moderate that output accordingly.

Live and learn or rather ride and learn in this case.

Pakiwi

Thanks. I guess it surprised me because I have felt so good this year and nice to get 3500 ft of climbing in. Its days like that the extra weight really sucks.

ohiogsp

Same here 1 gu every hour but as everyone said your legs r tired. Rest then when u ride again it will feel like u can do anything.

indyfabz

Give Perpetuem by Hammer a try. You can buy it in individual packets so you can try it without committing to a large quantity. I take it with me on loaded tours when there will be days when I won't have access to food for long, hilly/mountainous stretches.

baron von trail 

Oh yeah, definitely. I cannot believe how strong I feel after a day or two off the bike.

baron von trail 

Barring the fact that maybe you just hit a wall based on fatigue, I found that nutrition can be tricky. Like I said, eating solid food on a hard ride often does not agree with me. The problem is it takes so damned long to digest.

Of course, I am over 50. So that plays a part. What I do now is eat as little as possible until I am done biking. On days when I ride over a century, I will stop for lunch. But, that's more for fun than anything else.

When I do eat, I try to eat light,and I usually spend the first hour after eating riding at a moderately slow pace. If I am not careful: eat the wrong food, eat too much or try going too fast right after eating; my body rebels. It's far worse than if I just chose not to eat and stuck with the gels. Far worse. But, just riding all day without stopping for a nice lunch is sort of a bummer too. Can't have everything, I guess.

TrojanHorse

I think how you feel on the day of a ride also depends on what you ate / drank / slept the preceding few days.

TGT1

over training

And forget the protein bars on the bike.

Pakiwi

Correction that was Cliff bar

Drew Eckhardt 

You over-exerted yourself for your current fitness level.

To over-simplify, fitness can be summarized as a weighted, exponentially decaying (with six weeks an average time to lose half your fitness) daily average from the product of intensity squared and time.

IOW, for a given level of fatigue you could ride four times as far at half the speed.

How fresh you are is the difference between that and what you've been averaging (with seven days an average time to lose half your fatigue) recently.

If you were doing something equivalent to those three hours six days a week you wouldn't notice.

OTOH, 1100 miles / 11 miles per hour = 100 hours and not 1 hour a day since the beginning of the year.

You're doing too much for your current fitness level, and eating more won't help.

Pakiwi

Thanks. Good information. Still learning with lots of learning to do.

jsigone

your eating is on point IMO. Your stomach and only digest 3-400 cals per hour so pointless to eat more than that. Problem is finding fast digesting food that won't take long to break down. You generally don't need to eat for the first hour (unless you didn't eat breakfast), so hour 2&3 you added 500 cals total + what was in the drinks.

Chalk it up to tired day after a hard ride (sat). Keep it up, keep eating like that and you should be OK. If you put more effort it, maybe get a few more Gel will Caffeine to help give you a boost. Or a coffee stop is always good on long rides. Try to remember you are eating to fuel your body for later in the ride, not at that exact moment.

Drew Eckhardt 

It can be closer to 250 although that may be enough to cause digestive distress when riding.

Energy bars like those from Clif are fine, made mostly of carbohydrates which you can digest, plus fat for satiety and protein to stave off mental fatigue.

It's more complicated than that. Your fraction of energy coming from glycogen varies with exertion level, training, and diet. How much energy varies with intensity.

Riders with good aerobic bases can usually do without food on rides under four hours. Much beyond that you need to eat from the beginning to stay ahead of your needs.

Drew Eckhardt 

Absent eating, hydration, and fit issues which don't show up until later you can usually do your weekly total time in one ride provided you're still fresh from not riding more than your usual daily average.

Take a couple easy days before then (don't ride if you can't restrain yourself), and don't plan on intense rides the following week.

You'll also need to pace yourself appropriately. For five hours you can't average more than your aerobic threshold which is where breathing becomes rhythmic, conversation doesn't flow, and lactate starts to accumulate. That's somewhere in Friel Z1 or Z2 depending on training.

Doing that in hills may take lower gears than you have.