Woah, my bad! I made a bold assumption without reading all 286 replies. Lesson learned.
What I get from this whole thread, (at least, the bits of it Iâve had time to read, lol) aside from a bit of amusement and cringes is that there are many ways to go about fueling z2 workouts. Why there has to be so much mud-slinging and disrespect towards each other is what I donât understand.
When I was a newb, I hadnât the slightest idea about fuel, hydration, let alone electrolytes, etc. I just came home from each ride ravenous, with a massive headache, then I would head to the brewery for a couple beers and no food. For TR podcast to remind people to fuel, preferably with carbs, is probably the responsible, intelligent thing to do. If you are in the low carb, low fuel camp I guess this is cringeworthy to you, but it doesnât matter - you do you!
As for me, I take a moderate approach, taking into account all kinds of variables from my daily life. From time to time, I will try both extremes just to check and see if they are better or not. (And what Iâve concluded thus far is that any more than 90 minutes with no fuel is sub-optimal for me - but thatâs just me, a person none of you know).
Itâs interesting to learn about all of the different substrate pathways and all of the different options you have for fueling. But I go with my intuition and what works for me based on experience. Mainly because the vast majority of the subjects for all of these studies are men, so women are basically flying partially blind in all of this.
Thatâs a super important point. I reckon the baseline should be 20 % lower for women, just on account of the weight difference. @Dr_Alex_Harrison has a fueling calculator app that takes gender and various other factors into account. I currently use it and it works very well for me. I override some of the recommendations (e. g. I drink way more than he recommends), but I just know that I need about 1.5â2 bottles per hour (currently on the lower end since we have winter and I donât sweat as much).
@OreoCookie this is amazing user feedback! Tell me more! What sweat rating are you typically choosing? Have you been comfortable following the sodium recommendations? We can move the conversation to DMâs or the thread for the app specifically if you like.
Eventually we hope to have the biggest womenâs data sample size in history. My wife will be helping design the research. Will be very neat to share the findings with everyone once weâve got something useful to share. If youâd like to contribute to the end of flying blind, we have an app in beta testing youâre welcome to sign up for. Weâd absolutely love to have you! Of course, there will be informed consent when it comes time to publish and very optional opting in to anonymous data disclosures just like we do in a research setting. Thatâs a bit down the road for now though.
I leave the sweat rate at the default. I just know from experience that I should prepare about 2 bottles per hour indoors. Outdoors, I take two full bottles and refill as necessary. The recommendation matches what I consume outdoors in temperate climate, i. e. about half of what I drink indoors.
I have a question regarding the sodium recommendation: my kitchen scale has a 1/10th g accuracy mode. But adding e. g. 350 mg is not possible, so I treat the recommendation as a minimum. Not that I try to go beyond it by much, but it might happen that I end up with, say, 500 mg = 0.5 g in my bottle rather than 0.35 g. My thinking (correct or not) is that I should take in a certain amount of sodium.
I donât think too many people have a scale with a higher precision than 0.1 g, and I donât plan on getting a precision scale for that either. Perhaps you should not use sub 1/10th g precision.
Lastly, I noticed that your carb recommendations went up. I assume this is to do with Podlogarâs study that you covered on your channel? For the record, that has been working very well for me.
PS Is there a way to contribute to your app/channel? Iâd be willing to chip in a few „/âŹ/$ per month e. g. via Patreon.
PPS I liked the video that dropped on your channel today.
Sure, but just think about the quickest way to do this, especially without wasting water: youâd weigh all the ingredients on a scale in the bottle. At least thatâs what I do. I of course zero the scale after putting my bottle on it.
Just use the water thatâs left to cook your rice in the evening, the salt will add flavor.
If you donât want complexity just round it to the nearest 0.1 g yourself and realize that it falls well within all other uncertainties to compute the range of salt that is good for you.
I know that this is technically correct, table salt being NaCl and all. But is that how I am supposed to read the instruction? I donât think you could expect regular people to know that they need to scale up going from Sodium to salt. (I am well-versed in STEM and that didnât occur to me.)
But I think one way or another, I think your observation raises an excellent point: one way or another, I think @Dr_Alex_Harrisonâs app needs to be tweaked here: if he really asks me to add x00 mg of sodium and I need to multiply that with 2.5 to compute the amount of table salt I need, he should change that to table salt by default instead. Or he should change sodium to salt in his instructions.
The app now reads table salt in grams of the actual salt, or by teaspoons of salt. Or you can switch it to sodium citrate if you like. Either work and either give grams or teaspoons. You can toggle between each all on the Prep screen.
We launch publicly in January so if youâd like you can chip in then! Until then, let me keep polishing it up a bit. ps. thank you! Glad you enjoyed that. Tip of the iceberg. More to come.
You really iterate quickly. The change should clarify things. @Bbt67 really had eagle eyes there. Good catch!
PS Keep us posted on your service. (You might even want to touch bases with TR staff and ask if you could announce your service here. If not, feel free to DM me.)
LM Forest - looks like you have a lot of good info from a lot of smart and experienced people. FWIW as I was perusing the Forum and stopped here I provide my 2cents based on my experience and most recently and because of this thread my reflections of the last 48hrs.
Follow the advice and see what works for you.
At some point in a long Z2 ride you will need fuel NO FREE CHICKEN
I am normally in the camp of fuel all workouts. The amount depends on the effort. I always carry enough fuel both liquid and solid real food and gels. Better to Have and Not Need than to Need and Not Have.
Yesterday I did Bald(1 hour Z2 AT says Achievable) indoors light breakfast and 64grams liquid carbs, mandarine, 1/2 homemade energy bar Team Sky recipe and a back up SiS gel all in arms reach. @30 min mark mandarine energy bar consumed. Drinking every 10-15 minutes combo of water and energy drink. @40 minute mark I felt the onset of lack of fuel discomfort. Boom SIS gel discomfort gone finished workout.
Today I did Walker (2hrs Z2 AT says itâs a Stretch) indoors. Fuel liquid and water, 1/2 homemade energy bar, banana. @ 1hr 20min all real food is gone about 2 large swigs of energy drink left and I am starting to feel uncomfortable backup SIS gel was not replaced from yesterday so I have to stop and go to the supply closet and get gels. Needed two SIS gels @7min to go that uncomfortable feeling coming back again⊠but I decided just to gut it out cause I did not want see anymore downward blips on my Z2 power profile that would eventually make it STRAVA
So the point is I come to the Forum see this thread and think about my situation. As mentioned itâs all different for each individual but After Further Review⊠I came into both workouts with my glycogen stores too low⊠I had been playing around with fasting not for cycling but longevity(thank you David Sinclair) and was trying to reach autophagyâŠand while I did I did NOT have sufficient fuel intake for the pre workout fuellingâŠ
So there are a lot of factors that can affect what happens to your system⊠Anyways I just wanted to share my 2 cents.
A good book if youâre still into books is âAdvanced Sports Nutritionâ BenardotâŠThe 7 day pre race taper is awesomeâŠ
Good Luck and Keep the Rubberside Down
Close to identical kJ work, normalized/average power, and IF. But this week HR was a little lower (-6 bpm), more moving time / less stops, decoupling dropped from 3.3% to -2.4% (just call it zero), an actual negative split this week (more power at end), and Garmin performance condition improved from fair to baseline.
Historically 60g/hour is good for 3-5 hours, and longer rides pushing that up to 70-90g/hour. Then eating immediately after the ride.
Hope that helps someone looking to experiment on fueling/hydration.
Iâll give 90-120g/hour a try once my endurance rides get a little longer.
ps. thank you! Glad you enjoyed that. Tip of the iceberg. More to come.
so I have to stop and go to the supply closet and get gels. Needed two SIS gels 
