This is a question where there is too much info available and you end up just being confused.
I am doing an FTP Builder program on TR.
I am trying to take training a bit more seriously so looking into fuelling during my indoor training and immediately after it.
When possible, I try to get a meal in 3 hours before but this is’t always possible as I fit my training around my work and if I’m in meetings, I can;t just start knocking back bananas or protein shakes from a bottle.
The sessions I have coming up are:
Traveler
Monitor -1
Pavilion
Carson -3
Dragontail
Wrynose
Can more knowledgable riders tell me whether I should be fuelling mid-ride on these please?
If you don’t know the workouts, three of them are threshold workouts for 90 mins, and three of them are sweet spot workouts for an hour.
Lastly, what recovery aids do you use?
I often end up eating my lunch or dinner immediately afterwards so do I need a recovery shake if I am about to have lunch?
My lunch is typically either chicken, rice and veg, or 2 pieces of wholemeal toast, 2 eggs, 1 egg white, some red peppers and a little chorizo.
gummie bears, cherries, worms, etc. Put SOMETHING in there while working out. If you have a computer that can track calories, then 100 cal of gummies/sugar for every 200 cal burned.
Not mid ride, throughout the ride. A fairly even carb intake throughout the ride is best. You have some individual limit in terms of grams/hr. It makes no sense to only utilize your ability to fuel,for half the ride. You are basically dumping in sugar to spare glycogen. You are also signaling your body that there is plenty of fuel so it doesn’t throttle back
This is not a place to be conservative, if you can fully fuel the workout (100% of calories burned are consumed during the exercise) go ahead and do it. At least try it. Most people seem to be limited in their intake rate to less than their burn rate. 200W is very close to 12kcal/minute so 720kcal/hr which is 160g/hr of carbohydrates. Its a LOT.
Experiment with how much you can intake without feeling ill effects. I have taken 160g/hr of plane table sugar with no effects except for not feeling tired. I’m confident I could do more if I made the increase maltodextrin to get a higher glucose/fructose ratio.
The max intake you can manage is worth knowing so you don’t limit your performance, particularly on a long event. A rider taking in 150g/hr is probably going to outperform a rider with a 20% higher W/kg FTP who can only stomach 90g/hr if the event is long enough. Its just simple math.
I learned the benefits of fueling long ago. I would drink a mix of maple syrup and protein powder on mountaineering trips…like a half a gallon of it on summit day
During hard workouts (Sweet Spot and above), I always have some carb mix in my bottles. For those 60-90 minute workouts, I’m usually aiming a bit lower (~90g/hour) than I might for longer rides (100+), but taking in more will help train your body to digest carbohydrates, which is really important.
As for recovery, I’d say that if you’re eating a good meal soon afterward, it’s not critical to get in a recovery drink. Just ensure that you’re getting a good amount of carbs and protein throughout the rest of the day.
I’ve found that two scoops of simple protein powder with water before bed helps me hit my goals and feel good the next day, but if you can get all the macros you need through real food, even better.
Ok, this makes sense.
I did a sportive recently (80 miles and 5500ft of short sharp climbing).
Half way through I had the option of either continue to fuel but risk a very bad stomach or to continue de-fuelled but keeping my stomach happy.
I realised my stomach has a very limited ability to take on sugary fuel.
Next year I have some far bigger events so need to fix that to get through those
Great, I definitely think I am under fuelling for indoor rides.
I will have a go at using a carb mix for the rides mentioned in my question and see how I get on…both in terms of performance on the bike and leg recovery the next day.
The consensus is definitely I should be fuelling.
I use sweets on longer outdoor rides but right now with the heat in England, I will stick to a carb mix in my water as it’s hot as hell right now
Already lots of good info in here, so I’ll add one thing:
For indoor rides where I finish with significant endurance (things like 1.5-2.5 hrs Z2 after some structure earlier in the ride), I always keep an “emergency” fuel source lying in wait in case I need it (backup high-carb bottle w/ ~150g, or even a jar of honey and a spoon), then I tend to pay attention to energy/motivation/HR-drift. If any of those decline, I’ll take a chug from my bottle or a spoonful of honey. My power/HR ratio in the Z2/Z3 range is pretty consistent except when I’m sick or underfueled (or recovering from hard efforts), and anecdotally it feels like my most consistent sign of underfueling on indoor endurance.
when you have HR drift/decoupling and intake carbs without stopping, does your HR return to its normal level for the power output? Something I’ve never experimented with!
It basically never returns to normal levels, but it does start to trend back towards it.
I think there was one very long indoor ride (4.5-5 hrs) where I got low on fuel between hours 2 & 3, had what seemed like an absurd amount of carbs, then kept going another two hours and by the end my power:HR had basically returned to normal 90 min later.
