If you ride with two 750 mL bottles is the idea that one bottle contains 80g of sugar and one is pure water? On the assumption you’ll drink both bottles over roughly two hours.
This would be for a brevet where you’ll spend most of the time in Z2 heart rates. In other words if I was doing a 10 hour ride I carry 400g of sugar with me, to add to bottles as I refill them. For much longer brevets lasting more than one day, you’d look to re supply the sugar as you go.
I carry spork on events , so would need to work out how many g I get on the spoon end.
Yes but can also go much more concentrated in front bottle to reduce number of times you need to mix more powder into it.
I would die from hypoglycemia and those around me would die from my hanger.
40g/hr isn’t much!
Self criticism like this, in conversations of fueling, is a hallmark of disordered eating patterns. Professional counseling for OCD and/or anxiety are probably useful. Tread lightly with copious empathy and compassion.
Unless thermally challenged, or starting dehydrated, water amounts and resultant concentrations matter much less than the carb ratios as long as you’re in a reasonable concentration range. ie. 60-150g/L. (6-15%).
Shoot, some folks can handle 15-25% solution for shorter or lower-intensity stuff as long as total carbs are ≤100g/hr and ratios are reasonable.
If we assume I’m averaging 160 watts, that translates to needing roughly 576 calories an hour, assuming 25% efficiency. Over 10 hours we have 5,760 calories burnt.
Taking on 40g of carbs an hour , near fat max so we can go with approx 48g of fats being oxidised per hour.
Calories from carbs = 40 x 4 = 160 calories
Calories from fat = 48 x 9 = 432 calories
Total = 582 calories per hour
Seems pretty in balance to me. But I guess you are younger and putting out much higher average power when in Z2 (50-75% max) heart rates.
I currently weigh 75kg, even at 10% body fat, I’ve got 7.5kg of fat to burn and the 10 hours has only got through 0.48kg of it.
I’d probably only be able to manage about 160 W for 10 hrs too, though I weigh 94kg and 10-11% BF.
You might be much better at fat ox than me.
I generally recommend out-consuming pure carb burn. Reasons:
Reliance on carbs increases as fatigue increases. (assuming carbs are available)
Hunger will mount as your kcal deficit increases throughout the ride. Carbs are more easily tolerated than dietary fats during exercise.
If you do need any intensity at all, reliance on carbs will increase dramatically during those portions of the ride.
Elevated blood sugar during exercise just feels better to me! Flirting with hypoglycemia off and on makes for a miserable experience when 8 hours into a ride.
3x20min Sweet Spot for me today! Around 2 hours total workout time.
Fuelling started yesterday evening already with more carbs than protein for dinner
Then for breakfast 2 pieces of toast with Greek yoghurt and sugar free jam.
300g of rice and 100g of chicken for lunch.
Workout at 16:00-18:00 Had one gel with 60g carbs after the first interval.
Then dinner after was 200g rice, 300g chicken, 200g Greek yoghurt.
Totals: 335g carbs, 200g protein and 40g of fat for the day!
Got an easy 2hr ride tomorrow so a bit more protein after the ride today rather than carbs, would’ve had 100g rice for dinner if it was rest day tomorrow.
FTP has a big impact on fueling requirements, how many kJs of work did you do on that two hour 3x20? I’m thinking a 250W ftp would be about 1200-1400kJs of work if I did that outside.
I never eat any carbs at all! But I do love carbs, carbs do not fuel my rides but they do provide the funds necessary to fund my rides (I’m a dentist )
Last Sunday was my final #push@AeT day. After a few weeks of #push, #push, #push
Sunday was 5000 kJ of work + 2000 kcal base ~ 7000 kcal
The 6h session was fuelled by 500g 2:1 malto/fructose + 3 or 4 bananase → ~100g/hr
→ ~ 2200 kcal → 7000 kcal - 2200 → 5000 kcal left for eating before/after session
Before (mainly two breakfasts):
1300 kcal with about 250g of carbs
→ 5000 - 1300 → 3700 kcal left for after the session
Post session:
hourly food intake until about 1.5 hrs before bed. Slightly more fat now but still mainly carbs. Of course, always some protein.
What was special, since this was a longer session. And since it was followed by a rest day I did not close the energy balance. Otherwise I would have had to eat too much and sleep could have been disrupted. It usually works for me not to close the energy balance before rest days. And it allows me to eat more on rest days. Win-win. However, if another session is scheduled for the next day I have to close the energy balance. Absolutely important. I’ve seen the importance of this over and over again. And usually sessions are shorter, requirement to eat is less.
Ok wow granted im not doing mega 5 hour rides but am clocking up 10-12 hours a week this puts my 200g C a day into perspective probably not being enough. Might be why im fading after hour 1 in hard workouts.
For example today i did Tweed +8 and the last 3 reps were really really tough and i was flagging. That was with 25g sugar in the bottle plus about 30g from a flapjack eaten part way through.
^ that plus some trial error puts me at around 450g of carbs per day.
Hmm, that’s about what I would target for a workout like Tweed +8 (at 270w ftp). Believe that workout is 5-min intervals at 102%, about 40-45 minutes total intensity. Your issue with the last 3 intervals could have been with muscular endurance, and not carbs. For a workout like that I’d have two bottles with electrolytes and 400-600 calories of food like granola bars, Cliff bars, fig bars, and sometimes bananas or dates. BUT I’m not you…
Individualization of nutrition and hydration is a thing, and you can learn a lot from trial and error. TR has some balanced blog articles, and some that push high carb consumption during workouts. I’ve found I don’t benefit from 60-90g/hour during normal 5 workouts/week at 1-3 hour each. Have worked with a nutritionist, eat well off the bike, time workouts with post-ride meals, and for workouts over 1.5 hours up to about 3 hours have found 30-60g/hour (depending on pre-ride meal or snacks) works very well for me. I’ve done a fair bit of trial and error, including a few bonk experiments. Protein consumption throughout the day has also been important. Lately I’ve been averaging around 10 hours/week.
Beg my pardon if i wrong but you said you do what i did but this 400-600c is more than 55c. FTP is currently 225 so yes less but that does make me think i need more. Though it may be more overall daily carbs / calories rather than intra workout.
Eat meal within ~1 hour of returning home. If not within an hour, have a glass of chocolate milk and a handful of almonds.
Per hour on a harder workout I usually do Cliff bars for a little more carbs:
1 Blueberry crisp bar
250 calories
44g carbs/hour
pre-ride another 44g carbs as I’m leaving the house
Eat meal within ~1 hour of returning home. If not within an hour, have a glass of chocolate milk and a handful of almonds.
On long rides (>3 hours), I’ll supplement food with 1 bottle water + 1 bottle Gu Roctane (250 calories / 60g carbs) and refill every 2 hours. That generally pushes carb intake on those long rides up to 90g/hour.
Depending on intensity only 0-4 bananas for rides up to 2-2.5h. Really depends on intensity. Above 3h I fuel with maltodextrin/fructose mix. Depending on the context of the session 40-100g/h. My LT1/AeT is fairly high though, I burn through a lot of calories even at endurance pace. Getting the calories in is key.
This is so dependent on the individual context. But it’s not really rocket science either … or brain surgery.
If you ignore all the details regarding my food intake, then it pretty much only says “One gel for 2hr of 3x20min Sweet Spot”.
Thats 60g carbs for 2 hours.
And see, this is the issue with your mindset. 60g of carbs for the 2 hours of Sweet Spot only works because I have properly fuelled the day before and the morning of the workout. So by calling my advice overkill, you obviously don’t understand why the details are important here.
If I were to just “eat whatever” and then get on the trainer and that workout, depending on your strengths, previous workouts etc, you might fail it.
Yes, it might be overkill for someone who just eats whatever, rides their bike a bit, and then does TR just so they don’t get dropped on their local coffee ride once a week. But if you actually wanna get stronger in the long run, not run yourself into the ground, ride a lot (10+ hours a week) you have to fuel properly.
And the main reason I was so specific is because for me, those specific measurements of everything allows me to stay in a 500kcal deficit while also performing on the bike.
It’s 3x20 (low-ish) SS man, not an A-Race. Especially the carb-loading the day before just makes me laugh. I get having a proper fueling strategy for some workouts, but you should be able to do sweet-spot regardless of perfect fueling. If not, your FTP is set incorrectly.
I’m running 1000 TSS weeks without that much planning and still getting faster+losing weight. But, as I said, you do you.
Had one gel with 60g carbs after the first interval.
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