Should I have waited?

[IceMan84]

@Wirt

2 things I notice on long group rides.

• Nobody has the discipline, lack of fragile ego or attention to go endurance pace. There’s always someone showing off and rest trying to match and even if it’s not a big contrast, even 10 watts over what you normally ride means you can overcook over several hours once those excess watts start adding up.
• You chat, you have fun, you enjoy yourself and you forget to eat & drink enough. and most people don’t eat enough already cause they are trying to diet on the bike, think carbs are evil, or they have some special magical body that doesn’t require fueling to perform. You said you focus on nutrition so you might be in the eating less than you think category. Believe me it’s possible. Month ago I almost doubled my carb intake. I pop 2 clif bloks every 20 minutes. That’s 72 grams of carbs per hour. I finish 3 packs in 4 hours. On top of that, I pause once at a gas station mid ride to eat another source of fuel. Could be anything that had a little more substance to it than pure sugar cubes. My choice is a pack of nutter butter and a can of nitro black coffee. 1000 total calories. I don’t feel hungry once and feel consistent surge of energy that makes me wanna push hard even at 3 hours into the ride. This in contrast to when I ate half the carbs and calories on the same exact ride and was miserable in the last hour of it every week. On the drinking side, as an example, mid 50’s on yesterday’s ride and I went through 4 full 26oz bottles of water (pure water no electrolytes in it. This changes in warmer weather). With all those carbs it’s essential to drink enough to help digestion.

Endurance ride problems are almost always issues of riding too hard or undernutrition IMO. Sorry if this doesn’t help and you’re doing all the right things but might be worth making sure!

Best of luck in the next big ride.

There absolutely were some egos flexing on that ride but 98% of us kept the pace easy until we hit the climbs. The middle, and biggest climb, everyone let loose and we all regrouped at the top. I was high zone 4 low zone 5 on that climb. As far as fueling is concerned, it’s obviously always possible I under-fueled so I’m not ruling that out. I say the pace picked up at the end, but that may have just been my perception. We hit a lot of rolling hills at mile 100 so the rest of the way in was very difficult to find a rhythm.
I think it’s just apparent I was overreaching with starting training almost immediately after that big ride.