Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Nutrition woes

>So, on Sunday I rode for 62 miles (3 1/2 hours) at an average speed of about 17.5 followed by a 30 minute transition run. I thought I was going to die. Considering that the riders that I rode with are all pretty fast, Christina and I were the last ones. The wind on the way back was brutal so Frank made Christina and I ride in mid front of the group. There were only about 7 of us so it was very easy to be left behind. Onto nutrition and the main point of this post: I consumed 620 calories and 72 ounces of water during my whole 4 hour workout. And I bonked at about mile 45.I ate oatmeal and a banana before the ride.Within 75 minutes, I had a honey stinger gel. At the midway point, I downed a bottle of cytomax and a cliff bar.On way back, I had Gatorade. The last calories that I had were at about mile 45.Frank told me I should be having approximately 200-250 calories per hour times 4 hours=800-1000 cals.So I was deficient and struggled so much the last 90 minutes of my workout.And, I felt it. The last 15 miles were brutal and my run was more like a fast walk joggling type of thing. I had taken 3 bottles with me, one with cytomax and the other two with water. Most of my group had calories in each bottle. I need to do a better job and figure out what mix works best for me. Cytomax, accelerade, Gatorade, infinit, carbopro, gels, bars, chews, food, so many options and choices that it gets overwhelming. In an effort to make sure this does not happen again, and considering the fact that I've been so hungry every day, I decided to schedule a visit with my old dietician Ivonne yesterday and we came up with a plan:1. Approximately 45-60 carbs per hour of intense exercise. 2. Add a fat to my lunch to give me more energy. (avocado, hummus, etc)3. Try to do a gel and a caloric drink every hour. That's what I'll try and see which option fri the one billion options works best for me.4. Eat something (cliff bar or honey stinger waffle cookie at midway point or when we stop to turn around)5. Low fat choco milk or smoothie as my recovery drink. (choco milk is much easier)Let's try this again for my next long bike ride and compare how I felt....

2 comments:

  1. I have to work on this too. My ride wasn't as long so I ran out of energy at the end at home. We'll work on it this Sunday ... for sure.

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  2. For sure. We should be at around 200-250 calories per hour!

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