Food/Diet XC Nutrition

jmcavoy

Likes Dirt
I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to add electrolytes to coke.
Or you could just drink a sport drink that is designed to deliver caffeine and electrolytes at the levls some scientist determined to be the best mix, in a flavor you can drink all day and costs about the same... but if you love the flavor of coke, go ahead and start mixing your own formula, plenty of people make their own sports drink all the time, it's a good way to find out what works for you as an individual, we're all different after all.

As for too much caffeine, any stimulant has less effect on the body as it gets used to it.
I'm not so sure you can just pile more caffeine in all day long and hope it has less and less effect... straight from wikipedia:

The symptoms of caffeine intoxication are not unlike overdoses of other stimulants. It may include restlessness, fidgetiness, nervousness, excitement, euphoria, insomnia, flushing of the face, increased urination, gastrointestinal disturbance, muscle twitching, a rambling flow of thought and speech, irritability, irregular or rapid heart beat, and psychomotor agitation. In cases of much larger overdoses, mania, depression, lapses in judgment, disorientation, disinhibition, delusions, hallucinations, and psychosis may occur, and rhabdomyolysis (breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue) can be provoked...with serious symptoms of overdose requiring hospitalization occurring from as little as 2 grams of caffeine
Hmm, that might impact your race performance... ;)

At your 1L rate of drinking, it would take about 24 hours or so to build up 2 grams in your system, so if you plan on using coke for solo 24hr hydration (assuming you can drink it for that long, I'd wager you couldn't face the sticky sugar taste of it after a few hours though), you would end up in hospital. For shorter races you would be find, but for an 8 or 12hr race, you'd hit the overdose levels that would give you some of the other minor overdose symptoms like nausea, the shakes and definitely gastro intestinal distress. And don't forget the issue of dilution rates, simple sugars must be mixed in weak 6-8% solutions or they will sit
undigested in the stomach and not pass the gastric lining creating stomach cramps and loss of apetite as your system backs up, unable to process such a high dilution of suger (coke is 11%). You can drink for a while, but after a few hours it will be game over.

But hey, I've never run on coke for hours, so what would I know man; I say give it a crack and find out... seriously, why not, the best way to find out is to try it I say... but let us know how it pans out, I would be very curious.

And if your events are shorter than 8 hours, then go for it, it should be fine.

I go through around 800 calories an hour according to my HR monitor, so I don't think I can get enough calories.
Your stomach cannot process more than 300 cals per hour, you can try and eat 800 per hour, but its going to end badly after a few hours. Give that one a test too, it's always something interesting to find out, just how much you can take before you get sick.

Plus there's no point shoveling in more than 300 cals an hour if you can't digest it any faster, as it's just extra eating you have to do on the bike for no reason and extra weight to carry for no reason, other than scarfing yummy stuff I guess :p

A GU would have to be around the same GI as coke, no?
Coke is 63, which surprises me and I stand corrected there, who would have thought hey! That's medium GI, so pretty good for endurance cycling on that front.
Some gels have fructose in them which has a GI of 20 though, so could be lower than coke, but whatever, a GI of 63 of good enough.

A lot of people here seem to run just GU for anything up to 8hr races.
Yep, me included, but the gels I use contains maltodextrine and fructose, lower GI and you are able to absorb these at a higher digestion rate than the 300 cals per hour you are limited to by sticking with a simple sugar like coke.

So anyway, I say we can speculate all day on whether it would work or not, but the only way to know is to give it crack. You asked for reasons why it might not work, and I've given some (that I believe are true), but I am always happy to be proven wrong, so give it a go I say, there's nothing to lose... let us know how it pans out...
 

adaib

Likes Dirt
For an endurance event, its important to carb load 3-4 days prior. This means increasing intake of carbo rich foods, especially pasta and bread and preferably low gi, however any carb is good carb. In conjunction with this, you should gradually taper off your riding during these days.
This is true for those who race and train casually. But its important to also consider, if you plan on building your fitness to a more elite level and hence doing alot more races (like every second weekend) then you simply do not have enough time to taper off your training before every race. I have found through trial and error what works for me, however you may be different. I have found that by placing my rest/recovery day on a friday, it provides me with sufficient tapering for any normal event, however for endurance events i often reduce the intensity of my thursday training aswell.
I have found that if i taper off for every race, then my fitness plateus out and i go nowhere.

But, if you plan to train like this, a constantly high amount of any carbs are important through out the week. High Gi, or low GI, your body uses it the same and it all gets converted to glycogen and stored in the muscles in the long run.
Protein is important aswell, i eat a smoothie every night, aswell as a normal sized dinner. It aids in recovery and helps with muscle development. If you have bigger muscles, you can store more fuels, produce more power through your legs and therefore ride faster for longer.
I'm just saying :)
 

Bodin

GMBC
In this year's Otway Odyssey, my plan was to eat something solid every 90 minutes or so, as that was how often I was stopping for a coffee and a cinnamon doughnut on my 5-hour roadie rides that I did each weekend as training.

A mate of mine who has had some seriously good success at 24 hour racing over the last couple of years told me he doesn't do solids at all and purely survives on Endura bottles. I just dismissed him as a freak, because I was pretty sure you can't go more than about 4 hours without something solid in your guts.

About 2 hours in to the race, I realised I'd completely forgotten the powerbars (and there weren't any coffee shops selling cinnamon doughnuts along the way), so I totally freaked and thought my whole day was blown. As it turns out, a single PowerGel (same as Gu) and about 2 litres of sports drink got me through to the first pit stop, where I was only just beginning to feel a bit hungry, but I still didn't really feel like eating.

I drank an Up 'N Go, ignored the PowerBars in my bag and went out for the Super Loop. About 5 minutes in to that, I realised the bite valve on my pack was knackered when the thing came clean off in my teeth and sent half the contents down my front. As a result, I ended up drinking less than a litre on this section, but I still got back to the pitstop not feeling too bad. The Up 'N Go I'd drunk earlier had settled my hunger nicely and I was feeling great with only 13km to go.

So I didn't take the third 1.5L pack that I'd prepared and just opted for the single bidon of flat Coke that I'd prepared the night before. One more PowerGel and I was off cranking up that long fireroad and through Britney's revenge, taking regular small sips of the Coke. It was really nice to have no f***en pack on my back any more.

I honestly expected to have a massive energy slump or hunger flat at some point, but neither happened or even felt like they were going to happen. And that's on top of the fact that I drank less than half of the fluids I'd expected to drink based on my training habits.

I can't put it down to being uber-fit, because I'd pretty much being doing only one 125km road ride a week for my training and basically nothing else. I think my main success was eating 2 really big, healthy meals the day before and hydrating very well the night before. I woke up feeling particularly good after drinking about 2 litres of water over about 3 hours before I went to sleep and a bidon of sports drink straight after breakfast on race day meant that I was never thirsty for the rest of the day.

Long story short, as long as I maintain a baseline of fitness (minimum of a 5+ hour ride in the hills per week) and prepare well the night before, I'm not planning on eating during races any more. The more I think about it, most of my mega-bonks during races in the past have been shortly after solid food.
 

jathanas

Likes Bikes and Dirt
I tried the liguid only nutrition strategy during the 2010 OO.

I was using Hammer Perpetuem as per the usage instructions. Pain in the arse mixing bottles every 3 hours but the worst bit was that I ended up feeling piss-weak in the last 2 hours. I was looking at around 6:30 but took an extra 50 minutes to finish a frikkin sorry mess.

During Avoca I ate something solid every hour, and drank sports drink. Finished strong.

In a nutshell, i need real food. These days I swear by GU or endura gels every 30-35 minutes and a Clif bar or vegemite sanger (both delicious) every 90-120 minutes.

it pays to eat and hydrate well the 2-3 days before. I refuse to carb load on junk, instead I pig out on oats, brown rice, sweet potato, bananas, and my wife bakes a mean oat-banana-sultana-walnut bread :) Nature gives us some great sources of healthy energy food, no need to poison your body with crap.
 

Benizmo

Likes Dirt
I was mostly the same for the otway. I took options of Torq bottles/pack, Torq gels, bars, and some new cold pressed fruit bars I have been using.

In the end I consumed 5 gels, about 4 litres of full mix Torq, 1.2 winner bars(couldn't eat the 2nd one), two fruit bars and a red bull shot for the final 13k

My carb intake for 1g/kg per hour was about spot on, my cal intake was about 500cal below what my polar estimated (which was 5146kcal!)
But overall I felt pretty good through most of the race, I probably could have had 1 more gel looking back now

If the weather was hotter I probably would have drunk a lot more Torq. I think the best approach is to have options available, particularly when you go through transition twice.
 

cooken

Likes Dirt
A mate of mine who has had some seriously good success at 24 hour racing over the last couple of years told me he doesn't do solids at all and purely survives on Endura bottles. I just dismissed him as a freak, because I was pretty sure you can't go more than about 4 hours without something solid in your guts.
I've been giving this a go after the same guy told me about his strategy and I think it's a winner. Endura optimizer 3x stronger than recommended, one bottle last for 3-4 hours. You just need to make sure you drink plenty of water with it. There's lots of protein so that seems to fill you up a bit. I'm having a crack at a 100 miler this weekend - expecting 9hours if I finish and I'm going to try and do the whole lot on liquids.

I've also be using some no-doze on longer rides - not too many but nice to have a bit of a caffeine hit, especially in the last few hours.
 

Pizzaz

Likes Dirt
I've been giving this a go after the same guy told me about his strategy and I think it's a winner. Endura optimizer 3x stronger than recommended, one bottle last for 3-4 hours. You just need to make sure you drink plenty of water with it. There's lots of protein so that seems to fill you up a bit. I'm having a crack at a 100 miler this weekend - expecting 9hours if I finish and I'm going to try and do the whole lot on liquids.

I've also be using some no-doze on longer rides - not too many but nice to have a bit of a caffeine hit, especially in the last few hours.
I've done a couple of 24 solos on straight liquid - it works and works well. Race Across America riders quite often run on liquid only.

I've used optimiser and ensure+ - they're both pretty good and the protein / carbs ratio is about the same... ensure has a little more fat and fibre though.

In longer races (8hrs+) your digestive system basically begins to shut down as your body directs blood flow to your legs to keep you going. For 24s, I now run on bars and gels for the first 12 hrs and then switch over to liquid food in place of the bars.

For marathon stuff (100km) I use bars / gels - just more convenient than using a bottle cage to hold 'food' when it could be holding energy drink.

There is also little or no evidence to say that protein _during_ endurance exercise is beneficial (think I found that on an AIS fact sheet somewhere - its a taxpayer funded resource and has lots of really good, well researched info about how to eat!). Basically fuel to get your carbs right and the other stuff takes care of itself (1g carbs / kg of body weight - although from memory unless your using something fructose based you probably can't burn more than 60-70g / hr...)
 

cooken

Likes Dirt
For marathon stuff (100km) I use bars / gels - just more convenient than using a bottle cage to hold 'food' when it could be holding energy drink.

There is also little or no evidence to say that protein _during_ endurance exercise is beneficial (think I found that on an AIS fact sheet somewhere - its a taxpayer funded resource and has lots of really good, well researched info about how to eat!). Basically fuel to get your carbs right and the other stuff takes care of itself (1g carbs / kg of body weight - although from memory unless your using something fructose based you probably can't burn more than 60-70g / hr...)
I agree that one of the biggest problems with liquid food is it's heavy and takes up one of the drink bottle mounts - which is why i think it's better suited to lap based enduros.

For a 100km marathon I use 1 bottle of "food" for the first 4 hours and then gu's for the rest, refilling the bottle with some electrolytes.

I wasn't trying to suggest you need much or any protein during an endurance event, I was just saying its good that it makes your stomach a bit fuller. I get pretty damn hungry after 6 hours of just stuffing gels down!
 

MDL

Likes Bikes
Just wondeirng weather you can mix Endura the day before? I'm doin a 4 hour MTB for the first time. I'm only just starting at this, a guys that does them all the time said he is aoming for 30 min a lap, so i was thinking like 45 min -1 hour per lap.

I was going to take a bottle with me and have 3 bottles with water and 2 with Endura. On the water bottles i will have a engery bar i made, on another banana muffins, another a gel.

What's your thoughts on the consumion rate? Each lap i will take a water and the next i will take a Endura bottle.

MDL
 

akashra

Eats Squid
I've found Endura to be a pretty good agar plate, so when mixing it the day before it always goes in the fridge.
 

cha_cha_

Likes Dirt
This is true for those who race and train casually. But its important to also consider, if you plan on building your fitness to a more elite level and hence doing alot more races (like every second weekend) then you simply do not have enough time to taper off your training before every race. I have found through trial and error what works for me, however you may be different. I have found that by placing my rest/recovery day on a friday, it provides me with sufficient tapering for any normal event, however for endurance events i often reduce the intensity of my thursday training aswell.
I have found that if i taper off for every race, then my fitness plateus out and i go nowhere.

But, if you plan to train like this, a constantly high amount of any carbs are important through out the week. High Gi, or low GI, your body uses it the same and it all gets converted to glycogen and stored in the muscles in the long run.
Protein is important aswell, i eat a smoothie every night, aswell as a normal sized dinner. It aids in recovery and helps with muscle development. If you have bigger muscles, you can store more fuels, produce more power through your legs and therefore ride faster for longer.
I'm just saying :)
amen. I can't lose weight though - i carry a lazy 5kg that i don't need but when i eat less and start dropping weight i'm so damn tired... should probably do more base...
 

drasnian

Likes Dirt
...I refuse to carb load on junk, instead I pig out on oats, brown rice, sweet potato, bananas, and my wife bakes a mean oat-banana-sultana-walnut bread...
You don't need to overdo the carbs in the days before a big one. You should eat meals as normal. Glycogen storage is developed by consistent training combined with immediate quality refuelling. As I understand it, 'pigging' out the night before will fill your muscles to capacity, and then give you some unwanted turd ballast, some unwanted storage as fat, and throw in a serve of digestive discomfort at no extra charge.

But i guess it'd be preferable to take a healthy monster dump mid-race, rather than an unhealthy one!
 

drasnian

Likes Dirt
...There is also little or no evidence to say that protein _during_ endurance exercise is beneficial (think I found that on an AIS fact sheet somewhere ...)
Interesting. I didn't know that. I'd read that the body starts to use some protein for energy after about 2 hours of exercise, and that if it can't source it from food intake it starts to use its own muscle tissue.
 

jathanas

Likes Bikes and Dirt
You don't need to overdo the carbs in the days before a big one. You should eat meals as normal. Glycogen storage is developed by consistent training combined with immediate quality refuelling. As I understand it, 'pigging' out the night before will fill your muscles to capacity, and then give you some unwanted turd ballast, some unwanted storage as fat, and throw in a serve of digestive discomfort at no extra charge.

But i guess it'd be preferable to take a healthy monster dump mid-race, rather than an unhealthy one!
You're dead right about going overboard with food the night before, that's asking for trouble :) The carb loading protocol suggests low-fibre carbs, for a good reason :) FWIW I've never had any digestive type issues during an event.

As far as carb loading goes there's proof that it works. The AIS website has quite a bit of material on it that makes for a compelling read.
 
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