Sportive feed stations offer a wealth of leg sustaining treats, but they can also tempt you into scoffing food that’ll just sit heavy in your stomach for much of the ride. That’s the trade-off.” Keep your head at feed stations “If you’re really pushing hard and going up the intensity levels, you’re going to struggle to have the readily available energy need there if you don’t use sports nutrition and only go for real food. It’s all a balancing act between performance and your ability to deal with the palatability of sports nutrition. Many people find relying solely on sports nutrition tricky, with plenty of riders using real food alongside their sport-specific products. So of course you can eat a jam sandwich or whatever it might be as you go around, but you’ll also have some fibre and some fats combined in there as well that are all going to slow down the absorption.” “Sports nutrition products are designed to just give you the elements of the food that you need in quickly absorbable form - that’s the whole rationale for them. Some electrolyte drinks take care of carbohydrate and electrolyte together.” Stick to sports nutrition
GET IT DONE NUTRITION GUIDE PLUS
“That often means one or two isotonic gels per hour plus what you’re drinking. “You want to get into your ride and settled into your rhythm, but generally, take a gel or bar within 30-40 minutes and keep that regular feeding going as you go along, so that you’re hitting about 60g of carbs per hour. The longer you can preserve you own glycogen stores, the better you tend to feel. “Generally, even with your maximum loading, you probably only have enough glycogen stores to last you for about 90 minutes, but you certainly don’t want to be waiting until you’re getting close to that point.
“One of the big mistakes people make is to hold off on the energy drinks and gels a bit too late,” said Barraclough. Setting your Garmin to alert you of feeding intervals can help you concentrate on the riding instead Pascal Guyot/AFP/Getty Images Once your nervous energy is released by rolling out of the starting gate with hundreds of other enthusiastic riders, nutrition is just one of the many things you need to concentrate on, but keeping fuel in mind is key to success. As Barraclough reminded us: “If you’ve carb-loaded properly, there’s no need to take gels beforehand.” Fuel quickly, then hit your carb goals Hold this desire in check, the resulting sugar rush and insulin response will do you no favours until you’re working hard on the bike. You could use energy drink along with a large serving of cereal or porridge if you didn’t want to eat quite as much.”Īs the nerves build in the lead-up to the event, there’s sometimes a tendency to feel like you’ve not got enough energy in the bank and the temptation to slurp down a gel can easily become overwhelming. Basically, that’s two sets of breakfast - porridge with toast as well - doubling up what we’d perceive as a normal breakfast serving. “For breakfast on the morning of the big ride - two or three hours beforehand - we normally talk about up to 2g per kg of body mass.
GET IT DONE NUTRITION GUIDE FULL
You’re rested and full of carbs in the 48-hours before your sportive - don’t spoil your prep by foregoing breakfast before the event. It seems unnatural and you feel a bit sluggish if you’re just loading up on food all the time, so you can use the carbohydrate drinks.” What to have for pre-ride breakfast A lot of people struggle with taking in a lot of food bulk when they’re not really doing the exercise while tapering. “10g would basically mean three carbohydrate-based meals in the day with carb snacks in between. “We generally say somewhere between 8g and 12g for most recreational riders, but it’s a little bit dependent on experience and what riders are looking to achieve out of their event - whether they’re just getting round or going for a PB.
“That’s where you would use grams per kilogram of body mass because it’s very much determinant on your lean muscle mass and how much you’re going to be able to store in your body,” continues Barraclough. Carb-rich meals can be supplemented with carb drinks to help avoid bloating Dušan Zidar - įinding out how much you’ll need is pretty simple too.