Originally Posted by spokenword
hmm... so here's something that I've been curious about. In their literature, Hammer Nutrition says that you should only eat a big meal if you can do so 3 hours before your event start. If you eat one about an hour or so before hand, you'll accelerate the depletion of your glycogen and just get yourself tired faster. Is this true? Have folks experienced better performance depending on how they eat the night before and morning of a ride?
I can eat quite a large meal the night before, but I
cannot eat breakfast. That's not just a brevet thing, that's life. My stomach doesn't wake up before 10 am. Over the 7 years I've been doing this, I have discovered that whether it is the morning of the start of the brevet, or when I wake up from a nap in the middle of a 600K, 1000K, or 1200K, it is better for me to just leave the eating alone until I've been riding a while. After an hour or so, I start to get hungry, and that's when I can eat. Before that ... I'll lose it in the ditch.
I worried about starting rides on no, or next to no, food for a while, then realized that my body prefers it that way, and can handle it all right, so now I'm OK with that. If you're near me on a 1200K, you'll see me wake up from my night's sleep (
all 2 hours of it), stagger onto my bicycle (
grumbling and mumbling), and ride off down the road. About 2-3 hours later you'll find me in a restaurant stuffing my face with eggs, bacon, hash browns, pancakes, waffles, toast, coffee, and orange juice ... and I'm as happy as can be.
Give me a few minutes to digest some of that, and I'll be flying down the road!
As for the use of gels, I bring gels with me on all my rides, but I only use them for emergency use. When my stomach is having trouble with solid food, I'll use a gel. When I feel like I'm on the verge of a bonk, I'll use a gel, and then follow it up with real food. When I've got 10 kms to go before a control where I can get all my eggs, bacon, hash browns, etc. etc., and I don't really want to start an energy bar, I might use a gel. But I don't depend on them as part of my nutrition.
And I'm sorry to hear you were forced to try Sustained Energy!!
