Long Distance Competition/Ultracycling, Randonneuring and Endurance Cycling - Hammer Sustained Energy

I got some of this stuff to try out for intermediate training rides, and went for about an hour-and-a-half yesterday...

Could not stomach the taste. Is there anything else that has a similar nutrition profile but doesn't taste, um, really odd? After that, I'm thinking about just going with actual human food instead.

i like honey and clifbars. and the mojo bars made by clif for saltiness. and gatorade. and p/b and banana sandwiches.:) :) :)

always go with real food!

I really like Hammer gel, but my friend likes "stingers" better for her stomach. I did try these gummy bear things she had and they were okay. If you like stuff in your water bottles: Amino Vital is very good. Gives you aminos and carbs, I also put 2,000 mg of Vit C in my bottles too. "Emergen C" comes in little powder packets like koolaide. You can have up to 6,000 mg a day and no risk of toxicity. My husband likes HEED, but I think it's nasty. But you could try it.

The only nutritionally significant thing in a gel is carbohydrates. There are typically 100 calories in a packet. Although there are some electrolytes, sometimes caffeine, and sometimes vitamins added, this is all fluff. The advantage of the gels over other sources of carbohydrates is they are quick to consume while riding.

If you don't like the flavor of one brand, then you might try others. Or, you can just use regular food if you like. A couple fig newtons will work just as well. So will honey if you put it in a flask. Lots of options. Just be sure that whatever you use is primarily carbohydrates.

I got some of this stuff to try out for intermediate training rides, and went for about an hour-and-a-half yesterday.

Good call, using Sustained Energy on a 90 minute training ride. You may want to review the Hammer Nutrition website and get some detail on their products. There are other products that are much more suitable for 90 minute rides.

Seeing as how I don't want to crap out forty miles from home, it seemed a healthy plan to test the stuff out, which is indicated for rides in the 3 hour plus timeframe, according to some of the materials from hammer themselves.

It was a bit of a "try it before you commit fully to it", so maybe just dial back the patronizing tone there a little bit, if that's not too big a problem?

it is recommended to consume a source of amino/protein approximately 1 time per hour of riding if you are doing long distance. Not a whey based either. As far as natural "food", banana is good, but I have had a much better result with prunes. they come in different flavors now too.

What, you don't like the powdered milk taste of SE? ;)

You can flavor it with Hammer Gel, or with Crystal Lite. That gives you a lot of flavor options. When doing a supported ride where SE is offered, I usually do a three scoop bottle (375) calories, with a quick shot of any kind of Hammer Gel (making 450-500 for the bottle). In my hydration bladder I also do a weak Gatorade or HEED mixture. All of this is supplemented with solid food, being careful to not consume the SE bottle with the food, which would be too many calories at once.

Richard,

Cool it with the attitude, man. I'm sure you've had questions before, and benefitted by someone giving information without being sarcastic.

Hammer also makes heed, which is meant for rides under 3 hours. With sustained energy or perbetuem for 3+ hour rides.

The biggest difference is that sustained energy and perbetuem have protein in them. The other biggest difference is taste. Any endurance product with protein like sustained, perbetuem, accelerade, etc, all tast like absolute crap, and make a mess of my water bottles.

For a good alternative, use HEED, which comes in a couple flavors and tastes much better, at least to me. And suppliment it with your own protein on rides longer than 3 hours. Heed is fine for a 12 hour ride, as long as you add some real food/protein bars in addition to it.

Much better to train your stomach to digest food/bars also instead of relying totally on liquid.

I did not care for sustained energy, no matter how much I mixed it up, it had a gritty taste to it.. I do like the heed product..

I got some of this stuff to try out for intermediate training rides, and went for about an hour-and-a-half yesterday...

Could not stomach the taste. Is there anything else that has a similar nutrition profile but doesn't taste, um, really odd? After that, I'm thinking about just going with actual human food instead.

slomo:

how many scoops did you use? My body can not tolerate 3 scoops, but 2 scoops in a 24 ounce sits just fine.

i've never used sustained energy. i always use perpetuem with a little hammer gel in it.

Weirdly enough, I was out for about 4 hours yesterday, and tried it again, in the "multi-hour bottle" concentration, which was about three times normal concentration (9 scoops in a 28 ounce bottle) and found that the flavor at that strength was somehow less unpleasant. With less water, I also had to drink less of the stuff, and just hydrate with regular water in the other two bottles.

Still not crazy about the whole protein flavorless milky concept, but may give it another try.

Essentially, though I know it's for very long events, I wanted to be sure that it didn't make me feel ill beforehand... I get reflux in normal life from a random array of foods, so best to be careful beforehand.

Do you folks just add extra gel to the mix in the water bottles? Just bumping up the calorie content?

Finally, hammer says not to use anything with simple sugar along with the products they sell... is this really that significant? Wanted to know how careful to be with combining stuff. They seem to cover a lot of bases, but it is not cheap to figure on 8/10/12 hours at the prices that the powdered stuff goes for.

Can someone please explain the need for protein on long rides? I've always thought that protein was best taken after a ride for recovery and one would be better off taking in calories from quality carbs during the ride. What is the big benefit that would make someone put up with the grit and all the other negatives associated with taste?

Ultracycling Q&A on the use of protein during endurance rides ("http://www.ultracycling.com/nutrition/nutrition_qa_072001.html)

in brief: some protein is good, as it can help repair muscles during your event and proides some fuel and a bit of sodium. Don't use it as primary fuel source because it's rather inefficient and increases your hydration needs.

As I understand it, on longer rides, you need the protein for whatever your body uses protein for, and probably more than usual because you're putting your body through a lot of wear and tear. But I just eat some luncheon meat or whatever at the controls or every 50 miles or so and I figure that takes care of it. For randonneuring, I just don't see a great deal of benefit to Perpetuem or SE. And as Machka has pointed out, it's illegal in Canada and maybe elsewhere, so it seems to me like a good idea to learn to just eat real food for protein.

Watch out on long, hot rides if you're using Perpetuem (and maybe the same is true of SE): The stuff can go off in a few hours and make you feel pretty queasy. Just fill a flask with the powder and you can pour in a little water when you want to eat the stuff. I thought I'd never touch the stuff again after a rather disastrous 400k where it made me nauseous, but I tried it again a year later, using the "keep it dry in a flask" trick, and it was OK. But unless you're trying to set speed records, I'm not sure I see the point.

As I understand it, you start cannibalizing muscle tissue for energy at a certain point... so adding protein prevents that from happening, supposedly.

I just find the idea of a consistent intake of a relatively complete energy source much easier to deal with mentally as opposed to fiddling away with the numbers in my head all the time. If I know I need to consume "X" volume in "Y" hours and I will then be getting as much caloric input as I can absorb, then I won't worry about under or overeating. Also, I'm planning on doing all the training miles solo, without wanting to bring a lock and stop at convenience stores along the way.

Ultracycling Q&A on the use of protein during endurance rides ("http://www.ultracycling.com/nutrition/nutrition_qa_072001.html)

in brief: some protein is good, as it can help repair muscles during your event and proides some fuel and a bit of sodium. Don't use it as primary fuel source because it's rather inefficient and increases your hydration needs.

I've read something similar to that as well, but I always thought that muscle repair/rebuilding happens primarily at night during sleep. Trying to repair muscles while in the process of tearing them down seems like trying to build a sand castle at the waterline while the tides coming in. Also, I understand that protein is only used as a fuel as a last resort after the body has burned through fuel from carbs.

Hopefully, I don't sound too argumentative (definitely not my intention), but I haven't come across anything that would suggest that taking in X amount of protein during a ride provides a significant benefit to be worth the trouble/worry of using a supplement like Perpetuem, etc. except from the manufacturers of those products. I am willing to listen to others input on this though.

There is a process by which muscles are torn up to make glucose, not specifically because of overuse (which builds muscle) but just literally that your body eats your own muscle tissue... if you can't absorb enough carbohydrates per hour, you start burning off muscle tissue. I believe that a source of protein being present isn't intended to rebuild torn fibers, but to keep your body from metabolizing healthy muscle tissue after a certain number of hours of activity (once you run out of stored glycogen, among other things, at about 2000 calories from what I recall, depending on body size.)

I believe that a source of protein being present isn't intended to rebuild torn fibers, but to keep your body from metabolizing healthy muscle tissue after a certain number of hours of activityWhew, after some of the other posts, I wondered whether anyone had an accurate understanding of why dietary protein is a essential sooner or later. Dietary protein, if it is a "complete" protein will contain all the building blocks necessary for the body to assimilate and transport into fatty-acid proteins which eventually repair and maintain organs and tissues. (In other words, your body.)

Your body doesn't really "speed up" metabolizing muscle or organ tissue for energy, it just fails to "keep up" with repairing and replacing cells during heavy exercise.

Anyone interested in this sort of thing should understand that just because "dietary protein" is good for you, that it somehow helps exercise performance as well. Whether or not you benefit from adding dietary protein to your exercise diet is not predictable across a range of exercise-time-frames and differing exercise intensities.

I suggest the protein containing exericise-diet drinks are a good training aid, but do not increase exercise performance in events lasting less than 8 hours. However, biased studies state otherwise.

SE and either choclate or espresso hammer gel tastes ALOT like yoohoo....im with the guys who dont dig SE on its own though, a bit too funky...

I dont know anyone who likes the tast of SE but if that is what was available I take it. I try to squeeze hammer gel from my carry bottle into it. In my best preparation I drink Heed in a camelback and carry Perpetuem for calory ingestion in a bottle. On long rides I carry a bag of Perpetuem for a sustaining calorie source. I still eat but attempt to stay away from sugars. Although if I am really wiped at say mile 175 I become the hypocrite and grab anything. Sugars tend to upset my stomach at a certain point.
I recommend the e-cap website for a full discussion on endurance nutrition. I am no expert but like the use of complex carbs rather than sugar. Also, the mild flavoring of Heed and perpetuem seem to work for me.

I never thought Sustained Energy tasted like powdered milk. I thought it tasted like wallpaper paste.

Squirt some goo into SE the mixture (Raspberry Hammer Gel works very well) and shake it up often to make it taste better.