Mid Tour Recovery Meal

[Raedeke]

During a multi-day event, what do you all eat that night before and the night between the event.
In the case that you use up the bulk of your Glycogen in the first days ride. How do you get back that 2500g of Carbs?
Someone equated it to having to eat 25 baked potatoes.

Not sure I want to be pounding down a hugh meal. What is the norm?

R

[RWTD]

First take advantage of the immediately postexercise window where insulin response is blunted and simple carbs are preferentially shuttled to the muscles to restore glycogen.I have seen a 5/1 ratio of simple carbs to protein recommended here.Then every few hours if possible try complex carb based meals(brown rice/whole pasta /pizza/oatmeal/cereal etc.) or if your opportunity for multiple meals is limited go with a larger meal/meals in this case.I find when I am severely glycogen depleted it can take several days of normal eating to fully replentish further when I am touring or doing long multiday rides I burn so many calories the game just becomes one of taking in as many calories as possible in any form and so given my relatively low bodyfat levels I tend to up the fats as well as complex carbs(as well a protein during the evening recovery phase).Also this means you should start several days ahead of the event topping up your glycogen levels .Some load the carbs for an event by doing a long ride say 3 days in advance to deplete the carbs and then loading up the next two days while tapering the training.The depletion phase allows more carbs to be stored during the load phase.

[Pat]

It isn't that hard. Just follow a see food diet. See food and eat it.

On the tour I went on. I had some pretzels and stuff in my luggage. I had a small snack when I woke up. I ate a large breakfast - cereal, melon, pancakes, potatos maybe a scrambled egg and a sausage link - mainly carbos. For lunch, I ate a couple of sandwiches, some cookies, fruit, maybe some salad, at the last rest stop I ate a PB&J sandwich (not much PB), maybe a piece of fruit and M&Ms. Then after finishing I ate a high carbo snack or two or three. Then for dinner I loaded up on carbs. And snacked till bed time. If I felt a little hungrey, I ate some. 25 medium baked potatos (which are not that big) sounds like a whole bunch, but remember potatos are mainly water. The trick is to keep at it through the day. If you are doing big miles day in day out, you really need to keep at eating carbos all the time.

[Raedeke]

Sounds like as much work to figure out the diet and keep to the diet as it is riding the course.

My first step is to take inventory of what I currently eat and then I can adjust from there. I eat fairly well - but I can see breakfast being a problem because I never eat breakfast.

Who know that this cycling this was going to get me eating right as well??

I did find a great link on volumes of foods which supply 50g of Carbs. It's not a bad way for me to start looking at which foods to eat.

www.edinburghroadclub.co.uk/erc/jsp/coaching_article.jsp?contentId=3&pageIdx=2

Enjoy the weekend - Looking like a great day in the Denver area to get out and do 40 or so.

Cheers :beer: