hhnngg1

Have been off riding long and big hills in the past 6 weeks - still riding, but longest ride of the week has been a pretty flat 30-35 miles and not a hammerfest. (Have been spending a lot more time swimming - off season triathlon work.) During the 'in' season, my typical rides are 60-80 miles with 3000-6000 feet of climbing, every Sat, so this is a big reduction.

Went out with a friend on an off day this past Tuesday, and did a 50 mile ride with 3500 feet of climbing. Pretty brisk pace, pretty near a hammerfest. I felt great for 35 miles and 2000 feet of climbing, then pretty much ran out of gas despite bringing my usual maltodextrin on the bike. The last hour+ was me pulling up the rear, in my granny ring on the climbs, with no oomph. Not a bonk, but definitely not pretty. I was pretty hungry at the end of the ride as well despite no nutritional change from prior rides.

Legs were toasted for the next 3 days. I didn't even run or ride - just let the legs come back.

Since I was pissed at the total suckdom, I did the same ride today, this morning on Sunday. Felt great from start to finish, and finished the ride a good 10 minutes faster. It was probably a bit cooler today, but it's very clear that the bounce back from out of shapeness back to prior form can happen pretty quickly. I also had no hunger pangs on this ride - felt totally normal.

This "cool story bro" is just to counteract some of those posts I've seen where people go from out of shape, get hungry, and blame nutrition on their lack of performance. And then they train, come back 1-3 weeks later with a much better showing and say it's the PB&J or other special drink they took on ride. Which is total crap for these short rides. It's not the nutrition - it's the training and fitness (or lack of in the first ride.) And yes, this has happened to me plenty of times before so that it's totally expected, which is why I didn't change a single thing about my nutrition, since it doesn't matter at all on these 50 or under mile rides if you're not out of shape.

Carbon Unit

I don't have as much knowledge on cycling training as I do on bodybuilding but I think they’re enough similarities. I worked out in gyms with professional bodybuilders for about 30 years. I worked in one gym that had four members that completed in the Mr. Olympia, one placed second and all were in the top ten. A person can work out like a mad man consistently and if their diet is off, they will have diminished results. I would expect that cycling would be similar. I think diet and adequate recovery plays a big role in results.

Looigi

Cool story bro, but your anecdotal experience may not apply to everyone in any circumstance. It may also be a bit more complex than you make it out to be.

jsutkeepspining

nutrition plays a huge role in peak performance. obviously you wont go from zero to hero because you drink a certain type of drink, but that certain type of drink can have u riding 5% better. For example, this time of year for me is all about big miles and solid intensity. the difference between finishing threshold intervals at the end of a 4 hour ride is often what i eat during the ride.

gregf83 

Your second ride may have felt easier if you did it on your own rather than with a partner. On your own you are less likely to hit the climbs as hard and your power doesn't vary as much. Did you measure your NP during the rides?

DGoeder

Couldn't agree more. Just today, I had the same realization. I did my first century this summer and trained as hard as I could to get ready for it. Since then I really backed off on the distances and frequency of riding while still maintaining a reasonable diet. Then I got cold here, so I hadn't even ridden in a few weeks.
Today was unseasonably warm minis the strong wind. I couldnt resist getting in what might be my last warm ride before spring, so out I went. I realized very quickly that this wasn't going to be the enjoyable ride I had thought. Clearly, just that short time off the bike had much more negative impact than I was expecting.

jsutkeepspining

i didnt like the headwind today. made me go slow and have to go hard.

UmneyDurak

The correct answer it's both. You need to train to improve, you need nutrition to fuel the training. Well you also need rest, but let's not complicate things at this stage of the discussion. '

hhnngg1

To clarify - these are rides of 50 miles or less. These aren't 70+ mile, 4+ hour affairs.

springs

50 miles of "pretty near a hammerfest" with 3500' climbing is nothing to sneeze at. Agree with UmneyDurak that it's both training and nutrition, and with Looigi that things are not as black and white as you paint them.

Bob Dopolina 

So you're suggesting you went from "out of shapedness suckidom" on Tuesday to "race season form" on Sunday?

I guess I won't bother training at all for the next three months as it appears I just need a week (including 3 days on the couch) to get back in form.

Thanks for the tip.

jsutkeepspining

hey hes a triathlete, they are super human athletic machines

MarkThailand

I just started riding seriously (for me) for the past 6 months. I have trying to improve slowly and to test each variable individually (since I am kind of a science geek). I am now at a level where I can ride a fairly flat 100 km in 3 hr 20 min on saturday and then another 85 km in 2 hr 45 min the following sunday, every weekend. Once a month, I will try to get in a 160 km (Century) ride. BTW, due to my familial and work responsibilities, I can ride only on weekends and have to be home by 11 am = max 6.5 hours of riding per weekend. The weather here in balmy Thailand at the start of the ride is typically 80 F 50% R/H at 7 am and then 93 F 65% R/H by 10 am for most of the year.

These have been my observations:

1) I must sleep at least 6.5 hours before the ride.

2) Riding non-stop for rides under 4 hours is better than stopping and resting due to the immediate lactic acid build-up. I only stop for about two minutes to fill up my drink bottles at the end of hour two since I can currently carry 1.75 L of drink mix on my bike. I am still trying to figure out a strategy for centuries.

3) I do not need to eat at all before my rides as long as there are some calories in the drink mix if the rides are less than 3 hours. For longer rides, I need at least some dates or half a pb&j sandwich after the second hour to be able to go into the fourth hour. But, I am usually okay for the saturday ride because I try to eat healthy during the week but I need to eat a fair amount of protein on saturday night to be able to ride sunday well. I like real food like pb&j sandwiches and dried dates and my stomach does not like gels or high calorie drink mixes.

4) The heat does get to me - if I do not drink at least 750mL in the first hour, 1.25 L in the second hour, then 1.5L per hour for the third hour+, I am toast. My drink mix is a 75:25 mix of Nuun hydration tablet mix plus a sports drink with a average calorie value of 70 colories per liter. I find that Nuun Kona Cola mix with caffeine for the 1.5 hour really helps. Also, at the end of the ride, I usually follow with a 750mL bottle of plain water. I find this last bottle helps with flushing out the lactic acid and my legs are not sore afterwards. Because I sweat so much, I do not take any bio breaks during the ride and my first pee is almost two hours after ride, after I have had another 1.5 L of water and a recover drink, a sweet, strong glass of Thai iced coffee.

5) If I ride solo, my max speed is usually lower but my average speed is higher over three to four hours - 32 kmh average over the first 1.5 hours then down to 30 kmh total average for the second 1.5 hours (meaning my average speed drops by about 2 kmh per hour). My training has been focused on keeping up the intensity and average speed over a longer time period. My goal is a sub-five hour solo century by next year. If I ride in a group, depending on the group, my max speeds could be higher but the overall average is lower because the rest of the group usually rides fast but not so long (they all aspire to be TT racers doing 40 km in less than an hour, I think). SO, I try to train by riding solo with my heart rate, cadence, and speed monitor - I will be getting a power meter shortly.
My training distance goal is 75 miles on saturday and 60 miles on sunday within next year, then, eventually, 135 miles in <6.5 hours.

With Regards,

Mark

Racer Ex 

I had 3 cups of coffee and a gel for breakfast and finished 2nd at the track in the miss n out on Saturday. What matters is Mom and Dad and sharp elbows and cunning.

Bacciagalupe

Yes, the sample size of "one" is always definitive.

It seems somewhat unlikely that you can go from zero to hero in such a short period, including 3 days of rest. I don't even see how you're drawing your conclusions.

Alternate explanations include:

• You had a bad day on Tuesday
• You went anerobic early on Tuesday, and didn't notice
• Your glucose stores, for whatever reason, were low on Tuesday (and no, malto in mid-ride won't magically replenish them)
• Mentally you weren't prepared for Tuesday, but were highly motivated on Sunday

Yes, you need to train to perform well. Yes, lots of nutritional products are over-hyped. That doesn't mean "nutrition isn't important." You need both the training and proper nutrition, before during and after the ride, to perform well.

Dudelsack 

It's always worked for me.

Campag4life

I agree with this. I don't believe the OP can extrapolate definitively that his result was either training or nuitrition. It could just be a general shift in health...or sleep...or temperature...or humidity...or windage...or allergies he doesn't know he has. I would say most of us have been surprised by our bike performance for both the good and bad from day to day or week to week. I had great energy in fact yesterday in my 50 miler. Weather has been spotty lately and I have been spending a lot less time on the bike training. My energy level yesterday belies my lack of training. Temp however was perfect and a far cry from temps that depress performance. Maybe the rest did me good. Pretty hard to assign cause and effect.

PS: I also discovered something reading the OP's opening post. He stated he toasted his legs for 3 days. What this tells me is something I sometimes ask myself. How much do I really push myself and how hard am I willing to compete? Apparently not as hard as the OP. I have never toasted my legs for three days.
Which begs the question. How about you other guys? Have you ever toasted your legs for three days after a hard ride?

hhnngg1

I've been doing this long enough to know exactly what happened and why it happened. The results were completely predictable to me, as it should be for you.

Went from 'somewhat out of shape' to 'better shape' in a few days because the body responds really well to kicking itself out of shape. I never said I'm making real improvements on my personal bests, or close to racing shape - that's ludicrous. But most of you folks who ride hard know that if you're more than a bit off form, you ride hard 1-2 x, rest for a few days, and you'll be substantially better the next time out.

Pushing your "PR" ability is a different story, that takes tons of work over a long period of time. But it's fast improvement to get back a lot of what you lost when you're going from out of shape to somewhat in shape, provided that you're not way out of shape. (I only took about 4-6 weeks of light riding but never completely stopped.)

That improvement is absolutely NOT about nutrition, no way. Again, I'm not saying that nutrition can be willfully ignored, and I do pay attention to it on longer rides, but my situation is pretty typical of what people post on these forums and then say "wow that gel I took on the 2nd ride made a HUGE difference" or some other nutrition-related claim, when it's just getting back to shape. There is no question about this - I could have taken zero calories day of and been totally fine, at the same speed - I've done this enough times to know. Extend to 50+ miles, and it might not be that way, but for <50, for sure it makes no difference for me.

And regarding toasting legs for three days - that ONLY happens when I come back from out of shape and hammer it (when I shouldn't be). Hence the rapid improvement after 3 days of rest. I never can hammer my legs that badly on the bike even with 100 mile hillfests when I'm in shape.

jsutkeepspining

nutrition is important for hard ride. i could ride u into the ground in under 3 or 4 minutes, or you and i could ride for 6 hours and we would never need nutrition. simple as that. if your nutrtion is good going into the 3 or 4 minute ride u might last 5 minutes.

hhnngg1

Totally disagree. You may be able to ride me into the ground in 3-4 minutes, but no amount of nutrition will get me back on your wheel for that short effort. I could eat anything, including huge amounts of caffeine of amphetamines, but if you can drop me in the first 30 mins of a ride, nothing I will eat will get me back on your wheel. Period.

Now if it's a big pull at the later half of a 4+hr ride, it'll help ONLY by allowing me to not bonk. It's still not going to make me faster.

This nutrition situation is a lot more clearly seen in running races, where there's much less complicating factors of drafting and tactics. A fast amateur marathon is around the 3 hour mark. Average is 4 hours. A lot of people 'bonk' in the final 6 miles, in fact, it's extremely common. There is NO amount of food that will stave off this bonk. Your legs start cramping at mile 18-22, and it's game over. You can take all the salt, food, etc. you want, and there is no way you will hold off that bonk. For much more mellow but prolonged efforts like ultramarathons, you can stave off some bonks with careful attention to salt, but those tend to happen at the 6hr+ mark, at an average pace of pretty much walking. It's wayyyy slower than even doing a leisurely marathon effort, which is in turn a lower effort than a hard bike for 3-4 hrs.

And in those same running races, in any race under 2 hours, nutrition definitely makes zero difference unless you starve yourself willfully the night before. Nobody runs any faster by chomping gels, taking HEED, etc. on the course. Many fast amateur and above runners take nothing on the race course unless it's a hot 80+F race, and then they need only water.

Cyclists tend to think they're special and think that food and nutrition magically makes them better for these <50 mile efforts, but it doesnt. It'll stave off a bonk at the longer rides, but it's definitely not going to raise your threshold pace for shorter rides.

Ultraslide

... and I had such high hopes for this thread.

Campag4life

I guess what is important is you believe what you write. I believe it really matters what level of shape you went into before your holly grail ride that was so transformative for you. Maybe a single ride can jolt you back into riding shape. I am a bit dubious. So your thesis is really specific to you and may not be universal. I honestly notice no difference reflecting back on applying your dynamic to me. I keep a diary in fact of my riding this year with introspection about fit tweaks, riding conditions etc and how I feel based upon given efforts..
Again, I never toast my legs like you did...ever. My guess is I don't ride quite as hard as you. Only a guess. Again this whole discussion is more qualitative than anything. The hardest I toast my legs is the next day I can feel a clear difference. It never lasts more than 1 day. Again, I probably don't push myself as hard as some do...not sure how to quantify that either.

benajah

Human beings have been performing endurance sports in the "western" world since the ancient Greeks, and nutrition has always been reckognized as very important for efforts lasting longer than two hours. Along with training, and recovery, this has been backed up by thousands of years of anecdotal evidence and at least 50 years of serious scientific study.
im not sure the anecdotal evidence presented by a single person based upon their own personal experience really has much validity.
My best race performance in a time trial I happened to be rather hung over from a party and running on two hours sleep. I certainly would not suggest that people should start goi g out partying the night before to boost performance.

gregf83 

You speak in such absolutes that are not backed up by science.

There are numerous situations where someone might benefit from eating on a 50 mile ride. Not everyone starts every ride with their glycogen stores fully topped up. Even if they do they will still perform better by taking in (or at least mouth washing) with some carbs.

jsutkeepspining

i like to take a gu mid way through a p/1/2 crit... its under 50 miles most of the time, but the little bit of caffeine and noms are nice