Heathpack 

At race intensity, you don't want things with fiber (like raisins) or foods that are more slowly digested (like proteins and fats). When you're looking for foods to eat during races you want simple carbs generally speaking. At lesser intensity, you have more leeway to eat more normal foods- still based on simple carbs but you don't need to worry about ingesting some fat, protein & fiber. Early in the event, your GI system is more normal and can handle greater variety of foods. The longer you've been riding intensely, the more dysfunctional your GI tract becomes. So one strategy I use is to eat a lot early in the event because I know my consumption may of necessity become curtailed later on. I may not be able to consume solid food any more, I might be down to the calories I can consume via my water bottles.

I personally have trouble drinking electrolyte solutions for hours on end, it upsets my stomach and makes it hard for me to continue consuming calories. So the strategy that I have developed on long intense rides is to start with honey & lemon in my bottles and I don't switch to electrolytes until I'm sweating. My events tend to start when it's cool, so I have a few hours of drinking honey-lemon-water before I move on to electrolytes. I don't like Heed, it tastes chemically to me. I used Skratch, which has proportionally way more sodium & potassium and slightly less carb/calories.

As far as eating goes, I tend to eat homemade items early- things like coconut-sea salt-chocolate rice balls (a recipe I made up based on a Skratch Labs recipe). I shape these in little cubes that fit neatly into my bento box and I package them 4 cubes to a package. Each package is 175 cal. That plus most of my bottle (I have large bottles) of water-honey comes out to 250 cal/hr. So it's simple- I set my Garmin timer to go off every 15 min. When it goes off, I eat 1 rice cube and take a few sips of water. I can fit 3 rows of these rice cubes in my Bento box & I have 3 hours of water in my bottles, so there's my first three hours of nutrition.

After 3 hours, I switch to Skratch and Clif Shot Bloks. The Bloks are all carb, and physically easy to eat on the bike. They are 200 cal per package, 6 to a package. I eat two when my timer goes off on an even number ie at 4:00 and 4:30. And one when my time goes off on an odd number ie at 4:15 and 4:45. Because this is easy to remember- two is even and one is odd. Again, I'm getting my calories & hydration and it works out to around 250 call/hr.

Its important to drink every time you eat, because a little bit of fluid is necessary for your body to break food down. If you eat without drinking, you will pull fluid from your blood stream into your stomach to digest the food and this will pull the fluid out of your vascular system, which you don't want when racing. I personally delay eating if I can't drink.

The schedule that I outlined above is of course in theory. For me on the road, I might be doing a steep climb and unable to eat (because I can barely breathe) or I might be descending and going too fast to eat. But I try to stay on schedule as much as possible- sometimes pushing the eating/drinking times around a little bit. You do have to be careful to not put too much into your GI tract at once, though. The more particles that are in your stomach all at once, the more osmolar your chyme (liquidy partially digested stomach contents) is. These words aren't hugely important just the concept that the more stuff that's in your stomach the more your body will try to balance the osmolality of the stomach contents relative to the blood- too much stuff in your stomach can result in dehydration, bottom line. So I use some judgement- if I got 45 minutes behind on eating, for example, I wouldn't just try to stuff all the missed calories into myself all at once. I'd eat a little extra as soon as I could and see how I felt. Then a little more the next time. Sometimes I can make up the deficit, sometimes I can't. If I'm worried I'm getting dangerously behind, I might even back off on intensity some to allow for increased digestion.

All of this must be tested in training and different things work for different people. Mostly you just want to figure out something carb-intensive that is simple to execute for the kind of rides you're doing.

CanadianBiker32

Thanks so much for the long write up. very helpful . I do have the Clif Shot Bloks i like consuming them over the Clif gels for some reason
but the Clif Shot Bloks still have the organic maltodextrin. I am still worried of them just going through my system, and making me do another emergency (number 2 ) in the bush again.

however i like how each cube is down to smaller calories, instead of doing just one 100 calories at one time.

for electrolytes i stopped using HEED and just back on gaterade as that just agrees with my system for some reason, (yes i know its more chemical vs HEED) but it works
so always a learning experience

Rollfast

Whatever happen to water and eating good meals regularly? Gels and candy bars are placebos.

Heathpack 

We're talking about eating & drinking during racing, what do you expect OP to do, sit down with a picnic during the middle of his mountain bike race? The reality is that during races, electrolytes are lost & need replacing, huge calorie deficits are racked up, GI function is compromised. Eating, drinking and maintaining performance at race intensity is way different than everyday riding.

CanadianBiker32

Just a question do you think consuming Oero cookies during a race would work? anyone try? 2 cookies is 110 calories. i know there is fat there, but more real vs a gel almost? figure i ask before i try in next training ride

Heathpack 

IMO too much fat

sprince

You do realize that this commercial was a joke?

Yeah, you did 21 gels and didn't throw up, but...

sprince

Picnic? No. But you still need to utilize a little common sense.

I think Rollfast has a valid point. The term placebo might be a little strong, but when your muscles are seriously under stress the brain can get the short end of the stick due to glucose levels, and caffeine and sugar does more for the brain in that situation (short term) than the muscles.

If the OP feels like he has to ingest 21 gels then something is wrong. Doing 99 miles of mtb in 7 hours is certainly respectable. But I can't help but wonder what might be accomplished with decent nutrition. I'm also curious about what he eats pre-ride, and days off.

Machka 

They'd be way too sweet for me. Is there a reason you keep going for the really sweet stuff?

Heathpack 

Out of curiosity, do you do any racing or timed events at the multi-hour level?

Shimagnolo

Nutella is candy in the form of a spread.
Sugar & vegetable oil, flavored with nut & chocolate.

Nutella. The full (correct) list of ingredients - Catherine Saxelby's Foodwatch

gregf83 

'race intensity' is a function of duration and the intensity of a 7 hr race is much different than a 1 hr race. Most riders can handle normal food over the duration of a 7 hr ride/race. Pro cyclists aren't living on gels for 5-7 hr races. I agree mostly carbs is good but eating bread or rice or dates mixed in with a little fat for flavor shouldn't be a problem for a long ride.

If the OP is serious about a 7 hr race he'll have plenty of time to experiment prior to the race. I suspect the biggest problem is that he doesn't train at the same duration/intensity as the race so it gets confusing as to what is causing problems. Could also just be nerves and have nothing to do with what he's eating.

Heathpack 

Totally agree that the food itself may not be a huge factor in the GI distress issues.

Also note what I pointed out that I do in long multi-hour race-intensity (ie around 75-80% threshold) events- coconut, rice & chocolate are not exactly lacking in fat and a little fiber. This is not exclusively what I would eat, but that's a favorite, and that type of thing is the gist of the macronutrient composition that Id aim for. My personal experience is that I can digest a way greater variety of things early (as in the first three hours) and after that my GI tract has a lot of trouble with something like a sandwich, which contains protein & fat. A "meal," as one poster suggested, would be impossible.

Most of my personal approach was developed as a result of trial and error, I practiced a lot of it in training and made plenty of mistakes.

In a 1 hour race, ie at 100%, I don't eat anything but I'm not basing my comments on extrapolating from a 1 hour race.

gregf83 

Doesn't hurt to take something for a 1 hr race as well. No shortage of studies showing up to 5% improvement in a 1 hr time trial with glucose. Although, mouth rinse with carb sol'n also seems to work.

Heathpack 

Not possible, I'm talking about time trials. There is no respite at any point. Plus no way would I come out of aero for that. I also don't drink, although I'm open to doing so if it's hot enough. But I just finished my season today. I'm taking the hot months off from racing for the most part. Maybe some 20k stuff, here and there, but nothing serious.

BTW, I was chasing a woman down today & I knew two things about her as soon as I got close enough to see her water bottles: 1. I'd probably beat her and 2. She does care enough about aero dynamics to ride without bottles.

CanadianBiker32

thanks everyone for all the help

gregf83 

Whether you believe the studies is up to you but even a 2% improvement is worth learning to drink while riding in an aero position. You don't have to stop pedaling. Also, many bikes have been tested to be more aero with a bottle on the downtube so even if you don't use it you could be a little faster.

This guy has some experience with TTs:

Heathpack 

Lol, typical BF thing, assuming the other guy knows nothing.

So beyond the scope of this thread, but I actually do know what I'm doing. My fitter is the guy who does much of the testing that sets the industry standard for aero products, he is a big TT guy. He would like me to race with a specific bottle that mounts on the aerobar extensions, is will give me free watts. I am small though and my bike is small, the bottle won't fit and also leave my Garmin in a place where I can see it and which is reasonably out of the airflow. It could in theory be mounted on top of the aero water bottle but we all think that would likely ruin the aero-ness of the bottle.

So I have discussed this with my coach, who is also a big TT guy. He has in the past rigged a regular down tube (or seat tube, I don't remember the details) aero water bottle in the past and run drinking tubing along the frame to his mouth. He used to race in extreme heat (Texas summer), so this was necessary. I've considered trying this myself but there are a lot of unknowns as far as how it would affect aerodynamics of the TT bike. Right now my first priority is getting some custom wedge-shaped spacers made to enable me to maintain the aero-ness of my basebar by keeping it flat and raising my hands to improve aerodynamics of my hand position. This is the first priority because everyone agrees its almost guaranteed free watts whereas the drinking system could be a net negative. Its easy for me to not race in the heat, our TT season runs Sept through June.

So its not that I'm unwilling to "believe the data," its just that everything on a TT bike is a trade-off. Right now, drinking for me is not possible on the TT bike because it would have to be done from a regular water bottle, which I'd have to break aero to use. I know that I did not get into all of that when I said I don't eat or drink during a 1 hour race, that its not possible. But getting into all that seemed beyond the scope of what we're discussing in OP's thread. I am a newby to TTing but I have had a very successful first season, including making the podium at both of our State TT Championships. I am connected to some very excellent people between my coach and my fitter, so I'm pretty solid in my knowledge base actually.

Ditto for my experience with eating during long events. Last year, I did a series of the road version of OPs mt bike race- long timed events with much climbing- all over 10k feet and with distances ranging from 100-125 miles. Easier actually than a 100 mi mt bike race by a good margin. But going through that, I worked through a lot of the same nutrition hydration issues as OP. I developed what I do based on some basic principles that I was taught and read about and then by putting those ideas into practice and testing them in race conditions. Nutrition is pretty individual but there for sure are basic principles everyone can apply, which is what I'm trying to share.

So I get it that you are more experienced than I am, but I am not posting from a place of ignorance in any way.

dim

I've read that some people who have stomach problems when eating during strenuous excercise eat baby food (the stuff you get in bottles/jars) .... many opt for the fruit ones

CanadianBiker32

i am going to experiment with Gummy bears,
seems a bit better vs a Gel
has zero fat , and way cheaper
same amount of calories as a GEL
no maltodextrin
and slips down throat easily
like to see how this works, in a training ride in next few days

jsk

How old is that picture? When looking through more recent images I see he either has no bottle at all or a more aerodynamic TT-specific bottle. His fit/position also seems to have moved towards the more modern "hands closer to face" as opposed to the low hand position in the image you posted. For instance:



Not saying I disagree with you on the benefit of having something to drink on longer time trials including 40K. IMHO a BTA bottle setup is a no-brainer for amateurs not bound by UCI regs (assuming you find one to fit your setup).

sprince

I'd say about 2007-09. He's still listed at 85kg, but I think he's much lighter these days, and not winning as often.

Couldn't you get around that by sewing a back pocket onto your shorts?

Machka 

Some of why you're having digestive upsets might be because you're going for sweet stuff all the time. That would certainly make me feel sick.

Could be you need salty stuff ... stuff with electrolytes. From my experience, electrolytes settle the stomach on long rides.

gregf83 

The picture I posted was from the 2010 world championships (I think he won). The one you posted was from an 11min TT in this year's Tirreno-Adriatico. I didn't spend a lot of time looking for pictures so it's possible he doesn't use a bottle any more for longer TTs.

Here's an article where they found a benefit to ingesting carbs during a 1 hr TT: Carbohydrate-electrolyte feedings improve 1 h time trial cycling performance. - PubMed - NCBI

edit: It looks like everyone on the podium at last year's world championships used a bottle on the downtube: https://www.steephill.tv/2015/road-cy...otos/stage-07/

gregf83 

Didn't mean to imply that you were. The evidence I quoted for improved performance is somewhat equivocal so there's no guarantee you'd see an improvement.

That said, I don't think taking a drink from a regular bottle will have any measureable effect on your times either. I don't care for TTs but did try grabbing a bottle from an invisible aerobar position on the way to work today so I suspect with a little practice you could take a drink without having to sit up.