Help with food............
 

I almost posted in the 50+ forum because of my age, am having a ton of dietary problems.

I ride hard with a bunch of younger more fit athletes and therefore have to bust a nut to hang on. I am riding with a personal trainer/triathlete and anther friend training and racing. Since we live in the foothills of North Georgia, we don't have a flat space of road anywhere around us. I have seen heart rates on our rides that basically tell me that at my age "You're gonna die!!!!"

I find that if I drink just water, I start to fade around 1-1 1/2 hours. If I drink Accelerade or gatorade, I start strong and then totally bonk around 1 1/2 - 2 hours. I have a 30-45 minute period of total exhaustion and then return strong. I think my body creates an insulin reaction to all that sugar. Eating Clif, Power Bars and other high carb snacks help to upset the stomach, but do nothing for power to the engine room.

I have to really work to remember to drink enough early enough, but I am getting desperate for nutrition. At this rate, I will soon have a T-bone hanging out of the back of my jersey.

Any help would be appreciated.

Have you tried sloly nibbling some normal foods starting at about the 1-hour point ... like fig newtons or an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie.

If the solid food really bothers you this might be an occasion where gels come in handy.

How often are you riding and what's the rest of your schedule look like?

1.5 hours of hammering at a HR that says you should be "dead" is not sustainable for anybody.

About the heart rates..........,sometimes we run downhill and recover. We hammer, recover and play again. It's just part of the game when you ride with faster folks. You can get dropped and cool out or keep pushing, it's your choice. I think my riding partners love to push on me to see how far I can go.

Some years, I have more time for training than others and this year has been a tough one. I am allways stretching the envelope.

What I need, is a formula to recover and keep pushing. The commercial carb happy drinks and snacks only seem to complicate things. I have had a couple of >100 mile rides without bonking, but I had to take time to stop and eat a PB&J sandwich every 90 minutes. It kept me running and I actually felt stronger after 70-80 miles. It was the first time I scorched one of my buddies who is in great shape.

Surely I am not the only guy who can't subsist on sugar, nuts and berries. I am looking for other people who use concoctions that have some substance.

You can only metabolize a fixed amount of sugar per time period. 200 calories per hour is good. Fully loaded you should have roughly 2000 calories worth of glycogen in your system. Having enough glycogen stored consists of 1) Carb loading 2) Carb replenishment post ride 3) Carb replenishment during the ride. Of the three, the third is the least important. Loading up the night before does little as well because you can only metabolize so much at once. Eating more than 200 calories in one sitting only ensures that those carbs become fat.

So complex carbs in the days leading up to the ride, and simple carbs post ride.

I don't think it's a nutrition thing - I just think that you are riding too hard. You don't have the fitness to keep up with them, and you're utterly draining yourself.

Start riding without these "buddies" until you put in more days of riding. Somehow riders have bought into this idea that riding with better riders will make you better. But you need to take this into context. And that context is you.

BTW do they really hammer all the way up each hill or do they hammer into the hill, go aerobic in the middle and then hammer over the top?

banana and raisins
find older ride partners
take rest breaks sooner
blood sugar drops at 45 minutes
b6
b12
eat a good meal hour or more before your ride

I usually spend winters building a good base on an I-magic trainer, then work into condition in the spring. I got busy this spring and lost some of my base and am now working to replenish it. I try to include a longer 50-100 mile ride weekly to build endurance.

I work for a living, physically, and work out in the gym twice weekly. I am a mesomorph, allways fighting weight, allways will be. I am strong and aerobic stamina is not as much a problem as the anaerobic.

I went out on a flyer with my tri-buddy this weekend so he could log some miles on his time trial style bike. We put in a pretty strong 50 miler on extremely hilly terrain in 90 degree heat. My last 30 minutes were tough, heart rate not recovering much, but kept pushing.

I know I am running with riders too strong for my conditioning right now, but I am working on base and intervals on the side. I need them for the big pushes to get stronger. Maybe I should find some old fat guys to ride with, but I love the challenge of chasing wheels. I am like the dog that chases cars, can't help myself.

Just for fun, signed up for a 6-hour mountain bike race in July. Maybe there's just no hope for me.

I wish. Both of my riding partners pride themselves on their climbing ability. Both coast into the base of the hill, hammer the whole thing and dare you to hang on to the top. It can be irritating if you are riding in a larger group as it is not a smooth technique or efficient one. I like to hit a hill spinning in a big gear and work my way down as heart rate requires. One of the ideas when racing triathalons is to hit the hill in the gear you will climb it in. An old ironman buddy tried to teach us that. That way they aren't fighting with the shifters, risking chain drops, mis-shifting, etc.