Originally Posted by palesaint

We have a local race coming up on Sunday. By local, I mean it's literally a mile from the house. I plan to just ride the bike of garage straight to sign-in. You gotta love these kinds of races.

The course is a 2x loop. The loop is a very common ride for me, but I have never ridden it twice. I've done lots of long-duration rides, just different routes. Doing the same loop twice just seems.... repetative.

As usual, I did first loop pretty fast. I always do the loop as fast as I can, which means multiple 2-5 minute spurts of 180-190bpm effort (MHR:194). As usual, I was cooked after one loop. Then the second started. Ouch, I got to feel some serious pain. Halfway through I bonked. I consumed most of my energy drink and gel pack and still have 13 miles to go. Needless to say these 13 miles sucked and I was a wreck when I got home.

I ate maybe 400 calories 2 hours before the preride and had 300 calories and 50ish ounces of water. I am going to add another gel pack or 2 and a bottle of water in the jersey pocket for the race.

What would you change from above to reduce the bonking on race day? Eat more before... eat more during... electrolytes... reduce HR during max efforts... etc? I really can't drop my heart rate too much, as I need to be at the speed I'm riding to even contend. But spending ~20 minutes out of a 1:20 loop above LT isn't good for long-duration racing. My LT is roughly 179, tested by carmichael 8 minute max efforts.

Thanks in advance...