Heathpack 

@Stratocaster, nothing bad happens to you if you eat too close to a ride. The idea is that you just want the meal digested before you start riding. This is so that your stomach is empty and your insulin responses have returned to normal. In scenarios in which I can't eat 2+ hrs before riding, I either don't eat at all or eat a little less and make sure it's a carby as possible (carbs empty from the stomach fastest and are quickest to digest)- for example you could go for a glass of juice. Or I just don't worry about it and try to start out easy if I can.


When your body is trying to blow off C02, you have a quicker and more shallow respiratory pattern. @Carbonfiberboy describes it as panting, which is a good description I think, keeping in mind that its not as rapid and shallow as a dog's pant. The frequency is the big clue, it is rapid- not a big deep sigh.

Heathpack 

Congrats! 70 miles is a pretty good stretch of the legs.

Maelochs

Evidence?

And how do my Lungs use glycogen, which is muscle fuel?

If I cannot breathe, sure, my body is more likely to go to glycogen (oxygenated glucose) but why would higher blood sugar do that? And in any case, if my body is burning all the fuel I can give it, blood sugar sin't going to spike and rop unless I fail to eat.

I am pretty sure sports science has examined a lot of this stuff. Probably better information at other online sources than BF (though the three posters who have contributed most have offered information which mostly matches my online research.)

To the OP: great job. I pretty much know exactly what you were feeling. Great description.

While I am sure you would have done the century if your friend hadn't gotten ill, the final ten miles probably would have been terrible, and the recovery would have been twice as long. You got lucky to get into that part of your range where your were stretched but not snapped, it seems.

Glad you enjoyed the ride.

Heathpack 

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say and I'm running out for a ride.


Blood sugar is very tightly regulated because its a vital food source for the brain. (Yes I know the brain can use ketones but it also need some glucose to function adequately). Hormonally controlled systems trump equilibrium reactions. Insulin is a hormone.


Insulin serves to drive blood glucose down not up, so I'm not sure what you're getting at when you say BG rises during a ride. Yes it does, after you eat. You don't have an insulin spike because your body is using that glucose. It goes down again as your muscles and brain use it. If glucose goes down too much, the body will pull glycogen from the liver to supply the brain and you sill see that glucose in the blood en route to the brain. You can measure all these things but you are not measuring anything detrimental.


Confused by your comments about the respiratory system??? Its the muscles that are using the glucose/glycogen. They are using their own stored glycogen or circulating blood glucose. The system used fuel muscle activity depends of the speed with which the ATP needs to be generated. Anaerobic systems can supply ATP faster than aerobic. So it you're working hard, anaerobic systems will be what you're using. This is not determined by blood glucose. This is determined by rate of muscle consumption. Concurrently your aerobic metabolic systems are also operating in the muscles and they are using fat and lactate as fuel sources. So maintaining an effort really becomes about managing the balance of these systems such that lactate (actually acid, which is what is left after lactate is metabolized) does not accumulate.


Gotta run, happy to chat about it further because I think I truly don't understand the point you're trying to make.

Stratocaster

Ha! You must have posted while I was typing up my last post.
Of course we care! I was curious and glad you checked back.
I figured sitting in the saddle that long would be an issue - I guess you can build up to a point where you get used to it.
Good effort! 15.6 mph is a pretty good pace.
Let me ask - do you think you could have done the 100 miles if it would have come to that?

Racing Dan

Just wanted to state my own opinions and not get in to the debate, but I have noticed that no one seem to pay attention to the fact that the brain runs exclusively on glucose, has no own storage and also cant use glycogen stored in the muscles. This means low blood glucose will led to hypoglycemia and all of the associated symptoms (bonk) even if the muscles in principle could still run on fatty acids or glycogen stored in the muscles themselves. Im not making any claims regarding preferred macro nutrient composition. All Im saying is your brain might run out of fuel before your muscles if you skip or severely limit carbohydrates and the associated symptoms (of hypoglycemia) is very much akin to what ppl ascribe to "bonking".

EDIT: I see Heathpack has already touched on the subject.

Scarbo

Beat pills. Just a little bit-o-wisdom I picked up from the invaluable "Addiction" thread.

RichardR1015

Yes but as I stated, painfully. The route was mostly flat so I could have kept going. I played a lot of sports so pushing myself is something I'm used to. I will honestly say, I could have done it but wouldn't have wanted to.

Stratocaster

I was just telling my wife the other day about how cyclists sort of have to "enjoy" suffering. "Enjoy" isn't the right word, but you know what I mean. She was sort of impressed with my last ride. I told her that I have the drive to push myself (unlike her )...I also have an athletic background, which sort of motivates me to grind it out.

Doge

Well, no. I brought up my kid to say I understand all the technical talk.
Quite simply I don't think a rider should eat, or use stimulants the same for 8 hours as for 30min, 1 hour, 4hrs events. They are all different.

It seems - "eat carbs" is the general purpose suggestion for every event and effort. I don't agree. But I posted that a page or so ago.

Zurichman2

Yeah I am also glad to hear back from you. I have done lots of ultra rides but I won't bore you with that. What I will say to you is that over 50 miles your probably need something more than water to keep from cramping up. I like Accelerade but there is Hammer Heed and perpitum(spelling) Skratch, Cylomax I think and a few other drinks out there that have protein in them. Before your next ride you probably want to do a 70 - 75 training ride before your century ride. Congrats on your 70 mile ride. BTW My highest one day mileage total was 301 miles in a 24 hr(22 hrs running time quit with 2 hrs to go as I meet my 300 mile goal)ride 24 hrs of Booty in Columbia Md. on a closed 2 mile loop course if you can believe it yes I did 150 2 mile loops pretty boring.

Zman

Zurichman2

So you finished the ride not hating your bike which is good. The other thing is some of the best advice given to me but a very experienced rando rider was that you learn more from your DNF'S(did not finish) than you do on your perfect rides. You had a certain goal of a fast pace. That is all well and good if you are really eating on the bike a lot. I think you have learned this. He also told me I should either slow down or eat more. I think your next century ride you should forget about how fast you want to ride it but just go with the mindset to finish it. Just my 02 cents.

Zman

Carbonfiberboy 

Been there, done that. It's weird, but you do have two separate sources of glycogen: muscle and liver. When you sleep, you are fasting. During this period, your brain keeps on chugging along, will you or won't you. So it's depleting liver glycogen. When you break your fast in the morning, it's important to replace this liver glycogen. That's the reason that worldwide most breakfasts are relatively high in carbs. IIRC, it's about 400 cal. of glycogen in the liver. But since you don't lose any muscle glycogen sleeping or lazing around, it is very possible to run out of liver glycogen on a bike ride well before the muscle glycogen is gone. I get dizzy and a little faint and of course have trouble thinking and making decisions. Eating carbs immediately gets the brain working again and off you go, actually a much smaller deal than running out of muscle glycogen.

f4rrest

When you eat carbs, it goes into the blood.

During exercise, cells use a mix of fat and glycogen to make energy. AKA cellular respiration.

This mix of fat and glycogen is delivered via the bloodstream to the muscle cells that use it.

What I'm suggesting is that after carb ingestion, there may be a higher ratio of glucose relative to fats available to these cells until the body can bring it back to the steady state ratio.

Perhaps this signals to the cells that there is an abundance of glucose for then to burn, so they may begin to favor energy processes that favor carbs

Carbonfiberboy 

I don't think that has anything to do with it. Effort determines the energy source. At high effort, there's zero fat used. At low effort, a trained cyclist uses very little carbs. There are graphs of this out there, google images.

Edit; I should mention that the above applies only to those who eat the usual mixed diet. If you only eat fat and protein, zero carbs, your body and brain will shift to using only fat, which eliminates the high end. Low carbers say that even eating a little carbs throws that off and your cells go back to burning carbs as available.

Scarbo

I think I remember reading once about how the self-indulgent used to spend their disposable incomes on shrinks. Now they have "coaches" of various stripes.

Oh--and "fitters" too; mustn't forget about those.

Scarbo

+1

I also find it a pain to be constantly filling my maw while on a ride and don't really need to. I typically eat beforehand and then go ride 100 miles or whatever. Not that big a deal unless you want to make it one. Apparently, many do.

Maelochs

But you do get, I hope, that not every Can do that ... and for some, that is not the most efficient method or the method which produces the best performance?

Different bodies, different minds, different goals ... Different approaches? Who have thunk?

Scarbo

I understand. I also understand that nobody on BF is on the UCI world circuit either (I'd find that surprising in any case).

I think I--as have others--are realistically assessing the OP's intention here. There is no indication that he has "performance" (whatever that may mean) utmost in mind; he just wants to ride 100 miles and to do so in relative comfort. And it is not necessary to gorge one's self in order to accomplish that.

Heathpack 

Oh I understand what you are thinking now. Believe it or not, I don't entirely disagree with you.

I actually have a huge training focus/semi-obsession (who me? obsessed with something?) on fasted or minimally-fed training. I think fat/aerobic metabolism is trainable and that it's a hugely important back-up system to carb/anaerobic metabolism. The better I become at fat/aerobic metabolism, the less I need to eat. Not that I think you *should't* eat. Just that I think logistically sometimes you can't eat. And the added bonus of fasted/minimally-fed training is that you can rack up some pretty huge calorie deficits which helps to manage weight. No downside that I can see, except not making your interval targets. But that doesn't happen (usually) and coach knows I do all this stuff fasted, he likes the idea.

The main difference is perhaps that I think not eating adequately on a century is a risky strategy- you just burn so many calories on these rides that you bring your body too close to bonking for my comfort. I'd rather eat than maybe bonk. I also hate to fade- backing off and riding the second half more slowly feels a little like failure to me and I am usually trying to minimize stopped time. If your priorities are different- you'd rather ride in a leisurely manner or you want the maximal calorie deficit or you're fine with a 20 min stop to have a bite, I could see trying to eat less to see how it goes. Still not something I would suggest to a newby century rider, but perfectly reasonable for an experienced fit person to experiment with.

Heathpack 

Well I think what @f4rrest is saying is that if there's glucose in the bloodstream, the body is going to use it. I think during exercise this likely likely true- because insulin responses are blunted during exercise, you're not going to store it. Therefore you're going to burn it.

And @f4rrest's comment made me think I understand what @Doge is saying too- that if you don't feed, the muscle will use glycogen or fat as appropriate to the effort. But if you feed, you will have an elevated blood glucose after feeding and even if your body could have gotten by using fat as a fuel, it will use the glucose from the blood anyway, for lack of anything else to do with it. And bundled with glucose burning, comes lactic acid production and then your body has to deal with metabolizing that.

I see the point if that indeed is what he's saying. The nuance here being: in the unfed state, the fuel used by the muscle is determined by the effort. In the fed state, the fuel used by the muscle is going to default to using blood glucose first and then revert to being determined by the effort. @f4rrest is saying that beyond that, once anaerobic metabolism is switched on, it persists to the point where you ultimately require more carbs to complete the same work. I'm not sure I really buy that latter argument but then again what is the point of those few hard efforts in a warm up before a race?

Anyway if that's what @Doge was trying to say, it would be interesting to learn if there are any solid science on which this thinking is based. I would still argue that it's not the production of lactic acid that is the problem- its the accumulation of lactic acid. And a large part of "fitness" as a cyclist is the ability to metabolize lactic acid.

Maelochs

It's funny ... we all have different goals and different strategies ... lost in it all is that the guy did fine and it was legs, not calories, which convinced him he had done enough for the day.

RichardR1015

That is how I will approach my next ride and first 100. This is a learning experience for me so I will make mistakes. If I "just finish" then I can sort of teach myself as I go. I like to push myself so it will be an adjustment to just sort of, go with it, but finishing is my goal so I'll have to keep that in mind

Heathpack 

Or not necessarily lost. It might be that this is just actually how human conversations evolve.

Zurichman2

Richard you did great on your first long distant ride attempt. Trust me in that we have all made mistakes and have learned from them. I am entering a new phase/frontier at my end of cycling. Since I was hit by a drunks mirror on my lower left side of my waist back in Jan I no longer feel safe riding my road bike as much after dark. One of the new crazes out there is gravel grinding rides/races. I bought myself a new gravel grinding bike a 2016 Raleigh Tamland 1. I have been trying to read ride reports from different races and trying to get my bike set up the best way possible so I can be successful at it. This includes asking plenty of questions on a gravel bike forum since it's all new to me. It will be a new learning curve for me and yes I probably will have to have a few learning races/rides learning from the school of hard knocks.

There is nothing wrong with pushing yourself and setting goals for yourself but to do that the more that you can have practiced in you training sessions the better the ride will go. If you can get a 70 75 or 80 mile training ride in before your next 100 it will go much easier for you.

My suggestion would be to get a bento box attached to your top tube so you can eat out of it and figure out some kind of protein drink that works for you.

Interested on how it goes for you. Good luck and keep posting to let us know how you make out. If I lived closer I would gladly help you get thru your first Century as there is no better feeling. Since I have ridden my share I enjoy seeing someone finish their first 100 and enjoy giving back to cycling to play it forward for those people that helped me out. I have helped a few accomplish that.

Zman