One of the perks of being a serious endurance athlete is that you can serve pork with exemption. All of that workouts burn major calories, allowing you to do real damage to an all-you-can-eat buffet.
In fact, sometimes it always looks hungry except during hard workouts and races. In such a situation, a “combat or flight” response begins, sending the nervous system overdrive and reducing appetite so that you can focus on the task at hand.
The only problem with this little hormonal autofocus is that it can burn large quantities of calories.
Below are some ways to use your body as fuel during a race to avoid running in empty tanks.
How your body burns fuel when exercising
When you exercise, your body can pull fuel from several places:
- Adipose tissue (due to lipolysis – fat breakdown)
- Muscle mass (by protein degradation – protein degradation)
- Carbohydrates (by glycolysis – glucose, also known as glycolysis, is also preserved in muscle and liver cells as glycogen).
When you’re at low levels of exercise or when you’re training in your heart rate zone, your body will have a greater percentage of fat than carbohydrates as fuel. Even truly lean athletes have enough fat to last them for a while, so nutrition during the workout isn’t that important when putting noodles in or building a base in recovery mode (but hydration is still the case!).
In fact, many athletes teach their bodies to intentionally train in fasting (i.e. glucose deficiency) states during these types of training and to teach their bodies to use fat better for fuel. However, as your training strength increases, so does your carbohydrate reliance on your body’s energy.
If you’re planning on making a real effort, or training for more than a few hours, it’s better to refuel your carbs as you burn your glycogen reservoir.
What is glycogen?
Glycogen is basically a backup blood glucose supply. It is easily converted to glucose for use as energy. Liver glycogen can spread throughout the body, including muscles, but muscle glycogen only works against certain stored muscles.
If the Glycogen store is fully topped, it will take approximately 90-120 minutes of fuel to work. Then you “bonk” or “hit the wall.”
If you’re in the middle of a training session and suddenly feel that even the simplest task is an epic task, then it’s bonking. Technically, it still works to utilize fat stores and muscles, so it can work at that point, but it also doesn’t perform.
How to refuel during long events (over 60 minutes)
1. Get a carb head start
Increase your carbohydrate intake a few days before the race. There’s no easy way to know that glycogen is 100%, so hedge your bet a few hours before you start a carb-rich diet.
2. Proactively fuel
Instead of waiting for the first tips of fatigue to begin, start feeding about 30 minutes after starting. Why? I waited until I was tired of refueling, and it was because I had been waiting so long. (Our bodies have not evolved to optimize fuel production for 140.1 miles of Ironman race and twice as many centuries.)
During extreme efforts, the human body can burn 800-1,000 calories per hour. Unfortunately, it only absorbs about 360 calories of carbohydrates per hour. This means that it’s important to jump to glycogen refilling as you deal with situations where you’re reducing returns immediately from the start line.
There are four calories in a gram of carbohydrates, so a 360-calorie carbohydrate equals 90 grams. However, when you get these 90 grams, it’s not as easy as making jelly doujin nuts into monkeybizu, as different sugars are absorbed in different ways and at different rates. If you don’t consume anything other than glucose, for example, you’ll only absorb about 60 grams per hour.
3. Combine the types of sugar
There is a trick to maximize carbohydrate absorption. Fructose is absorbed in a different way than glucose. It must pass through the liver. This process can occur simultaneously with glucose absorption, so if you are consuming a mixture of two, you should be able to absorb more carbohydrates in the entire 90 grams per hour.
But this number is backed up by some respectable science, but don’t make it hard and fast. It’s probably because it can absorb 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour. Should. A “short” event that lasts for 1-2 hours probably won’t require 90 grams per hour, so you can also stick your digestive system to 30-60 grams per hour.
However, if you’re on a long way forward, your best bet is to maintain a 60 grams per hour as a baseline, and 30 grams per hour on top of it, depending on what your system can comfortably withstand.
90 grams may look like a carbohydrate you absorb, but like most aspects of training, it can boost your body’s abilities. Start with the amount that works for you and slowly increase your intake. Don’t forget to experiment during training, not during races.
4. Set a reminder
Also, take advantage of all the flashy data technologies you probably invested in. Set a timer on your computer/phone/bionic implant to remind you to drink and eat regularly.
How to stay hydrated during the event
The science feeding behind the event is surprisingly vague, but the science behind the hydration of the event is relatively solid. Therefore, by fixing it, the feeding part can be simplified.
The amount of fluid intake should vary depending on the rate of sweating. This ranges from 8 to 67 ounces per hour during the event, according to the American School of Sports Medicine. Finding the perfect hydration level takes time, but cyclists usually start at around 24 ounces per hour. This is the volume that comes in a standard water bottle and can be easily tracked.
Should I use sports drinks?
You may want to fill that bottle with a sugary sports drink. This may help your unique physiology, but it may be that the hypertonic (concentrated more than blood) nature of the delicious drink is not effectively absorbed.
It can lead to stomach distress, or there is vomiting, as experienced in many cyclocross races. It is better to use a low sugar hypotonic (not concentrated more than blood) drink. Such solutions tend to absorb more efficiently and effectively.
A great sports drink offers carbohydrates as a combination of fructose and glucose. Beachbody Performance hydrate contains 10 grams of carbohydrates, so if you drink 4 cups per hour, it costs 40 grams. This means you need to eat 20-50 grams (or about 80-200 calories) of carbohydrates at that point.
Although not uncommon in a triathlon, this presents some issues, but you can always try to get all the carbohydrates in liquid form. First, if you stick to a hypotonic mix, it’s a lot of water.
Secondly, consuming one item for hours while suffering mentally and physically is a recipe for flavor fatigue. Here we achieve a sense of nutritional dislike that encourages the exhausted exercise brain to actively eat and drink. Mixing liquids and solids increases the likelihood of avoiding flavor fatigue and maintaining appetite.
What foods should I eat?
Anything that tastes good and is composed primarily of carbohydrates probably works. High blood sugar foods (i.e. those that increase blood sugar levels quickly) are great in this situation because you want to absorb these sugars quickly.
Popular goats include bananas, melons, other low-fiber fruits and mini pretzels. (In particular, for 3-4 hours of difficult events, I also have great joy in 8 oz cola cans.
But if your event is consistently harsh or jarring in your system, triathlons and marathons come to mind – gels and chews are both easy to digest feeding options. Again, be sure to read the ingredients to check the sugar source.
Triathlon swimming dilemma
You’re probably hurting your head given that the Iron Man people out there are pretty hard to fuel when swimming. And “difficult” means impossible.
So insist on being fully fed, hydrated and fueling the moment you hit before you start your race Land signature. Get a full bottle on your bike or put it in a transition bag and drink it in the best possible condition as you change it.
When it comes to eating, it’s up to you to decide how much tolerance and how well you can handle. If you can chew during the transition, it’s great if you can chew it without slowing down slowly. Otherwise, make a feeding point during the first few miles of the bike. When cycling, it is easier to cycle than when you run.
That being said, stuffing your intestines suddenly can lead to GI problems, so it’s important to learn what intake restriction is here. It deals with this transitional fuel, just like the rest of your training.
Words about protein
Protein is instrumental after the event, but should be of little use to feed during the event. Your goal is to recover glycogen as quickly as possible, and proteins slow down absorption.
The exception is multi-stage races. In this case, some proteins during such events are a good idea, as you want to maintain the balance of protein turnover (muscle synthesis and degradation) as much as possible. Keep your carbs at the forefront of feeding, try proteins while training to see how well you can withstand.
Last word: I love whatcha
All of this advice provides a great starting point for the nutrition of the event, but hopefully a way to troubleshoot current methods, but keep in mind that personal taste and biology can go a long way in determining the right food for you. Do not experiment during the race. However, when training, don’t be afraid to try different amounts of different foods in different amounts of solid ratios.
Also, don’t be afraid to take a picture of the samples provided at the race registration booth (for later use) or to let your friends go when there’s something you haven’t tried before.
Find the intersection between what works scientifically and what works personally. If you discover it, you won’t be able to stop it.
