Internal Mono(b)log

Today is another light day of heat/humidity acclimatization.  Pretty much the same as yesterday’s, but today I plan on hitting the beach and doing a bit of an ocean swim rather than the pool.

Last night I charged the GoPro’s, put one in the wrist mount and mounted the 2nd on my aerobars on the bike.  So, with some tech-luck, I’ll have some images/video footage to share tonight.  The wireless connection I’m on is Wi-Max and not super stable, so, whether or not I can successfully upload the images will be a different story, but I’ll cross that bridge later 🙂

So Race Day Nutrition:

I’m not talking here about carb loading, I will talk about that later, here I’m talking about what I eat and drink, and when, during the actual event.  I’m going to break this up into 5 sections: Pre, Swim, Bike, Run, and Post.

Pre

The night before the race I’ll probably try to get to sleep around 8pm.  I’ll sleep with a couple of bananas beside the bed.  I normally wake around 2am for a bathroom break and if I do, I’ll eat the bananas.

I’ll wake around 4am and have a BIG cup of coffee, this will be my first caffeine in 2 weeks and the coffee will help stimulate (ahem) nature’s call.  I’ll also eat a bunch of berries (strawberries and blueberries if I can find them) with yogurt for breakfast.  I’ll omit my normal bran buds from this morning’s breakfast as I don’t want the fibre in the way.

As I head down to the shuttle bus and checkin, I’ll start sipping a bottle with Hornet Juice and EFS Sport Drink.

Swim

Of course you can’t take on nutrition during the swim, at least not a short swim like this (sure if you’re doing a lake crossing or something you’ll figure out a way to eat and drink, but not here).

About 25 minutes before my wave enters the water, I’ll consume a flask made up of 1/2 flask of EFS Liquid Shot, 1 scoop of EFS Pre Race and water.  Ultimately I want these hitting my blood stream just as my wave kicks off and this timing seems pretty good.

Bike

On the bike, through experimentation, I’ve found that I can consume approximately 800 calories per hour without getting an upset stomach.  This can be a mix of liquid, gel or solids and it doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference; however, in the last 1/3 of the bike I try to switch to liquids only because my gut isn’t as nice to me when running 😉

My bike nutrition is made up of Hornet Juice, EFS Sport Drink, EFS Liquid Shot and, as a mid-race boost, EFS Pre-Race.  I’ll typically mix up very concentrated water bottles of:

• 1 or 2 Hornet Juice
• 3 scoops of EFS Sport Drink
• 3 or 4 scoops of CarboPro

Each bottle being approximately 800 calories of fuel.  A flask of EFS Liquid Shot is 400 calories and the 3 chia chargers that I’ll have represent another 400 calories.  With 2 bottles that gives me 2400 carried calories.  I burn approximately 700 calories per hour when riding at race pace, so if I consumed all my carried nutrition, I’d come into the run with a bit of a surplus.  Based on history, it’s unlikely that I will get through it all, but I try 🙂

Run

On the run my nutrition is made up of EFS Liquid Shot, and Hornet Juice carried in my FuelBelt.  Running I burn about 650 calories per hour and I’ll be carrying 900 calories.  Which, again, if I (unlikely) consume it all puts me at only a minor deficit out of the run.

Post

Post race I have EFS Ultragen waiting for me to immediately replenish some protein into the system.  I’ll look for some “real food”™ to eat.  Not eating grains or unidentifiable meat cuts (no hamburgers, ground meat, sausage, etc) probably means I’m eating whatever fruit I can find.  At this point, I’d kill for a grilled chicken breast or 2 on a bed of mixed greens with some other raw veg and no dressing, but I doubt that I’ll be successful in finding that at the post race.

Notes

I haven’t talked about hydration here, it’s super important.  I onboard water at every aide station on the bike, regardless of whether my speedfil is full/empty or anywhere in between.  There are 4 bike aide stations on this 90k ride so I have no excuse for running out of water.  On the run the aide stations are every mile.  At the run aide stations I typically just grab water to cool myself down and sometimes some water to drink.  I carry my own hydration to a point, but given the heat down here, I know it won’t be enough.  So I’ll likely drink some water at each aide station and rely on my carried water for the gaps between the stations.

I don’t rely on course aide stations for nutrition.  I have experimented with different gels, drinks, and solid foods and have discovered through, at times pretty uncomfortable, experimentation what works for me.  It’s been said a million times and I’ll add my voice to it: nutrition is very personal, what works for one person may not for another.  You have to find your optimal solution and check your limits to figure out what works for you.