Posted on Aug 22, 2011 under nutrition, Raves | Comments are off
I’m in the final ramp-up to Ironman Muskoka 70.3 on Sept 11th. I have to admit, I’m really happy with my training and progress to date. I feel that my 3 disciplines have all progressed nicely, that I have cleaned up my transitions and that my nutrition choices are dialed in and good to go.
One thing that I have been working on lately is trying to increase my fueling while on the bike. I know from my power-meter that I burn about 700 cal/hr on the bike, and I know I’m about the same running (10.7 cal/min according to my bodybugg). Optimally, I’d like to leave the bike segment with a caloric surplus, or at least as little deficit as possible. Many complain of gastric distress when onloading that many calories, so I’ve started ramping up my consumption to find my tipping point.
My typical race nutrition is composed of EFS liquid shot, EFS sport drink, Carbo-pro, and chia-chargers for solid nutrition. I have already written about liquid shot and how great I think it is. In my caloric ramping, EFS Sport Drink is playing a vital role, and having some nice byproduct effects.
Paraphrasing their site: EFS sport drink is sold in powder form, each scoop containing 100calories of complex carbohydrates, dextrose, and sucrose along with the highest concentration of electrolytes in any sport drink on the market (1160mg of all 5 electrolytes/serving). EFS contains the purest, most- bioavailable source of free-form amino acids (AjiPure amino acids which are 99-100% pure) . Finally, EFS sport drink contains malic acid which stimulates oxygen consumption by increasing mitochondrial uptake, improving mitochondrial respiration and increasing energy production. Malic acid is essential in the formation of ATP, the body’s energy source. Malic acid allows the body to make ATP more efficiently, even under low oxygen, or hypoxic conditions.
This all sounds great to me, and I know that First Endurance spends a lot of time and money researching their formulations and operating a very clean (both from a hygiene and a drug testing perspective) facility and finding their other products so effective, of course EFS sport drink would be in my pantry – provided my gut tolerated it.
As I have been ramping my caloric intake, I’ve been building the number of liquid calories that I consume/hour. Typically, this means mixing more and more concentrated bottles of fuel that I stow behind my seat on the bike. I started with 160 calories in a bottle (1 scoop efs, 1 packet hornet juice), then 260 (2 efs, 1 hornet), then 460 (4 efs, 1 hornet – here I found the flavouring in that concentration of efs to be getting a bit strong for my palette, so I started adding caro-pro). Last weekend for my 100km hills ride, I packed 2 bottles each with 860 calories (4 efs, 4 carbo-pro, 1 hornetjuice). I am happy to report that I still suffered no GI distress consuming all that, plus a flask of liquid shot and several chia-chargers even doing a short brick run off the ride. Awesome!
If you’ve done the math, you know that I was still in a deficit (consumed about 2200 calories, burned 2500), but not a terrible one! ;). Definitely completely manageable.
All of this speaks to the great osmodality of EFS’s products. Yes, I still consume a lot of water with all this fuel, but its all well tolerated and fuels my ride well. An nice and unexpect benefit of EFS drink, is that with the high eletrolyte concentration, I don’t feel the need to suppliment with salt tabs and don’t/haven’t experienced any cramping. 1 fewer thing to worry about while racing is a win in my books!
Yes, it’s true, I am a big fan of FirstEndurace products, but with good reason: product after product they just work and work well! If you haven’t yet tried EFS sport drink, give it a go. I don’t think you’ll be dissappointed, I know I’m not.
I’m a pretty big fan of First Endurance and their product line. I think I use pretty much everything they sell except for their multi-vitimin (and that’s only because I had a regimen that I’m very happy with before finding First Endurance). I’ll write reviews of Ultragen and OptigenHP at a different time. Today, I want to review for you: EFS Liquid Shot and Pre-race and an effective.. ok super-effective combination referred to as The EFS Holy Hand Grenade!!!
When I 1st tried EFS Liquid shot, I have to tell you, I was pretty turned off by the taste. It’s very strong flavoured and takes a little getting used to; however, the strong flavour serves a purpose. It encourages you to drink water or other fluids and not just suck back gel. You need to be consuming liquid with your gel or it sits in your gut and doesn’t get into your blood stream. I’ve found with many thick sweet gels (or worse, chew supplements) that drinking isn’t 2nd nature after consuming them. Not good. Liquid shot, consumed straight, will encourage you to drink – don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t taste BAD, it’s just STRONG. Now… dilute the shot with water in a bottle or in your mouth and it’s quite palatable further, it contains about the same carbohydrate nutrition as a gel, but also, and more importantly amino acids and a good dose of electrolytes. I recently packed 1 flask (400cals) of EFS Liquid shot for my 3.5 hr run in 30C summertime heat along with a backpack hydration pack of water, during my run I was consuming EFS and water throughout. When I finished I felt great! Hydrated, balanced and not the ravenously hungry that I’ve come to associate with being out of balance w. my electrolytes. Now that’s powerful stuff!
In the past, typically during races, I’d also used First Endurance’s Pre-race formula. Looking for a pick-me-up for a race? Something to get you moving and keep you moving? Something that seems to magically drive your endurance levels much higher AND is safe if you’re in a program where drug screening is used. Well Pre-race is for you. This stuff just plain works! I’ll caution you that.. well… it may work too well. When I was first experimenting with it, I accidentally took too much and felt like I was going to fly out of my skin. So follow their instructions. Start with 1/2 a scoop and adjust based on your sensitivity.
Recently First Endurance posted a video about the EFS Holy Handgrenade: a mix of EFS Liquid shot, pre-race and water.
Having tried both products independently, I felt pretty confident mixing them in a race situation, so I did so during my last sprint tri. 1/2 way through the 30k bike course there was a turn-around. I had a flask of the handgrenade mixed and in my bento box. While I was slowed for the 180 degree turn, I threw back the handgrenade and some water. In about 15 minutes, I felt the rush starting and it carried me through the rest of the bike and through into the run. Definitely something that I’m going to keep in my “bag of tricks”.
If you haven’t tried First Endurance’s products, I think you should give them a try. Nutrition is such a personal thing when it comes to endurance racing, but the team at 1st Endurance has come up with some products that I’ve standardized on and can’t see leaving any time soon.
Today’s ride was a 3 hour, MAP (max aerobic power) heart-rate zone 3 ride. Not having really planned and not knowing where to go, I did the lakeshore toward Burlington route that I’d previously done. It’s a good ride, with generally good roads and generally good traffic. I forgot to start runkeeper on my phone until I was already part way back, but here’s a view of a snippet of my ride @ runkeeper.com (add about 5k out on lakeshore from the where I started recording and turn the route into an “out and back” (rather than just “back”) you get the full picture).
On this ride, I’d planned a nutrition experiment: In my speedfil I had just water, in each of 2 waterbottles I had 1 packet of HornetJuice and 1/2 scoop of Carbo-pro. For primary fuel, I had a flask of Hammer Gel Espresso and for electrolytes (this is the real experiment part) I used SaltSticksalt tabs. Because it wasn’t super-hot and I didn’t feel like I was sweating a lot, I decided to do 1 tab every 45 minutes. Spread the 2 waterbottles evenly over the ride, and drink water generally when riding. This is a change from my normal protocol of 1 HornetJuice, 1 Carbo-Pro and 1 scoop of EFS or other electrolyte sport-drink. My thinking is that this approach allows me to hydrate without electrolytes or fuel. Generally, this protocol seemed to work pretty well. Definitely an experiment that I’ll continue to work with.
I also made a discovery on this ride – completely unrelated to the nutrition protocol experiment… well, maybe not completely unrelated… Ok.. on with it:
I ride, when training, with bib-style cycling shorts.
They are super comfortable and I love the feel of my Sugoi Bib shorts: they’re so comfortable and padded just right. But! When you need to pee, and you don’t want to take off your jersey, and the shoulder straps, and pull down the shorts (and like today, sometimes there just isn’t time!) a much easier way to approach the problem, and sorry ladies, this probably only works for guys, is to pull up one of the legs until you can access your plumbing and pee through the stretched out leg hole. So simple and efficient 🙂
Dinner tonight, my 1st attempt at using Black Truffles was:
Grilled Jumbo Purple Asparagus and Grilled Honey Chili Tempeh on a bed of Quinoa w. caramelized onion and fennel, sprinkled with crumbled “Thunder Oak Gouda” and shaved black truffle with a side salad of lightly steamed fiddleheads in a balsamic dressing.
The picture doesn’t really do it justice. It was pretty damn tasty 🙂
It’s a heavy-duty sponsorship plug for 1st Endurance, who’s products I like, but if you can read between the product placement, there’s a fair bit of other useful info in this vid.
This stuff is pretty amazing. It’s like putting high octane fuel in your engine. It’s tasteless and colorless, but really packs an energy wallop!
1 scoop = 100 calories of mixed-duration easily accessible energy.
My typical long-workout/race blend is: 1 packet of Hornet Juice, (maybe) a scoop of Amino Vital and 1 or 2 scoops of Carbo Pro. With this high-test mixture I can run 20k and feel like doing it again! It’s pretty amazing actually. 🙂
This morning, for the 1st time, I used it in the pool for my Friday long-swim. I’m not sure if it’s purely psychosomatic, but when I start to feel energy dwindling, a swig of this blend seems to pick me right back up again. My 2 hr swim this morning just flew by, and had it not for having to get to work, I’d have kept going.
Definitely a fan! Definitely a long-term addition to my training and racing arsenal.
The article recommends 3:1 carb to protein, I’ve seen more references citing 4:1.. I’m sure either is acceptable. Try both and see what works better for you. In either case stay away from fat and fiber as both slow down uptake.
Posted on Feb 16, 2011 under nutrition, Raves | Comments are off
Ever since losing all my weight and getting fit, I’ve been obsessed focussed on better understanding nutrition, my body’s needs and, most importantly: how my body reacts to different food stuffs.
I’d long since thought about making my own carb and/or protein bars, but really, it came down to time to experiment and then time to shop and cook. Lotsa time, with no guarantees. Finding Element Bars was a dream come true. They’ve done the research, have the products (many of which are organic) and will build and ship you bars according to your desires and specific formulation.
My 1st batch arrived this week and I’m super-happy with them! They’re built and packaged like commercial product, but the ingredients are all to my specifications and they taste GREAT!
I ordered 3 different bars: 2 of their creation and 1 that I made. The 2 of theirs I ordered were “Blueberry Repair” and “Cherry Charge”. The one I made I called “Klingon Protein” (though with only 5g of protein, it really should have had more protein to deserve the name), perhaps a more apt name would have been “Klingon Warrior Food”. 🙂
If you’re concerned about the fuel you’re putting in your body, I strongly suggest you try ElementBars.com
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They are super comfortable and I love the feel of my 
