On Past rides and fuel

Last night was another Escape The Don ride. It was fast, furiously fast, except we only averaged 29km/h, of course it was very hilly so that might partially explain things. It was cold too, much colder than it was in the late afternoon, I was under dressed, which did not help the situation at all.

You can view the route we took here, note that it is not very different from last week, except I was properly dressed that evening.

20081014 Escape The Don Ride

http://www.bikely.com/

I wonder why I was adjusting my shorts? Those are good bib-shorts, although the leg warmers are not the best, maybe they were causing an itch? This image is at the Tim Hortons just west of Highway 400 on the south side of Steeles Ave.

This image is from the library at Gerrard and Broadview at the end of the ride. Thi's light is so bright that its hard to tell if its a car behind you or just Thi.

Recently I had the chance to talk about fueling with Eric Gee of EGCSkates.com. As I documented in my Riding Too Far blog he gave me some suggested reading. Slowly I have been working my way through the paper by the guys at Hammer Nutrition. I have to admit I have not been able to devote much time to a good many things that I would like to, reading up on proper nutrition is one of the things that has fallen a little by the wayside. Fortunately I have found that at least as far as water and carbs go I am already doing almost exactly the correct thing, at least my understanding of things is I am doing things pretty much correctly. First I start by admitting I am a big guy, even if I have lost a bajillion pounds of fat, what I lost on the oranges I more than made up for on the apples. Or in this case, what I lost on the waste line I picked up in massive "tree trunk" legs. I'm not sure how noticeable it is to anyone besides Lesley, but the fact is my pants are now tight in the upper leg area and really loose around the waste. Anyway so by my reading, the guide seems to suggest I should be consuming about 700~800mL/water per hour and about 250~350 calories per hour.

Its an interesting notion. I am sure we have all been told at some point that we ought to replace what we consume. Implicitly I knew that was lunacy. The day I rode with Aaron and Sigrid out to Harriston my GPS told me I burned off over 7500 calories. I would have had to eat an entire chocolate cake every two hours, or three and a half cakes, full size cakes mind you, not cup-cakes, or some other pansy ass BS. The fact that I bonked tells me I did not have things quite right, but I was probably better off bonking than over consuming. (In fact over consumption of water can lead to fatalities during training.)

I suppose the problem most people have is that they view their gastroenterological system as a big huge gas tank. You gas it up and go, but it doesn't work that way guys. Its a very complex network that requires oxygen and fuel in its own right in order to operate. Hence when training the body reduces the metabolic processes in order to conserve resources for the systems that are operating full blast, legs, cardiovascular, whatever else. The fact is your body can only metabolize at a certain rate and when you exercise that rate drops way off. Over consumption will just cause problems, most likely bloating, possibly a DNF, at worst it has been known to cause death. The moral is consume what you can handle, this coupled with the stores of energy already stockpiled will allow you to operate at the best possible potential, but do not bother to over-consume, it does not good to practice gluttony while training. At least that is my understanding, but hey what do I know, I'm an engineer not a doctor, sorry mom.