dont eat gels then. take bannanas. if you dont realize you need to keep your energy up on rides your "pedaling backwards" on the mountain of training....

That's actually not very much. I go through one bottle (3 scoops = 150 calories) of Gatorade plus a gel every hour = 250 cals per hour for any ride of 2.5hours of longer. It makes a massive difference in terms of the quality of the ride and also in terms of recovery. Don't think of it as two gels + water. That is what is throwing you off. Think of it as two bottles of gatorade plus a gel every two hours. That is perfectly reasonable. On four hour rides, I try to add in a clif bar or something to get closer to 300 calories per hour.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

A more proper calculation using your intake would be:

4. Boxes of gels 12 hr training weeks x 2 gels per hour x 9 months x $20/(box=24 gels) = $780

Paulo really did give you the answer. On a 90 minute run I might take 1 on the road and one going out the door if I just got up. But there is Infinit in the water bottle on my butt so I am hitting my caloric count. I get very anal about it when doing a big build like I am in now. In the off season its a little more casual. Its about performance, recovery, and doing what you are going to do in the race. If you are training 8 hours a week its not going to kill you not to do it but I’m not sure why you are bucking so hard on this one. Best.
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Born again Heathen
In Case of Keith Moon - Break This Glass
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Yes, and many of them dropped out due to dehyration, and the ones that didn't there times are no where near what the guys of that same level run now with drinking along the way.

Think of it as two bottles of gatorade plus a gel every two hours. That is perfectly reasonable. On four hour rides, I try to add in a clif bar or something to get closer to 300 calories per hour.

It's reasonable enough for longer rides, but again, not every training ride I do is a long ride. I do plenty of rides well under two hours, in fact, and I think I have plenty of energy reserves to make it through an hour or hour and a half without taking in any calories on the bike. I am not going to bonk in an hour and a half, and if my blood glycogen levels are lower, they aren't going to be so low as to impact my training. Unless Paulo has some actual information to share.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

If I go out for more than an hour, I need to eat. Depending on what and when I ate that morning and how long before the training is also a factor. People are different, results may vary, void where prohibited. In addition, I train the way I race. Maybe you can go out for hours on end without nutrition, I can't.

You guys that dont need to eat for 2 to 4 hour efforts, maybe your efforts are not powerful enough to burn off much sugar?

Maybe you need to HTFU!!
haha

any excuse to say that, I'll take it

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

People seem to think that if you've got a small engine, you can compensate for it by keeping the fuel tank topped off.

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Alot depends on your diet, conditioning and just plain old genetics on how long you can go till you bonk. A person can have anywhere from 300g to 800g of glycogen stored up...so some people might need to eat in and hour, other can go longer.

I'm with you on this one. Gels are garbage calories. Bad for your teeth with minimal nutrition beyond the calories. I only take them if the ride is long enough that I'll need supplemental calories. I am sure that factor varies a lot from person to person. For me, it's about 90 minutes. I have a friend who can eat a huge breakfast and then ride four hours with no more caloric intake.

I never use gels in training. When I go longer than three hours then I tend to throw in a granola bar, pop tart or a bagel. Of course, there is something to be said for 'training like you race', but since 99 percent of all training is not done at race pace then why worry about taking gels in training? This particular lesson was reinforced for me at World's Toughest Half duathlon this year. I stayed with h2ofun in Auburn and he offered up his CarbBooms. So I squoze (is that a word?) seven gels into my bottle sprinkled in five or six scoops of E-caps and gave it a good shake. I had never tried that flavor before nor used CarbBoom in any way other than the occasional sample. I took it all down on the bike and rode well with a strong run to follow. I become more and more convinced that longer races are about training your body to go the distance and use its inherent fuels.
I did not eat breakfast or take in anything but water before the race until I hit the bike where I consumed 700 calories during the 3-hour ride. I've had people tell me that is crazy, but fueling the night before is suficient for me.
I also only drank about 60-70 oz of water, which would also be a shock to the average MOPer who rolls out of T1 with two or three water bottles on their bike and refills along the way--but that is an entirely different issue.
Chad

But gels with caffeine make me superman for 15 minutes

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Despite his vested interest in gel/drink companies Carmichael has a fair point and the recommendation likely will not hurt. Much of the debate comes from just how hard are you riding? If doing long rides it's likely that you are not going much harder than 70-75% of your VO2 max, at that intensity you can indeed go for 3-4hrs w/o CHO supplementation depending on which body of literature you subscribe to, it might not be much fun but it can be done...don't know what you would though? On shorter rides that are less intense 2 gels might be overkill. Interestingly on shorter rides that are very intense you might be better off sticking to just a sports drink as 2 gels/hr might begin to impede gastric emptying. Remember it doesn't have to be gels you eat, take some fig Newton’s, pop tart whatever works for you.

But with your way, it doesn't serve my purpose. It look more dramatic my way. :)

Considering the amount of money dumped into this freaking sport, GELS are not breaking the bank. I'm not just racing one IM either. It's more like $3000 in race fees, $10000 in travel. Bananas, PB&J, Gatorade and everything still costs money as well. Granted, bananas are cheap but c'mon, after 2-3 hours, they get kinda nasty. You go out on a 5 hour training ride and how many bananas are you carrying???

Speaking of "bad for your teeth", how 'bout that flat coke? YUMMY!

what's blood glycogen?

If you're going out on a *one hour* ride, then no, you probably don't need anything but water for that workout....unless you plan on doing something else later in the day, in which case you should take something in to aid the next workout.

If you're going longer than an hour---then yeah, you should replenish calories, and 200-250 calories per hour *will not* replenish "every single calorie you burn in real time", not even close.

If it does, you're doing it wrong.

But it is about what most people can take in and use during a workout or race without GI problems, and will help performance.

Vitus how come you make so much sense on this forum and yet......... ;-)

In training I don't use gels at all. They are too damn expensive. Cookies, bananas, candybars, sportsdrink and of course coffee shop muffins. You should only eat gels if nothing else is available...they taste nasty and cost too much. Save em for race day.

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"A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy."
John Sawhill

"the ones that didn't there times are no where near what the guys of that same level run now with drinking along the way."

I didn't claim they ran as fast as the top guys today, rather they ran faster than most people on this forum will achieve. Today it's gone the opposite direction. I did a local 5K a couple weeks ago and there were people carrying Camelbaks, Fuel Belts, etc., and some were even talking about bonking - in a 5K! The first water station was less than a half mile into the run, and there were 3 water stations total.

Before I started doing triathlons, I regularly rode my bike every summer just for fitness. I never raced. It was just to keep my legs in shape for all the skiing I did in the winter. I wasn't out there with the hammer down for 2-4 hours, but mostly tooling along somewhere between 16-18. I just used water on all those rides. There were some years when I would come home from work, ride 20 miles or so, then go play a softball doubleheader in a competitive men's league, several times a week.

If a person is training hard all this gel might come into play, but just for a regular bike ride?

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Don

Tri-ing to have fun. Anything else is just a bonus!

I've trained somewhat seriously (115 miles a week) and with a team of people who did likewise. Our Sunday morning run was 3 hours plus in the Marin headlands (read big hills and heat) with not a GU in sight and just one waterstop at the Marine Mammal Center. We hammered those runs for a couple of years and during that time I can't think of a single occasion when anyone bonked. Someone did bring a bottle of gatorade once and he was mugged about 3 miles in.

Nobody is disputing that nutrition isn't important, but the human body is a little more resilient than you give it credit for. If its properly trained it can go for a few hours without a Gel and without a noticeable dropoff in performace.

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"A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy."
John Sawhill

1.5 hour training ride I would not eat anything unless I was doing some other training later. If the ride was all I am doing, then water is fine.

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I'll be what I am
A solitary man

200 calories per hour is not every single calorie being burned but more like 20-30% of calories burned. I've heard the same ball park number from other coaches. You many not notice much difference with no food on an easy or short ride but you will on longer rides when trying to maintain a steady effort.

Some people like to turn training into some kind of Man vs Wild episode, thinking that it will give them some kind of edge. They just end up training sub-optimaly, but that's ok, makes for good posts.

Vitus, I agree with you. 90 min runs, no gels no liquids, no nothing..even in 90 degree heat. I can stretch it to 2 hours. For rides, 3 hours with one bottle, no gels. 4 hours, is usually a bottle and a half and a granola bar. I rarely use gels in training. Biggest marketing hype around. A banana, or peanut butter and jam sandwich is much nicer anyway....real food from grocery stores is the way to go...not food from bike stores.

Dev