BTW, to answer your original question…one of the best ‘foods’ is flat coke. (any calories should be called ‘food’ for race purposes and liquid form is easiest).
coke has plenty of sugar and some caffeine and it’s super-duper cheap compared to marketed ‘sports’ drinks.
You might want to find the right mixture of coke and water for you and fill your water bottle with this stuff and try to finish the bottle about 2 miles before T2.
I have a few cliff shot block for the beginning of the bike but i dont think that is going to be enough, can somone give me a good idea on what to eat during the bike to give me energy for the run? thanks!
Sounds like you should just eat more shot blocks. Use what you’ve used in training.
Why would you eat for such a short race? I don’t even eat during a half ironman, although I get plenty of calories from my sports drink on the bike.
During my one full Ironman to date, I did use gels on the bike, but in retrospect I think even that was overdoing it, since I felt very bloated during the run. Next time I’ll probably restrict myself to sports drink.
To me there is no way I could get my glycogen supplies topped of in the 14 hours between saturday’s workout and a sunday race. I could eat the calories used but not have the reserves topped off like I would before a race I rested for.
I train through all my sprint and oly races, they are all “C” races so I don’t want to lose training time before and afterwards. I normally don’t take an easy day before one of those races.
I don’t understand how eating a gel could slow anyone down, maybe I’m misunderstanding what you are saying. I don’t feel it’s inconvenient or uncomfortable at all. In fact I almost allways feel much better about 4 to 5 minutes after putting one down. I can eat a gel while rolling 25mph on my bike or running low 7’s (that’s as fast as I run anyway)
Also, I’m allways running a calorie deficit because I’m losing weight through the season.
jaretj
Keep in mind too that your body can only process about 30-35g of carbohydrate per hour, so that should give you an idea of an upper limit how much nutrition to take in while on the bike. If you have been training with the shot bloks on the bike and are okay with those, stick with 'em for the race. It’s also a good rule of thumb not to eat anything 20-30 minutes before the end of the bike–some people have stomach issues going from bike to run, so it’s better to have an emptier stomach.
Good luck!
To me there is no way I could get my glycogen supplies topped of in the 14 hours between saturday’s workout and a sunday race. I could eat the calories used but not have the reserves topped off like I would before a race I rested for.
I train through all my sprint and oly races, they are all “C” races so I don’t want to lose training time before and afterwards. I normally don’t take an easy day before one of those races.
I don’t understand how eating a gel could slow anyone down, maybe I’m misunderstanding what you are saying. I don’t feel it’s inconvenient or uncomfortable at all. In fact I almost allways feel much better about 4 to 5 minutes after putting one down. I can eat a gel while rolling 25mph on my bike or running low 7’s (that’s as fast as I run anyway)
Also, I’m allways running a calorie deficit because I’m losing weight through the season.
jaretj
That clarifies it somewhat. Since you are in weight loss mode you wouldn’t be topped off. I have a feeling that it only takes 8 hours or so after eating the calories before they are all completely and fully processed. You may think otherwise because you are feeling the ongoing muscular effects of the effort and mistaking this for not being fully charged with glycogen.
And you make a good point that taking a gel is pretty much a non issue time-wise. It does give you a shot of caffeine (or can) and elevating blood glucose levels might be helpful (but exercise itself will regulate glucose quite well for healthy folks).
I suppose a big part of my bias is that I race at a high enough intensity that I would get nauseated. I don’t race farther than Olympic distance. When I race I’m at LT pretty much the whole way. I find it hard to drink with that respiration rate not to mention eat a gel.
If you have better a better functioning cardiovascular system than I do, eating may be a complete non-issue.
Eat a decent breakfast the day before, normal food throughout the day without a large dinner at night (ie skip the huge bowl of pasta primavera the night before).
Morning of, have a granola bar or bagel and banana about 2 hours before, along with some coffee and I always add a few ibuprofen.
Sip on some gatoraide/sports drink while setting up transition, have a gel about 15 minutes before then go like hell…
As for nutrition during the race, shouldn’t really need much. I know the last 2 olympics I did (last year) I took a watered down bottle of gatoraide on the bike and drank about 1/3 or less. Maybe a splash of water on the run.