Saturday I took a 106 mile flat as a pancacke ride training for Florida to gauge my bike pacing and also work on nutrition. I’ve never done a totally flat ride before; usually I train with very steep hills that are relatively short, ~1/4 – 1/2 mile long . I ate and drank the same as any of my other hilly rides with the exception of breakfast; I only had a bottle of Ensure and a Coke as opposed to an Egg McMuffin, 2 hash browns and a Coke. I felt fine for the first half of the ride to the turn around but miles 60-80 got discouraging. Miles 80 – 106 were brutal but I kept telling myself it was almost over and kept pedaling.
On the out my average speed was 20.2 and on the back it was 18.0, so not a huge difference. I was planning on doing a 3 mile run following but changed my mind during the ride. In the past I’ve ran a few miles after centuries and its always felt pretty good following. When I stepped off the bike I could barely walk let alone run for about 3 hours then the pain was gone. My average HR was 5bpm below z1 top. My last 100 mile ride in hilly conditions had an average speed of 1.1mph faster but there was some paceline stuff included. My training has been flawless otherwise. Long rides in hills are a piece of cake, long runs are okay.
So, did I bonk from not having a good breakfast or is the flatland of Florida going to kick my ass? I’m now scared and want to do this ride again but it’s a 3hr drive each way so that might not happen. I could bust out 6 hours on the rollers then I have no pacing strategy which has me thinking its not a bad idea. I want to make sure there’s plenty to throw at running so being conservative on the bike might not be so bad. What do you think?
If you read all of my babble above and are still reading you deserve a prize. I normally feel weird asking a group of strangers training advice but this poor ride has plagued my throughts ever since and I can’t get past it and don’t have therapy until Thursday. Damn it Dr. Jones, always abandoning me just like my parents. Uuggghhhhhh.
I think I ate a little less than a normal day. I went to the Cardinals game and two hot dogs, pretzel, some pop corn, ice cream and a beer; my diet normally consists of a fair amount of garbage but I don’t normally drink.
I guess I’ll say what you don’t want to hear…at this point in your prep for Florida you should definintely NOT be getting into trouble at mile 60 and bonking at mile 80. So…figuring out what caused this is up to you. be honest.
Do you have the fitness to go 80 miles without running into trouble? If you can do that distance in hills, then obvisouly you do.
So then did you bring enough nutrition on the bike? You didn’t tell us what you ate and drank, but for a ride that long you should be pretty loaded down. Think of what you’ll take for nutrition at IM when there is an aid station every 10 miles…odds are you’ll go through quite a bit, and carrying all that on teh bike will weight about 20 lbs. I would guess on-bike nutrition (or lack thereof) was the problem.
Is your body fatigued or experiencing any signs of overtraining? Are you sleep patterns, resting heart rate, hunger patterns all normal?
Most of the time on long rides like this it is impossible to carry the amount of nutrition that you’ll take. Flats require your muscles to be constantly working at a steady state - no hills to coast on - thus your body is constantly burning calories. Try to figure out if you actually took in enough. From your morning breakfast, it doesn’t even sound like you started with much, so you probably got into a caloric deficit quite early.
Oh yeah…while on that topic of breakfast, the coke will probably spike your insulin, and that’s never a good thing to start a workout with.
Do you have the fitness to go 80 miles without running into trouble? If you can do that distance in hills, then obvisouly you do. Undoubtably!
So then did you bring enough nutrition on the bike? You didn’t tell us what you ate and drank, but for a ride that long you should be pretty loaded down. Think of what you’ll take for nutrition at IM when there is an aid station every 10 miles…odds are you’ll go through quite a bit, and carrying all that on teh bike will weight about 20 lbs. I would guess on-bike nutrition (or lack thereof) was the problem. 14 oz of Infinit / hr, ~12oz h2o / hr, + sport beans every 30 minutes or so. I love me some sport beans. Carrying everything was an issue but I loaded up with 6 bottles and rationed through the ride. My Flordia plan is to have 24oz of Infinit / hr; have premixed concentrate to add water along with the sport beans every 30 minutes. yuuuummmie sport beans.
Is your body fatigued or experiencing any signs of overtraining? Are you sleep patterns, resting heart rate, hunger patterns all normal? All systems are normal. Hr, rest, eating; check .
Most of the time on long rides like this it is impossible to carry the amount of nutrition that you’ll take. Flats require your muscles to be constantly working at a steady state - no hills to coast on - thus your body is constantly burning calories. Try to figure out if you actually took in enough. From your morning breakfast, it doesn’t even sound like you started with much, so you probably got into a caloric deficit quite early.** I suspect it started early as well but everything I keep reading says to have a simple breakfast usually suggesting Ensure or something like that. Maybe I’ll try a bowl of cereal or something in the morning.**
Oh yeah…while on that topic of breakfast, the coke will probably spike your insulin, and that’s never a good thing to start a workout with. **I need to have a coke within the first few hours of waking up otherwise I get a caffine headache from hell. I guess I should check my Infinit to see if it has caffine. **
Perhaps your body isn’t used to pedaling in the same position for 6 hours straight, constantly using the same muscle groups, with no recovery on descents. Furthermore it’s mentally tiring to ride this way. You might try pace variation within your long flat rides, as well as occasionally standing while pedaling. My 2 cents.
I did a 110 mile ride (relatively flat) training for Florida on Sat. Like you, I’m used to hills and can usually do pretty well in a hilly ride (not fast, but maintain energy) I had some problems at the end of the ride, but still managed to run an hour after it. I think I figured out that I went out to hard in the beginning, because when I checked my speed, I was about 1.5 mph faster than I would normally ride the flat part of a hilly ride.
I’m doing the same ride this saturday and next. Just getting used to staying in one position (in the hills you are in and out of your aerobars a lot and don’t realize how much that really helps with the comfort until you don’t need to get out of them on a flat ride) is what I’m gonna focus on for my next two weekend rides.
You bonked. You only had a bottle of Ensure and a coke with no breakfast beforehand? pushing 20mph (about 30km/h, right) is a reasonable pace. If I’m doing the length of ride that you did, I’d have at least 3 gels and be drinking a bottle of Enduran/Powerade/etc every hour - this is assuming I have no breakfast before I head out on the bike. I do 120km/h group ride every Sat on 1 or 2 gels and 3 bottles or so. If I skip the gels I certainly would drag the last 30kms. Food is your friend.
It is a bit of both but most likely the bonk effected you the most.
On a big brick like this you should always pretend it is race-day. For race-day, you should always eat well a few days beforehand. Hot dogs, beer etc… are not going to cut it for a guy averaging 20+ mph. Also, you should eat 500-800 cals for breakfast (2-3 hours before the ride), mostly carbs (pasta, rice or liquid fuel all work). During the ride, a good rule of thumb to start with is: 4 cals of carbs for every 2lbs you weigh. If you weigh 160 pounds then you should be having 320 cals/hr (80 X 4 ). If you can’t digest that much then lower it, if you bonk again, then raise it.
You need to get used to training in the flats. I trained in Portland, OR and saw similiar problems. I saw way too many people just ride in the hills because they are all over and fun to ride. When it came to flat courses they weren’t ready. Hills are good for leg strength and endurance if long enough. Flat riding is good for aerobic developement and ultra endurance. There is a big difference between riding hills up and down and having your HR go up and down compared to sitting in at 20 mph for 5 hours straight. No worries though. You just need to do more flat riding and be realistic about the paces you are capable of on the flats without running into trouble.
Every so often sit up as well as stand up on the pedals. Mix it up especially since you are used to doing that in the hills. Stretch what you can while riding.
I’ve had a tough time 2 years in a row at an oly race. It’s run at the beach and the ride and run course are all along the surrounding beach area - pancake flat elevation gain of 10 ft.
I think even for this short a time, my legs were not trained enough to be able to push a constant speed with no relief, coasting downhill or pushing different gears uphill. I though it was just a bad day last year, but after another this year I’m going to have to adjust my training for this race. I just feel beat up after. I’m thinking of some long rides on the rollers where there is no rest allowed.
skm is right on about stretching while riding. Sitting in one position, using the exact same muscle groups for hours nonstop, never changing pace, etc…that’s the start of serious muscle fatigue. I typically take a coasting stretch break every ~10 miles…stretch the calves, hamstrings, then pedal a bit to keep my speed up, unclip one foot and stretch the quad, then clip back in and do the other leg.
Rolling hills are easy because you can stretch out and/or relax your muscles on the downhill.
One additional point is that I find if I have not done 100+ miles in 3-4 weeks, going back and doing a 100+ mile ride is HARD. Just an observation.
Small amounts of dehydration can screw you too. Unless you weighed yourself before and after it is trivially easy to drop 2-3lb over that length of time. This contributes a lot to the generalized muscle ache and can substantially reduce your performance.
I live in an area of moderate rolling hills and some flats. I had a training buddy a few years back who lived down here (Upstate South Carolina) briefly after moving from Tennessee. He was used to much hillier riding than we have here and our riding kicked his butt. He was a Cat. 2 racer. Very strong. But he observed that, when riding the flats, you never get a break. You’re always “on.” Where he was used to riding, he’d put in a hard effort for 20 minutes to do a climb, then get a 10 minute breather while descending before doing it again. So … it’s a different discipline to ride the flats.
Also, your diet sounds absolutely pathetic. If I ate that stuff, I’d have been puking my guts out before 40 miles. Garbage in, garbage out. Food is fuel. You need quality food and plenty of it to fuel up before an effort like that. Reading your post reminded me of a discussion I had with a group of high school athletes the other day. I told them they needed to lay off the fatty red meats. They said, “that’s fine, we love fried chicken.” They weren’t too thrilled when I said fried chicken wouldn’t be any better. Then I said they needed to eat more fruits and vegetables and one of them said, “mmm. I love macaroni and cheese.” Sheesh.
That crap at the game was probably a big factor. I have had my worst rides and runs after similar eating scenarios. You were didn’t get good quality carbs and also were dehydrated from those foods & the alcohol.
Also, if you are in some big training weeks, the ride will seems tougher than it will on race day when you are tapered.
I’d go with at least 2 bottles of Ensure, mebbe 3, before a RR-type ride like that. (Prior to an actual IM I have 4. I know of some dudes who have as many as 6.)
Skip the coke, have coffee or a caffeine pill instead (you don’t need a sugar spike/crash first thing in the am)
Egg McMuffin as pre-workout food? Cripes, yer making even ME look like a healthy eater!! (and that’s damn hard to do)
So, long reply shorter, it was too few cals pre-ride, probably along with being dehydrated and underfed (at least in terms of good quality food) from the day prior.
I’ll assume that you won’t be making any of these mistakes before IMFL, right?
How was the wind condition? very big difference when facing miles upon miles of flat road with no cover on the sides, it takes a lot of strenght to push against it and there is no ups and dows to rest.
“How was the wind condition? very big difference when facing miles upon miles of flat road with no cover on the sides, it takes a lot of strength to push against it and there is no ups and dows to rest.”
I’m training for Florida too, and have been riding through some serious corn fields in mid-Missouri and the wind has been wild lately. My times have been completely discouraging with the kind of wind we’ve had (17mph, gusts up to 25+). I have had to remind myself to drink and eat as the battle is so distracting. I’ve bonked a few times as a result.
Last weekend I rode with a crosswind, which was a relief, and my time for the century was much more encouraging.
I ride in south florida so I know what you are speaking of, thats why I asked the question. You need to be able to keep a steady effort on the flat courses, kind of like riding on the trainer (with coasting). If there is a a headwind on our long flat stretches you have to be mentally prepared to understand that there will be no rest and if you want to keep a certain pace you will have to work it. I think long trainer rides are good practice to get the muscles used to it. A TT on the flats here when is windy hurts!!!