I for one have been guilty of pushing too hard on the bike and having stomach issues which lead to a long day on the run. To summarize most of the advice to avoid this issue is simply “slow down”, let you body digest the food so that performace later will not suffer. This leads to a question:
At what heart rate zone or power zone is a normal athlete able to digest food? Is it trainable? Is it way to specific to the individual to estimate? I would like to experiemnt with where my limit is over the next 9 months of training, but have no idea where to start. Any ideas, comments would be appreciated.
I train with both HR and power so either metric would be fine.
Bump.
I would love to know if it’s trainable or any tips that will help me get in calories. I’m getting faster but my digestive system isn’t. No problems on the bike but it’s hard for me to take in and keep anything down on the run.
At what heart rate zone or power zone is a normal athlete able to digest food?
Discovering this should be one of the goals of training, especially race rehearsals.
I would like to experiemnt with where my limit is over the next 9 months of training, but have no idea where to start. Any ideas, comments would be appreciated.
I train with both HR and power so either metric would be fine.
I recommend starting on your long rides, especially if you have a short transition run after. Note your power for the ride and the effectiveness of your nutrition. Make sure you do a few iterations with the on-course nutrition, or whatever specialty productes you plan to use during the race. Shift your ride intensities up and down and note the effects on your nutrition plan. When I say “note”, I mean write it down.
I agree, and I did several rehearsal rides before my IM earlier this year with very mixed results. Leading up to my race I had 5 rides of over 100 miles, and all served as nutrition practice. 3 of the 5 I did great, 2 of the 5 I did not. These rides were all done in lower Zone 3 power. I have since started to wear my heart rate monitor on my rides, and realize that some days I am working harder to get to zone 3 power. Obviously there are many factors that contribute to this, but I dont think you can ignore HR as a metric on race day decisions.
I agree that a trial and error approach is needed. I was just hoping to know where to start.
Thanks.
I agree that a trial and error approach is needed. I was just hoping to know where to start.
Thanks.
I wouldn’t waste much time thinking about where to start. I’d just start - then record data and make an effort to minimize how many variables you change in each data point, recognizing that weather plays a factor too. Things that work when it’s cool may not be as palatable when temps rise.
That is certainly a unique question considering that most world-class professional cyclists are always taking up food on the fly throughout the entire course of their races. Often after taking on food they are forced, by the pacing of other riders, to go straight up to their anaerobic thresholds and I’ve never heard this concern mentioned by anyone from the pro peloton.
According to medical experts heart rate can both increase and decrease with digestion.
I think this is likely very individualized type of protocol so the only way to truly measure it would be to use a heart rate monitor in conjunction with your eating activities.
It would be nice to have a software that puts your heart rate on a continuum, like an EKG. I noticed that Garmin Connect software does this. I mention it because it may be useful to have time on the x axis so you can mark the minutes and hours with respect to eating and inspect the heart rate just after eating.
It also wouldn’t hurt to analyze the foods you are ingesting. Do you have any known food allergies or issues? Are the foods used super easily digestible? I’ve seen people with lactose intolerance not even realize that energy products they used contained milk by-products like with Accelerade beverages for instance.
Lots to dig through but this scratches the surface and gives the experiment a framework.
First of all, I agree with the others pointing out that now you have a data point, you know that zone 3 doesn’t work! So next time go out and go lower than that.
I use this extensively with the athletes I coach, in fact just about everything about half iron and iron distance pacing is based off of how fast you can go and still digest your calories.
For the bike, the edge seems to be right around 20 bpm under your zone 5 hr. Assuming you used the Joe Friel 30 minute time trial and got the average hr for the last 20 minutes of the ride. For may of the people I coach, holding right around here for 90 minutes or so will get your stomach backed up. I’ve experienced it and this has been reported by the athletes as well. For some reason half iron biking seems to be right on the edge. Running seems to be a little higher, mayb 15 bpm under the zone 5 hr for running.
The first estimates we use are these,
half iron
zone 5 HR - 25 to 20 BPM for the bike
zone 5 HR - 20 to 15 BPM for the run
iron distance
zone 5 HR - 35 to 30 BPM for the bike
zone 5 HR - 25 to 20 BPM for the run
These usually allow you to get in the proper number of calories for you.
I took a look one day to try and find data on gastric emptying and digestion with varying hrs, couldn’t find anything that separated hr from work rate using differing temps for example. It is my untested hypothesis that in triathlons your hr is more closely linked to getting your food down than power is. That if environmental factors or nervousness or whatever is causing yor hr to be higher for a given work rate, and you then hold the “normal” work rate, your h will be higher than normal and your stomach emptying will be slower than normal. So sticking closer to your “normal” heart rate for the distance rather than power will allow you to get your food down.
That’s an untested hypothesis as I said, well not formally tested anyway; so take that for what it is worth.
Good luck