During a hard ride if you don’t supplement properly before or during the ride?
In a new york minute.
If you ate nothing after a night of sleep… somewhere between 1-2 hours I would guess
Jodi
I have bonked within 45 min on an afternoon ride (6:30pm) and had lunch at 11:30am, not other meal after that. I started the ride hungry, but never thought I would bonk if the night before I had pizza, and the lunch I mentioned the day of the ride was ton of pasta.
Worst that’s ever happened to me was 1 hour into an early morning ride when I didn’t have breakfast. I had to actually walk up some fairly mild hills on the way home.
I agree after a night of sleep with nothing to eat, a well trained person has 1 to 1.5 hours of very hard, or maybe 2 hours of moderately hard effort available to them.
The weird thing is that I have done early rides with no breakfast and can hammer for the first 45 min or hour without bonking before eating something. That’s what I don’t get, I ate well night before (last night), today had breakfast, early lunch, and bonked within 45 min into the ride. It was like if I turned the switch off. I was riding strong, at the front, all of a sudden I couldn’t even pushed the pedals.
Sounds like conditioning is the cause of bonking. That or weather.
it was very hot, and i don’t do well on heat. Never thought it could contribute to bonking.
Absolutly could. I do better in heat around mid July after my body adapts to it for a while. One of the reasons Eagleman is such a hard race. It is a early season race that is usually very hot with no shade what so ever to help.
Heat, yes.
I am not sure it is technically the same as bonking (which most people seem to agree is basically muscle, liver, and blood glycogen all used up), while heat makes it more like overheating or dehydration, but the result generally feels the same to me.
Well according to the spam emails I am getting and the articles I see in men’d magazines, in as little as a few seconds…+
.
Interesting. It felt like my energy was totally gone, and within minutes I started feeling cramps in my right calf. It could’ve been a combination of both, or one lead to the other.
A true bonk is caused by glycogen depletion.
You can exercise around 2 hours hard on your glycogen reserves if they are full.
But if you go into a workout already partially depleted, say from yesterday’s workout, you can bonk much sooner.
Most people don’t have a very good built-in glycogen fuel gauge and have trouble estimating how much is left in the tank. When you’re out of fuel, you’re done (or go catabolic).
Last year I discovered that not eating a proper lunch gave me 45km on the bike (from 6pm) before I ran out of gas, and I ran out of gas HARD. To see if bonking was the cause, I tried the same thing again the following week. Very small lunch, maybe half a can of soup. Left on bike at 6, 45km later…blew up. I’m a lot more careful now.
I commute everyday. Sometimes when I forget to eat something in the end of the day I almost bonk in the 25kms it takes to get home.
I can feel the bonk coming, I get sweaty (even when its cold) and the sweat feals really cold. Anyone recognises this ‘cold sweat’ feeling?
During a hard ride if you don’t supplement properly before or during the ride?
I once tried an Atkin’s type diet for shits and giggles and after a day or two I was bonking within 10s of minutes going for a ride.
If you deplete liver glycogen and don’t replenish it you’re going to have a hard time maintaining blood glucose levels.
I’m normally a fairly decent runner. Had a light breakfast and skipped lunch to be in meetings at work all day as I stared out the window longing for my afternoon run. 4:30 rolls around and I immediately change and head out without any food. Thirty minutes into the run, which happened to be 30 minutes in a straight line away from my office, I bonked worse than I ever had. Ended up taking me an hour to walk/jog back. Just had zero energy.
A true bonk is caused by glycogen depletion.
You can exercise around 2 hours hard on your glycogen reserves if they are full.
But if you go into a workout already partially depleted, say from yesterday’s workout, you can bonk much sooner.
Most people don’t have a very good built-in glycogen fuel gauge and have trouble estimating how much is left in the tank. When you’re out of fuel, you’re done (or go catabolic).
QFT…That’s my experience too.
To the OP:
Since I’ve been doing triathlon I’ve only bonked on the run. When that is comming I normally get a funny feeling like my legs feel really light and my shoulders and head feel weird, that’s normally about 4 or 5 minutes until I have to stop.
If I double gel when I feel that commming I will normally recover. If I don’t and have to stop it will take me 5 or so minutes after eating a couple gels before I can run effectively again, otherwise it’s an unpleasant walk.
jaretj
Hmmmm, what about for running? I never eat before runs, no matter the distance. My stomach cannot handle it. I just did a 4 hour ride on the trainer without eating which included 1:45 minutes of HIM pace intervals and felt fine although tired towards the end I definitely did not bonk.
Seems like its individual like everything else.
I did bonk on a long ride one time after gettimg lost an riding 25 miles more than intended. I only had enough nuitrition for 55 miles, ram out at 55, ended up doing 80. I had timed it so I would run out around 50. It was a brutally hot Florida afternoon. I almost cried after realizing I was lost and bonked around mile 60. Only time it’s ever happened. Not a great feeling.
Almost forgot, the 55 was at HIM pace. Went from 21-22 mph to 15 for the last 15-20
Miles.