Race Sim and Nutrition - 2007, #1
Last Sunday (7/15/07) was my first race simulation ride (in 2007) as I prepare for Ironman Wisconsin. The ride was a workout that I took from Gordo's bike workouts within his "Coaching Ironman Athlete's" document. The specific's of my workout were:
Lap 1 - 36.2 miles, 2:10:18, 125bpm ave, 159bpm max
Lap 2 - 36.2 miles, 2:03:58, 134bpm ave, 165bpm max
Lap 3 - 36.2 miles, 2:01:47, 135bpm ave, 169bpm max
Lap 1 description: made sure to ride what I thought felt "easy", used my hr monitor to keep it in check too, tried to not let hr spike on climbs/hills. Nutrition: 3 egel's, 1 bottle of xtra strength gatorade (1 bottle = 200kcals), 2 salt tabs, 2 bottles of h2o.
Lap 2 description: rode a little harder but never felt like I was pushing it, as the Gordo workout says, I tried to ride at Ironman effort/pace, let myself ride a little bit harder on the hills. Nutrition: 4 egel's, 1 bottle of xtra strength gatorade, 2 salt tabs (I use salt stick), 2 bottles of h2o.
In transition: ate a honey bun.
Lap 3 description: rode the loop backwards, primarily to see Nikki and check on her and b/c Jeff couldn't ride entire loop again. Tried to push and "work" the hills. It didn't feel easy, but as you can tell from my results, my body didn't seem to react much differently... (more later on this, see: fatigue below). It was very difficult to eat any calories! I felt like burping or vomiting for about 20 miles of the 36. (I think a really good perspective on this was written by Jeff Shilt, MD titled, "Tips to help prevent Gastrointestinal Breakdown")
What I Learned about Nutrition last year:
So I don't repeat too many things, I'll share two posts I wrote last August in my attempt to straighten out nutritional plans for the Runovia Triathlon:
1. Figuring out a racing nutritional plan #1 - 8/6/2006
2. Racing nutritional plan #2 - 8/15/2006
Here were the highlights of those lessons:
- eat more than you might think you need (in most cases)
- monitor fluid intake; h2o and sports drink
- drink early in ride
- eat early in ride
- comfort food is good when used wisely (re: Ale 8 and oatmeal cream pies)
- move back and forth between sports drink and food by the hour
My current thoughts based upon this past workout; I forgot about the concept of moving from gel's one hour to sports drink the next. I will definately try that option again b/c eating seven egel's in 4 hours was easy to do, but left me feeling like I was unable to eat more. The other issue I feel I had was using the extra strength (not too much extra) gatorade. I'll just use the regular strength gatorade.
A major lesson for me on this ride was that the extra spikes in intensity / heart rate changed my ability to digest the calories I was taking in. - (really go read the post by Jeff Shilt, MD)
A couple changes that I have made are changing from oatmeal cream pies to honey buns. The pies seemed too sweat and actually became hard to eat, while the honey buns go down really quick and are packed with calories... (the jumbo's are over 500kcals and they take about 20 seconds to get down!). The second change is using gel flasks. It seems a whole lot easier to manage than using so many packets.
Fatigue.
So this race simulation ride came at the end of my biggest (duration wise, not counting Brevets) week of training this year. I could definately feel it in my legs and noticed it in my heart rates. The highest my heart rate climbed to was 169bpm on the third lap. This was while I was pushing as hard as I felt possible at a couple points, once during a climb and once at the end trying to fly home and go under 2 hours.
In a normal rested state, my heart rates will easily reach the upper 180's and stay in the 160's for several hours. (Running they'll stay in the 170's for hours.) An example of this was during our 300km Brevet from Atlanta back in May, when we hit a climb in Alabama my heart rate got up to 186bpm and stayed above 180bpm for a good 20 minutes. All of this shows me that there is probably a level of fatigue setting in. (Other signs show this too.)
So yesterday (7/17/07) and today I'm taking it easy, trying to put down a little of that fatigue and come back to have a big training cycle Wednesday through Sunday. While the extra day (today) of less training was unexpected, I hope the rebound will be quicker and I won't end up overtrained.
Lap 1 - 36.2 miles, 2:10:18, 125bpm ave, 159bpm max
Lap 2 - 36.2 miles, 2:03:58, 134bpm ave, 165bpm max
Lap 3 - 36.2 miles, 2:01:47, 135bpm ave, 169bpm max
Lap 1 description: made sure to ride what I thought felt "easy", used my hr monitor to keep it in check too, tried to not let hr spike on climbs/hills. Nutrition: 3 egel's, 1 bottle of xtra strength gatorade (1 bottle = 200kcals), 2 salt tabs, 2 bottles of h2o.
Lap 2 description: rode a little harder but never felt like I was pushing it, as the Gordo workout says, I tried to ride at Ironman effort/pace, let myself ride a little bit harder on the hills. Nutrition: 4 egel's, 1 bottle of xtra strength gatorade, 2 salt tabs (I use salt stick), 2 bottles of h2o.
In transition: ate a honey bun.
Lap 3 description: rode the loop backwards, primarily to see Nikki and check on her and b/c Jeff couldn't ride entire loop again. Tried to push and "work" the hills. It didn't feel easy, but as you can tell from my results, my body didn't seem to react much differently... (more later on this, see: fatigue below). It was very difficult to eat any calories! I felt like burping or vomiting for about 20 miles of the 36. (I think a really good perspective on this was written by Jeff Shilt, MD titled, "Tips to help prevent Gastrointestinal Breakdown")
What I Learned about Nutrition last year:
So I don't repeat too many things, I'll share two posts I wrote last August in my attempt to straighten out nutritional plans for the Runovia Triathlon:
1. Figuring out a racing nutritional plan #1 - 8/6/2006
2. Racing nutritional plan #2 - 8/15/2006
Here were the highlights of those lessons:
- eat more than you might think you need (in most cases)
- monitor fluid intake; h2o and sports drink
- drink early in ride
- eat early in ride
- comfort food is good when used wisely (re: Ale 8 and oatmeal cream pies)
- move back and forth between sports drink and food by the hour
My current thoughts based upon this past workout; I forgot about the concept of moving from gel's one hour to sports drink the next. I will definately try that option again b/c eating seven egel's in 4 hours was easy to do, but left me feeling like I was unable to eat more. The other issue I feel I had was using the extra strength (not too much extra) gatorade. I'll just use the regular strength gatorade.
A major lesson for me on this ride was that the extra spikes in intensity / heart rate changed my ability to digest the calories I was taking in. - (really go read the post by Jeff Shilt, MD)
A couple changes that I have made are changing from oatmeal cream pies to honey buns. The pies seemed too sweat and actually became hard to eat, while the honey buns go down really quick and are packed with calories... (the jumbo's are over 500kcals and they take about 20 seconds to get down!). The second change is using gel flasks. It seems a whole lot easier to manage than using so many packets.
Fatigue.
So this race simulation ride came at the end of my biggest (duration wise, not counting Brevets) week of training this year. I could definately feel it in my legs and noticed it in my heart rates. The highest my heart rate climbed to was 169bpm on the third lap. This was while I was pushing as hard as I felt possible at a couple points, once during a climb and once at the end trying to fly home and go under 2 hours.
In a normal rested state, my heart rates will easily reach the upper 180's and stay in the 160's for several hours. (Running they'll stay in the 170's for hours.) An example of this was during our 300km Brevet from Atlanta back in May, when we hit a climb in Alabama my heart rate got up to 186bpm and stayed above 180bpm for a good 20 minutes. All of this shows me that there is probably a level of fatigue setting in. (Other signs show this too.)
So yesterday (7/17/07) and today I'm taking it easy, trying to put down a little of that fatigue and come back to have a big training cycle Wednesday through Sunday. While the extra day (today) of less training was unexpected, I hope the rebound will be quicker and I won't end up overtrained.
Labels: ale8, egel, fatigue, gatorade, nutrition, overtraining, race simulation
posted by gary at 10:16 PM
3 Comments:
Very interesting. I really need to do this practice concept. I was trying to do more practice eating earlier in my year, but I dropped off, and now that I have 53 days left before my Ironman, I feel the need to start thinking about my fueling plan.
Last year's big mistake was bonking on the ride, mile 60 almost killed me... and in retrospect, I think I'm lucky I was able to dig my way out of that nutritional hole and finish the race within my plan.
I like the idea of switching between gels and drink and then maybe add in that comfort food concept.
Great post!
I've been holding off on reading this post this week. I've been building up to my race simulation ride, which will be this Sunday.
I have the luxury of being able to ride the actual course that I'll race on, so that will be nice. It's only 40 miles down the road. I'll spend two full simulations on the full course between now and September.
Each will be a brick, so it's the 112 mile ride followed by a run to finish out the total time for the workouts, which will be 8 hours. If I can't dial in the nutrition during those bricks, I'm in trouble on race day. ;)
Definitely go with the gel flasks. Much more economical and easier to carry, IMO. I've been using Hammer gels for 10+ years for specifically that reason (plus they taste good).
Bill, I just checked out your blog and saw you are doing the Lake Barkley race (Runovia last year).
I'm not sure if you've went and read all my reports from last year, but here are a few thoughts about that course that also pertain to my discussion here:
1. limit the peaks in the effort/watts/heart rate on that bike. you know the ride is very rolling, but also very straight. it is very tempting to get into a period of just rolling... as I look back at the race, it was hard to get down gel's towards the end, likely due to poor "peak" management.
2. the race is going to be long (the course requires it) so get comfortable taking in as many calories as you can digest... practice too much and then back down a little, too much again, back off just a little again.
3. run hills off the bike on your practice bricks... the run is hilly, so prepare the legs for climbing soon (it's 2 miles straight up out of T2)
4. it might be wise to check out all the info out there that i've posted or on Gordo's Site about the run/walk method... it can really help pace maintanance on that course.
good luck at Lake Barkley... maybe I'll come over and volunteer?
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