ZappoMan.com - Fitness Blog

Practice Eating… and… Where’d that run come from?

January 30th, 2007

It was an absolutely beautiful day in Seattle, and my DSL was down at my house… so I couldn’t get much work done. No fear, I am self-employed, I only report to myself, so I decided to go out and enjoy the weather and get some good training in.

As strange as it may seem, I have been meaning to practice eating. What? Yep, you heard me right… the one error I feel I made on my Ironman last year was my race-day nutrition, and so this season, I want to practice “race day” eating techniques. Since I was heading out around noon, it seemed like a perfect chance to get in a little “practice eating”.

I had two problems with my Ironman race day nutrition. The first was that I bonked at mile 60 of the bike. I know this was because I hadn’t fueled during the first half of the bike. Everything I’ve read on Iron distance race day nutrition says it is critical to fuel early and often on the bike leg. I knew this, I had reminded myself of this, I had plenty of fuel on my bike, but I just didn’t execute. I was so excited about my swim time (18 minutes faster than my goal) and passing all the people on the bike (>50% of the field) that I just got absorbed in the moment and only ate maybe 2 gu packets and no solid food.

Not only did this result in a bonk, but it also created problem #2… uh, did he say #2… yeah. Well, long distance endurance racing is a dirty business, and well, improper fueling can (and in my case did) lead to issues in your GI tract… in my case this meant a very unpleasant feeling and the need to relieve myself at miles 8 and 18 of the marathon. Now, fortunately I didn’t make a mess of myself… but the fact is, running with grumbling bowels is no fun, and it doesn’t help make for your best performance. I know that this problem was also created by poor fueling strategy. I didn’t eat solid foods, so basically all those calories from fluids and gus were just sloshing around through my entire digestive tract.

So this year, I plan to practice eating on the bike, just like I practice my T1’s and T2’s every chance I get, I am going to practice eating. But wait… that sounds like a problem, like a big problem.

I am absolutely convinced that over eating during training is a big limiter in performance. Now, under-eating is also a problem as highlighted by this post on askatricoach.com But, I’ve seen other cyclists and triathletes out there who simply pound tons and tons of calories on their training rides, and also tend to bonk more frequently than me… and I rarely take on calories during training rides. Alright, alright, I don’t want to get into the details of how to handle in-ride nutrition for training in general, that’s not the point of this post… maybe someday I will do some more research and try to present a fair and balanced view of your options and things you should consider. But here is what I know for myself… I can’t afford to eat a ton on my training rides, and so if I’m going to practice eating, I want to do it in a very deliberate race-focused manner, and thoughtfully considering my overall nutritional needs.

The good news is, this was a lunch time ride. I was just about to eat lunch anyway… so I killed two birds with one stone. I made myself a peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich. I cut it in half, packed it in two easy to open wax paper bags, and loaded it in to my bento-box. What? Why? Does that make sense?

Well, I don’t know if it makes sense or not, but here was my logic…

1. Solid food - I know that on race day I want solid food. The gu almost killed me. I need the fiber.
2. Peanut butter - Protein and Carbs! Good stuff for long distance nutrition.
3. Bananas - Carbs, electrolytes, and “that magical thing bananas do”… uh, you know, bind you up a little…. just in case my tummy gets queasy from the gu later in the race.
4. Honey - ahh.. nice unprocessed nature made energy.
5. Total calories - about 400… give or take… I would obviously need a lot more than this on race day, but the point is this would have been 3-4 gu packs, which would have been more difficult to eat, and less enjoyable, and not had the added benefits listed above.
6. Tastes great! - need I say more?

I actually tried out the wax paper bags vs. plastic bags on an early practice eat… the wax bags worked much better. They held the food in great, and they are easy to open when flying down the road at 20mph with one hand on your handle bars. Plus you can lick off all the peanut butter and honey goodness that may have dripped out of your sandwich.

Anyway, I am going to experiment with other easy-to-eat solutions. If anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears.

Now, here’s the really interesting thing… I rode my bike for 20miles, and had a pretty great ride. It was all flat, and I wasn’t actually trying to go all out, pretty much stayed in zone 3, and ended up blasting out an 18.8mph average on my single-speed. That’s absolutely a personal best considering I stayed in zone 3 it’s awesome… at one point I was spinning at an insane cadence and I topped 29mph… yowza at 42/18 with a 61″ roll-out… wubba… must have been the peanut butter!

Then I do a 6.3 mile run… again, I wasn’t trying for anything spectacular, in fact I thought I’d take it pretty easy, but as I ran down from my house to the trail, I checked my Forerunner, and I had run my first quarter mile at a 6:42 pace… I tried to slow a little bit, but ended up throwing down a 7:00 first mile, 7:11 second, and 7:04 third… I took what felt like an incredibly slow “jog break” at the half way point at an 8:10 pace, and ended up finishing my 6.3 miles at a 7:18 average pace. Where the hell did this run come from? 

Maybe I have my training nutrition strategy completely wrong? Maybe I should look at eating more (at all) on my rides… But I have to be honest, this would be a hard habit to change… I have a really hard time believing that I should eat during a 90 minute or 2 hour training ride or run… I mean it just doesn’t seem right.

Well, either way it was a great day!

Entry Filed under: Fitness, Diet, Weightloss, Swimming, Ironman, Running, Cycling, Marathons, Flexibility, Stretching, fixie, single-speed, fixed-gear