It happens every season and this year it happened yesterday. I ate my normal breakfast of late (smoothie with chia seeds, flax seeds, Bioflavia, maca powder, spinach, frozen raspberries, frozen banana and almond milk). Then around 11:30 I ate my typical lunch of a big veggie stir-fry, some celery and carrot sticks and an orange. Perfect – the food was super tasty, I felt satiated and ready-to-go.
A couple hours after lunch I hit the open road for my ride. About 30 minutes before my ride, I ate a package of Clif Bloks. Wednesday was threshold interval day and the first time doing “longish” threshold intervals. The first ten minute interval went well – as hard as a threshold interval should be. In the second interval I faded at the three minute to go mark with a bit of a resurgence in the last minute. Then it was a 45-minute ride home into a headwind.
By the time I got home I was wiped out. It was a bit chilly yesterday and rather windy (thank you small ring!) – so I attributed the fatigue to the weather combined with the intensity of the ride.
I had big plans for my post-ride afternoon, well needless to say I didn’t get anything ticked off my “to do” list… Instead I felt draggy, wiped out and darn right rotten. I attributed this to the work-out intensity. Marc believed otherwise. After asking me what I ate (oh I did have a Luna bar when I got home) he determined that I was under-fueled and particularly in the carbohydrate department. Of course – I did not agree. With no energy to cook supper I zipped off to Farm Boy to pick up some pre-made food (actually pretty good because you can read all of the ingredients) – Marc gave me strict instructions to get something carby…
After eating a quinoa salad and assorted roasted vegetables and then some trail mix – I felt remarkably better. In fact I stayed up until 11:00 and was full of energy…
Yes, it happens every year. I neglect to look at the ride I have to do and eat to fuel this ride. Eating on a recovery day or an easy day is not the same as eating for a longer ride or more intense ride. One year I’ll remember this lesson and not suffer the rather unpleasant crash and energy dip.
(Oh and about the trail mix – it was so good. All sorts of nuts, Smarties, raisins, and chocolate chips. Lets just say I ate more than one serving…)
So, learn from my mistakes. Eat. Eat again. And eat some more.
Ottawa Cross 
Hey Vick,
Did my first long ride last Sun. Did 100k with a Gat loop with boys thrown in the middle. I had a couple gels for emergency and 3 Gatorades mixed a bit strong and one banana.
When I got home, it was just over 4 hr ride and I was glad I didn’t have to do another km 🙂
I went right to the kitchen table, checked my sugar, which was 4.7, low is below 4, so was getting low. I had Julie take of my shoes and covers and I was starting to be a bit shaky.
I was starved and ate 3 pancakes with syrup(lots of sugar), 2 pop tarts, 3 raisin toast with PB, 2 eggs, two teas with bit sugar(usually avoid sugar now) and was still hungry! Decided to do half my insulin to not get a low later and turned out perfect.
My stomach was feeling the emptiness for the last hr of the ride! Note to self, bring more solid food ! ! ! Only 1 banana on that ride the rest was liquid sugar.
So basically trying to say you were not alone on miss-calculating first long ride nutrition 🙂
See ya at CR 🙂
Cheers,
Paul
HI Paul
Yep – sounds like you did the same thing as me – only a bit worse. You did the smart thing though and ate right away. I had the same empty feeling in my stomach during the last hour of my ride but I wasn’t sure if it was from hunger of from the effort.
It is really trial and error to figure out what we need on a ride. It is not fun riding around feeling full and bloated either.
Yes, see you at Clarence-Rockland. Slightly nervous. We need to arrange a ride together!
cheers,
vicki
Morning. interesting you talk about food today. As a 50 something trying to get into shape ,shead a few pounds weekend warrior. I struggle with work,lifestyle ,diet and the energy to keep up my training. Do you know of any boomer type training , eating , still working 60 hours a week guidelines. :0) . enjoy. thank you
Bob
Hi Bob
I think it is awesome that you’re trying to stay fit and active while juggling a super busy work life. The best thing I’ve found is to be prepared (often I’ll cook a bunch of food on Sunday so that we have meals for the week and some planned leftovers).
In fact Chatelaine magazine has an excellent section with 30-minute suppers. I keep chopped up celery and carrots in my fridge to easily take with me when I’m out.
I think that ideally we’d all eat as “clean” as possible but sometimes it is hard to do so and frankly some of the less-clean food does taste darn good!
Don’t know if this helps?
cheers,
vicki
awesome, thank you,, could you come over and keep our fridge full of food,, lol, sometimes it’s a task getting food to eat, before worry about eating it,, ??
thanks a lot,, hope to ride with you soon,,
Vicki,
Ask Steve W. about Carbo-Pro. I think it makes a big difference and is an easy way to fuel while riding. Don’t know if you’d have tolerance issues.
John
Hi John!
Funny you should mention Carbo-Pro. I have a big canister of it on the top of my fridge – thanks to coach Steve. I find it very easy to digest and it has no allergens in it. I simply forget that it is there and that I should be adding it to my smoothies and to my bottle. Thanks for the reminder. Looks like you’re getting in some good training down south. Hope you’re well.
cheers,
vicki
I’m as we’ll as maximum training and wellness coincide. Hope to see you this fall
John