Fueling can absolutely make or break your day. If you run out of fuel and bonk, it can be hard to recover to keep riding for hours more. If you eat too much, or the wrong thing between laps or at an aid station, bloating and tummy aches can slow you down to a snails pace until you get through it. It’s no exaggeration to say that fueling is the second most important aspect of endurance racing behind good training and fitness. Bad food choices have taken me out of more endurance races than exhaustion, injury, crashes, mechanicals and weather, combined.
Plan to consume 200-350 calories per hour: Everybody’s body is different, but this calorie range should cover most people. The fitter you are and the deeper your glycogen reserves are, the less you will need, and your base metabolism will be a factor too. You will have to do a few long rides and races and record what you eat to figure out where you are in this range.
Create a Fueling Plan: Multiply the average number of calories you expect to consume per hour by the number of hours you will be on the bike to figure out your total calories for the day. Then look at the nutritional labels of the food items and drinks you plan to consume during the race and start adding them together until you have enough calories to get you through the event. I use a spreadsheet to calculate this. And it would be wise to record what you actually consumed after the race for future reference.
Use Sports Drink as Your Primary Fuel Source: Its easier to digest calories in liquid form. Its easiest to get liquid in your mouth from a hydration pack. As stated in Part #4, but certainly worth repeating: most sports drinks will foul your hydration bladder quickly, and you will need to clean it after each event. I find that Tailwind Endurance Fuel has a light flavor that is refreshing and its easy to clean out of hydration packs with nothing more than a rinse. They claim that its “All you need, all day. Really.” I find I can still tolerate it as a refreshing drink at 200, or no more than 250 calories per liter (they make it simple in that its 100 calories per scoop), and then I need some solid food every hour or two as well.
Keep Fueling Consistently: This is easier said than done. It’s pretty easy to get distracted by race conditions, technical trail sections or interacting with other riders, and forget to eat or drink. But these dips and calorie consumption can add up over time and you risk bonking or are forced you to eat a bit extra to compensate, and risk indigestion.
It’s hard to consume too many electrolytes while racing: It’s easy to get dehydrated while racing. It can also be easy to do the opposite and drink too much, but I personally find that getting more salt in my body is always a good think while endurance racing. That might mean salty snacks like goldfish or salted nuts (which are also a refreshing change from the sweetness of my sports drink) but it usually also means that I’m taking an electrolyte tablet eery hour or two, on top of all that.
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