Fuelling an endurance event?

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Fuelling an endurance event?

Postby Drew_ab » Tue Mar 26, 2019 12:31 pm

Hi All

I've recently signed up for a longer distance triathlon (1500m swim + 50km bike + 11km run), that will likely put me at a 3hr finish time. Maybe 2:50 if all the stars align and it is a perfect day. Or 3:10 if it ends up being a tough day (hot day, poor sleep, get sick, get a flat, whatever could go wrong). I'm not new to endurance athletics, though in the past several years my training has been more in line with what's optimal for longevity, rather than pure performance. Of course, not everything in life needs to be aligned with longevity. My training will likely peak at about 9hrs per week, if all goes according to plan. I don't recommend this if you are interested purely in longevity. I don't plan on doing another event like this again but am committed fully to the training and process to do it well.

Of note, 2 years ago I did do a 1:15:xx sprint tri that went pretty well (750m swim + 20km bike + 5km run). Many years before that I did a 19:52 5km and a 42:xx 10km. All fuelled on the power of whole plant foods. Since these events are so short I only consumed water during and before the events. Along with a breakfast of oatmeal + high nitrate vegetables to improve athletic performance.

I will have several long-workouts (bike/run bricks) in the 2-3hr range well before the race to tinker with nutrition, along with the race of course. I'm wondering how you would approach fuelling for this. Part of me wants to stick with just whole foods (like bananas, raisins, and dates). However, part of me wonders if that is just naive and I'm setting myself up to bonk and maybe I should just suck it up and buy some GU Gels or Gatorade. I did email Rip Esselstyn and he did say for workouts over 2 hours that he used to consume gels with no artificial flavors, etc.

I'm extremely compliant with the McDougall plan. I would estimate that in a given year 98.5%-99.5% of my calories come from whole food plant based sources. The non-compliant calories are in rare meals (like maple syrup or maybe oil that snuck in during a rare meal at a restaurant or family gathering that was thought to be oil free - or perhaps the animal products I eat maybe twice per year).

To all the endurance athletes on the board, how would you fuel for this?
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Re: Fuelling an endurance event?

Postby sirdle » Tue Mar 26, 2019 5:46 pm

Years ago (40? :shock: ) I used to race bicycles for up to 3 hours on nothing but bananas and water. That's after making sure my glycogen stores were full by eating plenty of carbohydrates during the previous few days and on race morning. However, I was never any good at racing, so maybe you don't want to do what I did. ;-)

Whatever approach you choose, make sure you try it out several times before race day... last thing you need is digestion trouble. I never had any trouble eating bananas while racing a bike... but if I were, say, rowing, I'd probably veer more toward liquid calories.

Cheers, :-P
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Re: Fuelling an endurance event?

Postby Drew_ab » Tue Mar 26, 2019 6:36 pm

sirdle wrote:Years ago (40? :shock: ) I used to race bicycles for up to 3 hours on nothing but bananas and water. That's after making sure my glycogen stores were full by eating plenty of carbohydrates during the previous few days and on race morning. However, I was never any good at racing, so maybe you don't want to do what I did. ;-)

Whatever approach you choose, make sure you try it out several times before race day... last thing you need is digestion trouble. I never had any trouble eating bananas while racing a bike... but if I were, say, rowing, I'd probably veer more toward liquid calories.

Cheers, :-P


Thanks for the feedback. It's definitely a common message to make sure you have your nutrition dialed in before race day. It would be awful to have months of training go down the drain due to poor planning.
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Re: Fuelling an endurance event?

Postby viv » Fri Mar 29, 2019 9:34 pm

I'm not an endurance athlete by any stretch of the imagination, but I want to say many congratulations on your amazing life of fitness and endurance fueled only on a starch based diet. I read somewhere that the Tarahuma Indians run hundreds of miles on dried potatoes or pinole. No doubt you know all about them!

Good Luck - you'll do great!

Viv
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Starting weight: 217
Current weight: 157
60lbs gone--for good!
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Re: Fuelling an endurance event?

Postby Drew_ab » Sat Mar 30, 2019 12:38 pm

Thanks for the reply Viv - the Tarahumura are legendary in the world of endurance athletics. Their diet of beans + corn has aided them in becoming some of the greatest endurance athletes to have walked the face of the planet.

I wanted to add some comments from Vegpdlr who I have had some exchanges with via PM - he did say I could share his comments here:

At three hours you’re in a bit of a gray zone. You might need much fuel, but compared to training, race intensity burns through glycogen faster, so you’ll probably do better if you take in some calories on the bike.

Ultimately, there’s so much individual variation you have to experiment and see what works for you. What gives one person a PR, gets someone else a DNF. I’m fortunate in that my gut is pretty tolerant so a wide range of options work fine. Also, my long events or on the bike, so git issues are rarer than in running events. BUT, nearly all my racing is off road, so I can’t always safely take a hand off the bars.

Anyway, what works best for me is to have white rice or rice noodles with tofu and a few veggies for dinner. For breakfast, either a cold cooked sweet potato or home made rice cakes if I can allow an hour or two to digest before the start. I mix a bottle of Hammer Sustained Energy to keep on the bike and keep plain water in my hydration pack. Liquid fuel is quicker and safer on rough terrain. I might take in a gel at aid stations. I chase everything with plain water. My favorite solid food is a Japanese style onigiri rice ball with umeboshi paste. My typical races are in the 4-8 hour range. Plain salted potatoes are also good. When I volunteered at the Leadville 100 run at mile 80, the trays of potatoes were a big hit. That and ramen.

Assuming your event is on the road, what I would do is take a gel in T1, drink two bottles of my favorite sports drink, either Hammer HEED, Skratch or Tailwind, take one or two gels on the bike, and a last gel in T2 with a cup of water. Nothing but fluids on the run. It takes about 30 min for calories to take in to become available, so once out on the run, there’s not much point in taking anything but fluids to avoid GI dishes. I find commercial gels and drinks best during racing for convenience. There’s enough other stuff to think bout on race day. I prefer real food and sports drinks for training.

You can search my old posts where I’ve described what Andy how I do it. In the end, you have to experiment on yourself. Not all brands or flavors agree with everyone. Something that tastes fine at a lower training intensity in cool weather might be a disaster on a hot race day.

Good luck, and have fun out there.
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Re: Fuelling an endurance event?

Postby Drew_ab » Sat Mar 30, 2019 12:40 pm

If another plant-based endurance athlete comes through here, they might find this of value (part 2 and 3 of the above private message):

Part 2

Thanks Vgpedlr! The info you've provided is really

You are right that 3 hours seems to be at the gray zone. I'll have about 6-7 workouts in the 1.5-3hr range between now and then on which I can begin to experiment. I really like the protocol you've suggested and will give it a whirl to see what happens.

Moving at race pace will certainly burn through the glycogen faster than on my long zone 2 bike/run brick workouts. However, maybe if I do these fasted that will balance out to an extent. You are right that individual variation is a big deal when it comes to race nutrition. I think I'm going to try some of the Hammer Nutrition products. I'm trying to decide where the balance between complex carbs + simple sugars will fall. The night before I might try: brown rice pasta + nitrate rich veggies + tofu. Perhaps the morning of I will do the same. I've often had some VERY high fibre meals before racing (like 25 grams worth)... was okay, but this probably wasn't optimal. It's very cool to hear that you volunteered at Leadville. The ultra world is one I love to follow, but one I doubt I'll ever participate in. I have the utmost respect for those who do though.

I love the suggested plan you've posted here:

Assuming your event is on the road, what I would do is take a gel in T1, drink two bottles of my favorite sports drink, either Hammer HEED, Skratch or Tailwind, take one or two gels on the bike, and a last gel in T2 with a cup of water. Nothing but fluids on the run. It takes about 30 min for calories to take in to become available, so once out on the run, there’s not much point in taking anything but fluids to avoid GI dishes. I find commercial gels and drinks best during racing for convenience. There’s enough other stuff to think bout on race day. I prefer real food and sports drinks for training.

Thanks so much for getting back to me - it is much appreciated! Are you currently training for anything?


Part 3

Glad to help. Hopefully it will be of some value. As to commercial products, it really surprises me how much individual variation there is, since they're really all essentially the same thing. Hammer is a little different in that they use maltodextrin exclusively, while most companies use a maltodextrin/fructose blend. I prefer Hammer, but the blends work too. You can read about the rationales on company websites. A new player with a different take is Tailwind, who have developed quite a cult following in Colorado where they're based. I like it because it is the easiest to clean out of a hydration pack bladder. Beyond brand and ingredients, flavor also matters. I hate artificial grape, lemony, limey citrus can be too much, but otherwise most flavors are OK. Lighter flavor is best for me, so that's why I prefer some products. Weather also plays a role. Some brands/flavors taste better on hot days. My sister will practically vomit some flavors, so best to test.

Like many things, less is more, and little and often over the long haul works wonders. So fuel conservatively, start early, and be consistent. If you fall behind, you cannot make it up. I found that out the hard way. I bent the golden rule of racing, which is not to do anything new on race day. I skipped the hydration pack, relying on bottles and aid stations on a familiar course. I trained that way, but I forgot how rough it was, and could not take a hand off the bars often enough to grab a bottle as compared to a hydration pack tube. So I fell behind, realized it at an aid station, gulped down everything at once and had a complete GI meltdown. Learned my lesson. Be conservative, but consistent. Probably more races are ruined by eating and drinking too much as opposed to not enough, a testament to the power of Gatorade's marketing. Worth remembering is that Haile Gebreselassie lost 10% of his body weight en route to setting a marathon world record. Gatorade would call that a disaster, he called it winning.

I would skip the idea of fasted workouts and instead practice race day fueling, including breakfast. In the morning, your liver glycogen is low, but muscle glycogen is as stocked as it was from the day before. So you have plenty of energy to train, but your brain will feel the low blood sugar and fatigue you. The only benefit I can see is that you can get used to the depleted feeling. A better plan would be to experiment with what breakfast to eat, and when to time it. Another option is to skip breakfast completely, and start fueling sooner and a little bit more than usual. I've tried it both ways, they both work. It depends on timing. With the usual early morning starts, skipping breakfast might work best. Or, if you have a significant drive as I usually do, then a couple hundred calories would work. The timing issue is potential GI distress, or an insulin spike initiated energy dip.

I might race next weekend, but the very wet winter here in NorCal has me concerned. I hate riding in the mud. 25 miles, 5,000ft of climbing with no big climbs, instead a "death by a 1000 paper cuts" sort of a death march course. Not very familiar with those trails, pretty remote out at Lake Sonoma. We'll see. Otherwise, the "A" race is the 100k Tahoe Trail race at Northstar in July which functions as a Leadville 100 qualifier. I don't have a problem with the distances, but I have real problems with going fast enough to qualify or meet time cutoffs. I've improved my strength, so hopefully I can convert that to a faster pace.

You can do whatever you want with this info, it's just one person's experience.
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Re: Fuelling an endurance event?

Postby sirdle » Sat Mar 30, 2019 12:50 pm

Very interesting and useful. Thanks Drew_ab and Vgpedlr!
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Re: Fuelling an endurance event?

Postby Yomom » Sat Mar 30, 2019 1:02 pm

You may be interested in onigiri (Japanese rice balls) that
longtime McDougaller vgpedlr uses to fuel his races. Below is a link to discussion and the recipes he uses.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=48968&p=503880&hilit=+onigiri#p503880
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Re: Fuelling an endurance event?

Postby OneLeggedPig » Thu Apr 11, 2019 8:58 am

I want to start using riceballs, vegan Ultra Runner Scott Jurek makes those- I think mainly they are sushi rice and some miso paste. I like running and want to do some longer events- I think steamed (and then cooled...) baby/new potatoes will also be ideal. And dates for a quick boost
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Re: Fuelling an endurance event?

Postby nonstoppete » Sat May 04, 2019 7:44 am

I met Rich Roll at a book signing several years ago and he turned me on to Hammer Nutrition. Their website has a number of good articles on endurance nutrition (more than 3 hour events). They promote a complex carb method over simple sugars. Complex carbs promote water moving into the small intestine vs simple sugars which promote water staying in the stomach. Their science seems to track what I have studied in Endurance nutrition textbooks, I have used their gels and their perpetum products with good success.

I made my own bars by mixing cooked sweet potatoes, flax and chia seeds and then baking them. More recently I just went to using raisins as my fuel, consuming about 180 calories per hour (depends on body weight). I measure out hourly snack bags and tuck them in my fuel belt. Works out to be about a golf ball every 30 minutes.

When I take in simple sugars during a marathon (usually because they are handing out pop-cycles or maple syrup or Gatorade) I feel nauseous or start to bonk. Many times I've watched people near the end of a race grab a Gatorade and then shortly later throw up.

Of course, your mileage may vary. Some ideas that have worked for me.

Peter
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Re: Fuelling an endurance event?

Postby Ruff » Fri May 31, 2019 6:02 pm

One thing we use is baby food in pouches. No additives, just fruit or fruit and veg, twist the lid off, suck and go. You can use these when running or biking.

We also use dates, and I have to admit I add a pinch of salt to the bag of dates.

For drinks we use a splash of orange juice in water with a pinch of salt, particularly in ultra distance events, or when it’s very hot and we are likely to sweat a lot. I know a lot of people don’t like to add salt, but we do. We use a locally produced sea salt.

Hope this helps.
Katie

My testimonial. viewtopic.php?f=13&t=38433
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