We all find out somewhere along our cycling journey, that fuelling is actually very important, it doesn’t make you less cool if you have a munchie whilst riding, you don’t turn into the Bagheera of cycling, you just enable yourself to train for longer, with greater success if doing intervals.
When I started training, I would crack after two hours... legs, brain, the whole lot and I couldn’t work out why because I’d never had this problem with previous sports. It would drive James nuts, but not once did the smart arse mention I should fuel better… I’m sure he just enjoyed moaning. I did some research and found my answer, I wasn’t fuelling appropriately – which turns out, for me, (a primarily fast twitch filled person) I need to fuel a lot because I had no endurance-based muscle.
Another thing I should have known, because I studied it at University, and I guess to some extent I did know it, I knew I was doing it wrong, but listening to my own advice is almost as excruciating as admitting I’m wrong… it took a while. After I accepted the bottom of my brain was intelligent, I discussed it with a few friends and tried to work out what was best for me on the bike. It was a very long and painful process… I spent many rides hanging out of my buttocks, praying someone would pick me up and drive me home, contemplating wasting money on a taxi and throwing many gloriously hangry and tired tantrums… James loved these… not.
My fuelling journey started with gels, I have squashed sinuses from a broken nose in rugby as a… 9’ish year old, so I find it really hard to eat, breath and cycle at the same time, I also found it hard to stomach proper food for a long time.
I have now worked out, even if I am not hungry, I EAT every 30-45minutes for anything over two hours. I moved onto granola bars eventually and we are now at beautifully home-made rice cakes – which also took a lifetime and near-death experience to perfect the recipe.
Unfortunately for me, I have a problem with textures of food – I am an idiot :), its not a fear it’s just a weird thing. If I don’t like the texture of a food, I’ll either be borking as I eat it, or sick afterwards… my relationship with rice cakes is a love hate one. I love them because they save my soul, I hate them because they feel like cold, stodgy rice pudding been left out for a week… problems.
I still, to this day get bullied (in a joke way) for eating so much food whilst I ride and carrying so many backup snacks with me. But you know what? I don’t care because it gets me round, I mean, weigh it up…. be bullied by fwends vs. crack and never make it home?!
Here is my advice for anyone, no matter how far into cycling you are, you MUST eat like you’ve been starved for 10 years. A very smart friend gave me this rota: after 30minutes eat a bar/banana, next 30minutes eat a rice cake and then alternate between bars/rice cakes throughout your ride every 30minutes, or just rice cakes if that works… I now mainly eat rice cakes (unless I’m too lazy to make them).
I would also advise having a carb overload breakfast for anyone who struggles with endurance, I used to eat home-made blueberry pancakes (6…8… maybe 10 – small fluffy American style ones), have a glass of orange juice, coffee and water. If I know I’m doing over 3 hours, I will still have that for breakfast, yes, you’ll have to get up earlier to prepare, but it’s so worth it. Oh! And always carry an emergency gel… I have been saved many of times by my slimey, slug dew dew textured gel!
You should also note, it gets better, it’s a horribly torturous process but you’ll get there. It’s all about training your body to fat burn – women, do not do this fasted because it produces more cortisol hormone, the stress hormone, and it’s bad for us in overload (I can talk about this in more depth in the future, but basically, women are superior in every way possible :D). See you on the other side!
Ride bikes, eat cake, be happy :)
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