The Feed Wagon

My new favorite on-bike energy bar. Not all carbohydrate--50% calories by fat.

I've talked about nutritional training for RAW before, and it is mentioned several times in my training plan as well.  When you race a traditional bike race, we leave a significant energy deficit that we refill in the hours and days after the event.  Typically this is a recovery drink or meal immediately afterwards, and our normal diet over the next 24 hours. From an energy perspective, it restores the muscle glycogen we used for energy.  Chocolate milk and various commercial recovery drinks are often used.  My favorite is a smoothie with 1.5 cups of 2% milk, a whey protein powder, and a frozen banana supplemented with a branched chain amino acid (BCAA) supplement. The difficulty so many inexperienced racers have with multi day stage races has its root to the deficit they incrementally build day to day by not completely refilling these stores.

On the bike, most cyclist eat a very high carbohydrate energy gel or bar.  The typical gel is 85-100% calories by carbohydrate.  The challenge with an ultra event like RAW or RAAM is that performance and recovery become one continuous activity.  Since you are performing continuously at a sub-aerobic threshold level, the nutritional needs are different, and it's something the body must adjust to.  The key elements in the plan are:

• Feed with 400-500 calories per hour while riding, with 40% calories from fat.
• Increase my overall dietary protein  intake  to 1.5 - 2.0 g/kg  to maintain muscle mass and promote muscle growth.

The other very practical problem training is just carrying all the food.  An unsupported 7 h ride requires at least 2800 calories of feeding, and even that falls short of the ideal goal for RAW.  Subtracting out calories in the electrolyte drink, that still leaves about 1800 calories you need leave the house with, plus enough electrolyte drink powder to remix 5 bottles.  1800 calories, that's 8-9 typical energy bars, or 18 gels.  Fortunately, at RAW I will have a car with blinky orange lights loaded with food following me down the road.  Carrying and eating that much food on the bike is hard.  I need to find dense calorie options that travel well in a jersey pocket.  I need to maintain enough variety to keep it tasty while striving for a 40% calorie by fat/50% calorie by carbohydrate mix.  Then I need to actually eat it along the way!

The Feed Wagon from Hoodoo 300.

The solution has been moving more towards athletic snack bars, with a more balanced fat content, like the Honey Stinger Cracker N' Nut Butter bars.  I also alternate the high carbohydrate gels with high fat keto butter, and will start to experiment with a homemade gel that will be a mix of keto and an organic honey based gel.  I have not decided if that is going to be pre-mixed, or come along in two separate flasks on the bike.  Part of the fun preparing for RAW has been experimenting, and learning about the nutritional needs on the bike.  I am convinced I can feel the difference late in the ride between needing some fat, versus needing some carbohydrate.   Having separate gels along allow me to tune on the fly.

One piece of news this week is that Honey Stinger brought me on board as an HIVE Ambassador.    I'm excited to have Honey Stinger helping me out with RAW and their products are so aligned with my needs for RAW.  They also have a wicked cool logo!

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My This coming weekend is the next progression in the endurance training block 2.  I have a 6 hour/115 mile ride planned for Saturday, and will be riding from Tucson to Kitt Peak and back with some of the University of Arizona cycling team on Sunday.  Sunday's ride will be about 135 miles, with the climb to the summit.  Even though I'm an astronomer at UA, I don't get up to Kitt Peak very often.  The mountaintop a cool site, and should be an epic climb.  I'll need a ton of food.

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​My RAW Story, Day 31: 181 days, 4 hours to RAW 2019.

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