Nutritional Seminar

Went to a very interesting nutritional seminar on Wednesday night with Roly. Held at CBD Cycles it was with a guy called Steve Born - an American endurance ultra cyclist. Whatever one of those is.

Although he is sponsored by Hammer and was obviously pushing their gear, there were some interesting suggestions for how to fuel during long activity sessions and races.

Essentially though the main things I took out of it were:

·        No eating less than 3 hours before an event - hydration with water is ok though, but only up to 500ml's an hour and stopping 30 mins before the event. Sounds strange, but I like this and will try it. Based on something to do with affecting one's glycogen stores.

·        Recovery is critical - whey protein isolate is the best.

·        No more than 280 calories an hour during an event - that's 3 x gels or 1 a bar. The body cannot absorb anymore than that.

·        Simple sugars are bad news...unfortunately the Torq gels I have just bought contain 20% fructose which is a simple sugar - but I'm not going to change that. He recommends complex carbs instead. And no mixing of the two as they will work against each other.

·        Electrolytes can be taken by capsule - I like this idea as it limits the amount of liquid I need to carry on the bike and will probably look to order some - 3/4 capsules an hour.

·        Hydration is important - around 500ml an hour of water. Upwards if it's hot.

·        Perpetuem (Hammer product) will give you enough calories without resorting to anything else. Need to think about this as it aint cheap and I have just ordered a shed load of bars/gels. It's $63 for 24 servings. As a guide, Hammer recommend that we should be taking on 2 servings an hour. So that's $63 for 12 hours of exercise. $5 an hour. But, the upside means you can get all your calories for 3 hours in one bottle and its liquid which means we don't have to eat on the bike. Tempting.

Steve's IM plan was 1 x gel 5 mins before the swim, ideally 1 x gel half way through the swim then Perpetuem, electrolyte capsules and water for the whole ride, then gels/bars/electrolyte capsules and water for the run.

Food for thought!