Great feedback so far! Thank you Cindy and Bill for sharing your nutrition plan and feedback. We are having a similar conversation on the IMP forum and I can promise you that it’s a fruitful, productive conversation if we can get everyone to join!
As you can see from Cindy and Bill, there are many options out there to consider. Cindy is fast and will likely be out on the course hours less than most. Thus a simple sugar nutrition on the bike is working for her. However Bill is already working up a solid plan with more salty, savory real food options front loaded for the first 35-40 miles and then transitioning to simple sugars leading up to the run.
Let’s talk about hydration and electrolytes briefly. It is more challenging to be addressing proper hydration and electrolyte needs since it’s not hot and sunny. However, you can almost be guaranteed that Eagleman is going to be HOT and you are going to sweat a lot! So you must train like you are going to race, meaning you need to be practicing your hydration now.
We talked about how drinking water can be dangerous (as you don’t want to go down the road of hyponatremia). Also, how you are getting in your electrolytes then? Because you will need electrolytes for Eagleman, you either need to get it in with your hydration, food options or electrolyte supplements like Base Salt. It’s not a question if you should, you must. So I encourage you to start ensuring you are getting in 400-800 mg of sodium per hour (yes, even now since you are still sweating).
Finally, one of the other reasons why you must practice now is to teach your stomach to digest even when you are not hungry. If you wait until you hungry, it is too late. Eat and drink while you are still feeling good. If not, guess when you will pay for it? Yes, on the run when you are starving and all you get to eat and drink is sugar!
Thank you for sharing! How’s next? Most of you had an~3 hour ride this past Saturday. So how did you execute your on-bike nutrition?
