Eating to train - Fueled by Zipvit

I'm always asked about this and and I have wrote about it a few times before. What to eat in training, and what I eat in training.

Well, todays training was basically three and a half hours, easy enough riding in the flats for the first half - endurance, a few eight minute hill climb intervals and then a little more endurance riding. So a mix between endurance and threshold. Riding in the "fat burn" zone and "glycogen only" land.

This was the ride:


This is what I took:

Basically, two 750ml bottles of Zipvit Energy Drink Elite, one homemade rice bar inspired by Allen Lim's Feedzone Cookbook (I'll post my recipe soon enough - it was chocolate, coconut and almond), one Zipvit Energy Bar and one Zipvit Energy Gel before the threshold work.

Also, twice a day I take one each of these. Glutatione, Cod liver oil and Quercetin.

Sometimes, I go through a period of taking Acetyl-L-Carnitine too - basically three per day. And with my anemia from last year still fresh in my mind, I go through periods of supplementing iron - although now that I eat a lot more red meat, my ferritin levels are remaining good.

2011 January Training - Part 1

I love the training I do from November through to January – it covers so much of what I love about cycling (aside from the racing) and builds the big base that I utilize for the rest of the year. Long bike rides, beautiful scenery – many of the spins more social than my normal routine – a lot of riding by feel and really listening to your body. An important aspect for me is training the body pretty hard, but not having to use much 'mental energy' – hard training and racing uses a lot of 'mental power', so in the winter I recharge that. I have already talked a little about what I did in November/December, here I will bring it up to date with January.

Well, first, once Mel and I returned from the US – we had one small problem to deal with – the Irish weather. Freak weather meant that much of our training over Christmas and until we headed off again for Gran Canaria was going to be indoors – on our indoor trainer and on the rollers.

I was never a fan of training indoors but the Cycleops 300 Pro indoor trainer has really helped change that (so much so that all my recovery rides are now on the trainer – just more time efficient and I can really tune out). A good road feel, built in power, sturdy and super quiet – it ticks my boxes. When we were away from home (around Christmas) – the turbo trainer and rollers where out. A bunch of two hour sessions (I was doing things like 2-3 x 20 minutes at upper tempo with constant change of pace) kept the legs ticking over.

Before long, it was January 4^th and time to travel to Gran Canaria for our 3 week camp.

Stop to enjoy the view (sometimes)

Traveling to the Canaries at this time of year is really a no brainer for cyclists that have the flexibility of performing their day-job from anywhere. Mel and I are both fortunate in that all we need are our laptops and a fast internet connection.

For the first 9 days, I follow a 2 days on, 1 day off training protocol. Too many people when they go to training camps burn themselves out by going on back to back 6 hour epics each day. While we are there for 3 weeks – it is important to treat it as a normal training block and ease ourselves into it.

This is a simplified version of what the first 9 days looks like:

Day 1: Long warmup, and powertest – see where the legs are at – rest of 3.5 hour ride is by feel – enjoy it. I do the same ride at the start of each year.

Day 2: Long ride – again, ride by feel – 4-5 hours – throw in a hard 3-5 minute effort – see how the legs are feeling and use it as a marker for the trip

Day 3: Recovery ride – easy 1 to 1.5 hours, go for lunch

Day 4: Upper Tempo (say 80% of Threshold) on climbs (1.5hrs total at 80%+ of Threshold power) 3.5-4 hours

Day 5: Long Endurance – Upper Tempo on Climbs – focus on various skills (fast pedal etc...) - 5 hours

Day 6: Recovery ride – easy 1 to 1.5 hours, go for lunch

Day 7: 3 x 15-20 climbs at Sweet Spot (90% of Threshold) – sprint work at the start. 4 hours

Day 8: Long Endurance – Tempo on Climbs – focus on various skills (fast pedal etc...) 5.5 hours

Day 9: Recovery ride – easy 1 to 1.5 hours, go for lunch

At this point – the body is pretty well acclimatized and it ready to up the intensity a little.

It is always super important to watch hydration and nutrition during this time (well, ANY time!) especially if the conditions are different from what you usually train in. Weighing yourself first thing in the morning, and then after you return from the ride is a great way of monitoring your hydration levels. On long hot sessions, I tended to lose about 700 grams of body weight – about 1% of my total body weight so more than acceptable for hydration loss. The first thing I do everyday when I arrive in from training is grab the ZipVit Recovery from the fridge, put the feet up and enjoy.

Eat well!

Part 2 coming up soon.

Best of 2010 - ZipVit Sport

Since Mel and I started racing, nutrition has always been at the top of our priorities – my past in other sports had shown the importance of this to me before and starting an endurance sport made it that much more relevant. I changed by diet a lot from my 'party' lifestyle I had between sports and it has benefited me in many ways even outside cycling. Anecdotally, I was on the borderline of needed glasses/lenses a few year years ago – I have since stepped away from that border – I put that down mostly to nutrition.

But I digress, back to ZipVit.

At the start of 2010, Mel and I had the opportunity to start working with ZipVit. I had used some of their products before and was very happy with the results so we went all in. I'm so happy we did.

ZipVit are a relatively new sports nutrition company but have quickly become part of the leading edge of sports nutrition – their products are constantly being adjusted and perfected (let's just say that I didn't like one of their Recovery Drink flavors at the start) with the aid of their testing team and athletes they support – teams like Cervelo Test Team, RadioShack and the Irish National Team.

Throughout the year, we used all their products during racing, training and even on our honeymoon, what impressed us most though was their gels, bars and recovery.

There are two major things I love about the gels. First, is their size – they are about 30% larger than standard gels and contain around 200 calories. When racing, when under pressure, the last thing I want to do is to have to take a gel every 15 minutes (my stomach can handle a lot of food) – these are a size that are still easy to swallow but yet give a lot of important carbs. The other major thing for me, is that these are not jammed full of electrolytes... One of the problems with lots of sports food is that everything is now full of various salt solutions – okay, if you are only taking one or two gels/drinks, but if racing and eating 5 gels and 4 bottles of energy drink, I get way more than I need and end up feeling bloated for a day or two. These gels are a lot more subtle and have helped me feel a lot better (and retain a lot less water) in the days following a race.

The Bars – well, they have the right amount of carbs/protein etc... but the major feature is their taste – yum. When a new batch arrives, Mel and I have to split the boxes, half with “Mel” written on the side, the other half with “Ryan”. We like them that much that it is hard not to live off them – especially the recovery bars. Being mostly pescatarian (we eat meat if out at a restaurant though – we just don't cook it in general) – getting enough protein can be tricky enough at times – that is where the recovery bars have come in (or as the snack between lunch and dinner). For hot conditions, I would stay with the uncoated chocolate energy bars as the others can get a little melty.

Water -> Chocolate Milk -> ZipVit Recovery... That has been my progression in post training/racing recovery. If there is one thing that I can say that can greatly benefit riders, it is to really sort out your post ride recovery. Whenever I train any longer than 1.5 hours, I always have my recovery drink prepared and waiting in the fridge for when I get in. Taking this straight away kick starts my bodies recovery process so that I can then get cleaned up and make a proper lunch knowing that I have done everything to ensure that I can gain the maximum out of that session and start the preparation for the next. Of the flavors, Chocolate and Vanilla are my favorites.

Hungry?

Mel and I have been very fortunate to have ZipVit come on as our Nutrional Sponsor for 2010. Today, a pallet arrived.

We have tried a bunch of their product before (Mel and I are very pragmatic about equipment and food choices - we have the philosophy that we only want to use the best equipement, food, clothing etc...) and we are really looking forward to trying out the other products.

Happy munching.

My prerace and preride nutrition

It seems that every few weeks I see a post from someone getting into racing/riding wanting to know what other people eat and drink before, during and after rides and races. I try to give some advice, always with the “this is what works for me, everyone is different” disclaimer – I think at this point I should write down something on the blog that I can refer to. Again with the disclaimer, I’m an Elite rider that has been doing this for a few years so what works for me will not work for everyone, also, I think I’m naturally able to eat a lot on the bike and make it available to my body – in longer races/events, this is very important.

Anyway, I’ll give a few examples of what I do.

3 hour ride with about 1.5 hour of it at a pretty high intensity (tempo/threshold), the rest at a steady endurance pace. About 2,500 cal ride.
Breakfast:

• Coffee + large bowl of porridge with 2 pieces of fruit and Soya milk
• a large slices of wholemeal bread with jam

Ride (about 1.5 hours after breakfast):

• 2 large bottles of ZipVit Energy Drink
• 1 ZipVit energy bar and one other cereal bar. ZipVit bar about 1:20 into the ride, other bar around 2:10 in.

Post:

• ZipVit Recovery(or chocolate milk, raisons, shake etc…) as soon as I get in.

Within 40 minutes:

• A proper lunch, pretty low in fat, lots of clean carbohydrates, a bit of protein, lots of veg/fruit (and coffee). For example, a large breadroll with beans, homemade savory pancakes, stirfry with extra noodles... If I'm training hard or long, maybe a side of rice too.

2 hour XC race – say, a 5 lap race
9:00 Breakfast:

• Same as normal – probably skip the bread though

11:00

• Some bread/bagel/rice, maybe some protein with it – whatever I feel I can eat – maybe some fruit and/or an energy bar.

13:30 Race start

• possibly a gel 15-30 minutes before hand.
• Each lap (20-25 minutes), I would drink about 350ml of Energy Drink (depending on temperature etc…) and one gel. Not everyone can/should do that, maybe a gel every second lap – again, depending on how strong you made the drink.

15:30
After the finish back to ZipVit recovery. Some people can’t handle eating right after a race, just make sure you eat something – Mel likes Haribo after a hard race. Your body has various time windows for efficiency of food uptake. Getting the food in earlier will mean you feel better later in the day and the following days. If you are starving all the following day, you did something wrong. I try to ride a little after the race, take some extra drinks and food on the bike (fruit etc… whatever you can eat) and when I get back to the car again, try to eat some more carbohydrates, about 800 Cals worth, so a reasonable amount. From then on, I’m pretty snacky for the rest of the day – I try to keep it very healthy for the first few hours but later maybe treat myself :)

My Everyday Nutritional Tips

So many times I have been asked about nutrition during races, training and in general. As you can probably tell from other posts I have a huge interest in all areas of cycling performance and read widely but food is one thing I keep close to my heart.

Firstly, everyone is different, what I have settled on has been built up from reading many books, papers, blog entries and forum posts over the last few years and then using that knowledge and finding out what works for me. There are many many (conflicting) theories on nutrition and more specifically sports nutrition. The Paleo Diet people want you to eat lots of protein and (healthy) fat, the China Study says to eat no animal based protein while most of the endurance based literature screams a high carbohydrate diet. Me, I'm not fully convinced by it all but I have a few general rules that goes across all (or at least most) diets.

• Drink lots of water (okay, Joe Friel has some things to say about this)
• Eat unprocessed foods (your shopping cart should be huge each week)
• Make everything from 'scratch'
• Have 4-5 types of fruit available always and snack on it (I usually have oranges, apples, bananas, kiwis, frozen berries, melon and pears available)
• Always buy the leanest meat possible (I tend to eat red meat rarely, it makes me feel slugish the following day – chicken and fish seems to work fine with me)
• Organic, free range, GM Free – buy into the buzz words
• IF, I am buying something processed, make sure that I know (and can buy in the same store) everything in the ingredient list
• Stay away from nasty chemicals, E numbers
• Eat low GI foods in general, high GI foods for 1-2 hours after training
• If you are going to treat yourself with some 'bad' food – make sure it is of the highest quality
• Have a look at the labels on the foods you eat and the servings you take – not to calorie count, but to have an understanding of what you are taking in. (You would not believe how innocent 1,000 calorie desserts can look – that is about half of the energy needs of an average male!)

These are a few of the books that have influenced my current diet.

The GI Diet: The Easy, Healthy Way to Permanent Weight Loss
Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes
The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
The Paleo Diet for Athletes
The Metabolic Typing Diet

Fuel for a 100km marathon

This is the fuel I used during the marathon in Drumlanrig. 8 bottle of TorQ (about 500-600ml in each) and 8 gels... Yum yum :) My saddle time was around 5 hours.

What I eat in a day...

When your training hard it is just amazing the amount of food that you eat and yet you are still pretty constantly hungry. The worst is the recovery ride day. On that spin you may only burn 500 calories but due to the previous days work your still starving all day...

Anyway, this is me for today.

Breakfast:
Oats (with raisons, cinnamon, banana and a small yogurt) I eat this almost every day
Bagel with Jam (when I have a longer spin...)
Coffee

On the ride:
A TorQ bar
2 Nutri-grain bars
2 Bottles of TorQ Energy

Mel and I try to eat as much of this as possible

Straight after the ride:
100 grams of TorQ Recovery (tasty stuff, a bit like chocolate milk – make sure you mix it well!)

15 minutes after that
A large Ciabatta with a chicken and pineapple salad.
Coffee

now the rest is all spread out
A large yogurt and an apple
Some rice cakes with honey (don't usually eat rice cakes)
Some Oats with Jam
A Pear and a Plum
A Cereal Bar

Still to eat...
Dinner – Brown Rice with tomato based Thai Chicken Curry
Dessert – Fresh chopped fruit salad
and then probably some more snacky stuff before bed... I'm guessing 4,500 calories...

Man I eat a lot...

Narky after spins?

A few of the MAD riders had been asking me about post ride nutrition etc... I just popped into this link that talks about post ride nutrition and narkiness so I thought I would right something quick. Me, my usual thing is if the ride is longer then 1.5 hours (or is shorter but really intense) I use sports drinks. If the ride is longer then 2/2.5 hours I take solid food (training only). I mostly eat a cereal bar or something reasonably tasty every hour. Racing, it's a bottle of sports drink every 30 minutes and a gel every 30-40 or so depending on temperature and race length.

Afterwards, the second I get in I go straight to the fridge and make some chocolate milk - shower, clean up and then get some proper carbohydrates back into me. Since I started this regime I no longer get the post ride irritable feeling and seem to recover a lot better. After 4+ hour rides, I eat constantly for the rest of the day.