Hello David

I’ve been training pretty hard for the Sydney to Surfers ride with some decent 120 km + rides on the weekends and 60-70 km rides during the week.

I did a 105 km ride to the top of ‘Best of all Lookout’ at the top of Springbrook – that’s the elevation profile below. It’s a rather large hill!

I actually did it okay, but my brother who came with me really struggled. I dropped him on the hills really early and he drafted pretty much the entire ride.

We both had HEED and the gels during the ride.

We did another long ride the next day (but a lot flatter) and he was back to his usual self. About as good (or should that be “as bad”) a rider as me.

7 Beers The Night Before – Is That Carbo Loading?!

Turns out he’d had 7 stubbies of beer the night before the Springbrook ride.

Would 7 beers knock you around that much? I would have thought they’d make you feel a little seedy, but not slow you down as much as he did.

Cheers

Brendon

From Brendon’s Questions Below:

“I assume my heart rate went up because I had no fuel?”

This is not necessarily the case, if you run out of energy you normally feel light headed and you will slow right down ” i.e hit the wall”.

I would suggest that the hills would have taken a lot of effort, and you spent a lot of time near your anaerobic threshold, or above.

Your heart rate increased because you are not fit enough to maintain efforts at or near your threshold for the period of time you did.

You will need to increase the intensity and amount of time at this level. This is a key sign of your fitness level.

It’s ok to go out and pedal around for a few hours at a low heart rate, when you first start training for such an event.

As you develop a base fitness, it become necessary to start doing harder session using heart rates closer to your Threshold.

Fitness gains are improved significantly doing this.

Pay Attention To Heart Rate In Final Weeks

This is something you are going to have to pay attention to over the final few weeks, to ensure that you are able to cope with elevated heart rate levels for longer periods.

Another factor could have been the heat.

As the days gets hotter, your body increase its core temperature – which can elevate your heart rate.

Bananas As Fuel

“Was the banana the right choice?”

Bananas are ok, but far from ideal.

Bananas contain approximately 60 Calories, which is not enough.

Being a solid food digestion is also slow and can cause some gastro upset, if you are going hard.

It would have been better to maintain the use of gels and HEED to ensure greater caloric intake and electrolyte profile.

“Why is the sky blue?”

It got the “blue disease” off the sea!

Cheers

David

Hello again David

As part of my training for the Sydney to Surfers ride (check out the web site here), I went for a 110 km bike ride on Saturday morning.

As usual, I took 3 bidons of HEED with me.

But when I went to grab some gels I found I only had 1. So I tossed a banana into my pocket and off I set.

• I had the first gel about an hour into the ride (quite a hilly ride).
• I had the banana 2 hours into the ride.
• I kept up with the HEED (but ran out about 20 km from home).

Heart Rate Went From 126 to 153

When I’m riding on the flat my heart rate stays constant at around 126. I noticed that in the last hour of this ride, even when I was on the flat, my heart rate went to 153 and stayed there.

My Questions

• I assume my heart rate went up because I had no fuel?
• Was the banana the right choice?
• What else could I have eaten?
• Why is the sky blue?

Cheers

Brendon

Hello David

What are the biggest mistakes you see endurance athletes make?

(I won’t tell you more on what I’ve been doing – much prefer to hold back, nod my head at these mistakes and say “Yes, aren’t those other athletes silly!”)

Brendon

Brendon, so we’ve been using you as our Case Study/Guinea Pig and you’ve been asking the questions.

Now the tables have turned my friend.

“Do you do much riding?”

I have it from a very reliable source that during a ride on the Gold Coast you got chatting to Olympic Gold Medalist and Australian cycling legend Sara Carrigan.

Is it true that, after 10 minutes of chatting, you had no idea who she was and actually asked:

“So Sara, do you do much riding?”

That is a disgrace!

Say it ain’t so!

If it’s true this should lead to at least a 2 year ban from all forms of riding. It’s worse than taking EPO!

David

This post is in response to Brendon’s post below. Brendon is doing a 1,000 (or so) km bike ride – from Sydney to Surfers Paradise in late March.

We’re documenting his training and nutrition as a way to give some solid, concrete examples on sports nutrition.

================================

Firstly, Very impressed that you made it!

From the questions below:

“…..what improvements would you suggest to the ride nutrition?”

In regards to the first 1 hour and 10 minutes, this is quiet often the case with endurance athletes, who are trying to put down a solid base for training.

Due to the effects of cumulative fatigue, they are usually fairly sluggish to start with and provide that they have not over done their previous training sessions, they usually take a while to get into the next training session.

General rule of thumb, is that if this feeling of early fatigue increases or stays around, go home – you are too tired.

The other possible cause could be simply you are going out too fast with other riders at their pace, so just slow down and go at your own pace, which you know you can make it.

So, don’t worry about feeling lethargic after an hour – a few possibilities there.

“Would the Gel really be helping that much or will you, as Darryl Kerrigan would say, “Tell ‘im he’s dreaming”?”

Yes, gels usually get into the system within 5-10 minutes.

“How would you rate my post ride nutrition?”

Your ride nutrition was far from ideal.

This is an extremely challenging ride with numerous large climbs with the heat likely to be a significant factor.

It was a good idea to start off with the HEED, and using gels, but an extremely bad idea to run out.

Rides of over 4 hours are ideally suited to one of our products called “Perpetuem“(pictured right).

This product has a balance of Carbs, Protein and Fats. This provides a very stable blood sugar level over a long period of time.

It also increases the bodies ability to burn fats as a fuel source, with the added protein decreasing the bodies break down of muscle tissue.

It also can be used as a paste, which will allow up to 6-8 hours of fuel to be carried.

Or you can simply take some and mix it on the way, increasing the time significantly, not that you want to be out there all day.

Another product you should have been using is “Endurolytes” an electrolyte capsule which will help with the heat.

“What else should I be doing?”

When you get home, it’s great that you ate something, but it could have been a lot better.

Most athletes need to be thinking about the next training session, and recovery straight after the last. I actually recommend that they start thinking about it in the last 1/4 of their previous training session.

One of the most important and neglected areas is “recovery”, you always have to get up and do it again the next day.

If you have not recovered properly things can get very ugly at 7 am the next morning.

1. Get fluid and nutrition into you within 30 minutes of finishing.

2. Make sure its the right nutrition not just what you have in the fridge and definitely no alcohol.

We have a product called “Recoverite“, which has all the right ingredients to help you recover better, and it easy to use.

3. Also take the time to cool down properly and stretch those tired muscles.

It’s the last thing you feel like doing, but it’s amazing how much it makes a difference the next day.

Cheers

David