Nutrition Lessons after Season's First Outdoor Long Ride

Regular followers of my blog are probably aware of my ongoing search for the perfect race nutrition and dietary supplementation. Yesterday's long ride gave me a new data point in the nutrition grid -- all in typical Disaster Magnet style.

The disaster aversion began Friday when I realized I was out of Accelerade, the endurance drink I've been using on my indoor training rides. When riding indoors, I pay less attention to nutrition because any problems can be solved by getting off the bike and going downstairs to raid the refrigerator. But yesterday, I had to face the facts -- riding outside meant that all my nutrition had to be ON me and/or the bike. Being out of Accelerade brought up the possibility of using Hammer Perpetuem, which works ok but at times during rides, I get lightheaded for no apparent reason. A second option was to come up with some other nutrition plan like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or power bars (I could probably scrounge up some age-old energy bars hidden somewhere). Solid food is only ok if I don't run afterward. Not liking either option, I desperately searched the house for a third. Wanting to test the theory that I need more protein in my race nutrition, I came up with a new idea: devise something that mimicked Accelerade's 4:1 carb:protein ratio. I found an old can of Extran -- anyone remember that stuff? it's almost pure glucose with B1 added. I mixed up 1150 calories (going for 250 calories/hour for 4.5 hours) -- 290 g carbs -- and then added 70 g of soy protein (in a powder) to get the 4:1 ratio. In retrospect, that added about 275 total calories that I didn't account for. Then I added 4 Hammer Endurolytes to the mix, water, and shook it up and poured it over ice in a water bottle.