KEVIN LIVINGSTON: Hi, I'm Kevin Livingston. Let's talk about some general fueling and hydration tips for cyclists. Starting out, let's back out about two to three hours out from our workout or our training ride. This is when we want to get our last sort of big meal where you might ingest some pasta, carbohydrates, maybe a little bit of protein and like a lean lunch meat or even peanut butter. Whatever your kind of general eating habits, try to pick out some--mainly carbohydrate, little bit of protein and also some fat. But you want to get this meal about two to three hours out from the start of your workouts so that you properly digest it and can use it as energy during your ride. Hydration really is ongoing. It doesn't go out a couple of hours. It is just day to day keeping up with general hydration. The normal recommended is seven to nine glasses of water a day. When you're cycling or even before and after, you're going to want to use a sports drink to help replenish electrolytes. This is what you lose. Minerals you lose through sweating. So there's a big range of products out in the market for electrolyte replacement. Go to a store, go to a bike shop, ask them for suggestions and make sure that you have some of that and you're balance of your hydration. Moving on to--as we move towards our ride, you're going to start your ride if it's going to be--generally a rule of thumb is for every hour you want to drink one bottle to two bottles an hour depending on the temperature and your effort. This means anywhere from 16 ounces to even upwards of 25-28 ounces an hour to properly keep hydrated. Again, this depends on personal experience, heat and the effort that you're putting out. I like to have one bottle of water, one bottle of electrolyte every hour, hour to 20 minutes, and I constantly replenish those bottles. Obviously, you're going to have to stop if you're out riding or at water stations or fueling stations on a group ride. Also you need to ingest about 200 to 300 calories an hour whether it's by a nutritional bar or food that you've made up that you like. You may prefer to eat ham sandwiches, I don't know, on your ride. But if that's what works for you and you try something out--the bars will tell you right on the wrapper how many calories you're getting for that bar, so try to ingest somewhere between 200 to 300 calories an hour in nutrition and food. But as the ride goes longer, you may want to try gels because these will help--be easily digested as you start to fatigue. You'll digest better at gel. Gels generally have somewhere between 120 to 150 calories. Again, we're eating whether it's food, nutritional bar or fruit gels, somewhere between 200 to 300 calories an hour and we're drinking somewhere between 16 to 28 ounces an hour, maybe it's only water or water with a mixed of an electrolyte. Immediately following the ride, you want to make sure you continue to drink, continue to hydrate. And then within a window of about 45 minutes, make sure you have some sort of sugar, some sort of carbohydrate, whether it's pasta or a recovery drink - a lot of them out in the market - within that 45 minute window to replenish your stores. Then a couple of hours out, you'll be ready for a normal meal whether it's lunch or dinner depending on the time of your training session. Those are some general guidelines and tips for hydration and fueling that will help you as you pursue your cycling.
Member Comments