Any tipes for food and hydration

I managed the whole thing on carb drink (my own blend roughly following the SIS beta fuel format) and gels (17!) without feeling hungry or having any upsets, although I realise that’s fairly atypical. I drank about 500ml/hour on average, although that definitely slowed towards the end.

I think one has to accept a slight level of dehydration at the end of these events and just focus on getting the fluid (and salt!) back in quickly afterwards.
I do make a conscious effort to drink more (water + electrolytes) in the run up to long events, especially when it’s set to be hot.

Food wise, little and often is always the way to go. I have a 30min timer set on my garmin as an ‘eat alert’, although at Newnham I was only eating every 45mins due to having quite strong carb drink mix.

Outside of random things you might crave, the only thing your body needs during exercise (under 15 hours ish duration) is relatively fast release carbs, salts and water. All the other macro and micro nutrients can wait til after the event when you’ll have more spare blood for digesting.
Working up to the high carb intakes people prefer these days (>110g/hr) takes effort and training though. Try out your race fuelling strategy in training and never try anything new on race day!

Echoing the other sentiments here, I had a great weekend and it was lovely to be back doing an endurance event at Newnham. The course seemed a pretty good amalgamation of the classic trails, although I’d have preferred some more tech (as ever).

I’d only heard about it through a chance conversation quite late in the season, so for next year they/we/whomever need to do a better job getting the word out – as soon as there’s a date announced I’ll get sharing.
As the organisers admitted there were a few teething issues, most pertinent to me being the food truck leaving early! I ended up with a very sad bodged together meal after finishing.

17 laps in 11:52 for me, first in the solos and 6th overall of the 12hr. Above all I was pleased to have not had any disasters in my first 12 solo, and I’ll certainly be back next year.

Not sure on the cobalt salts, but there’s been lots of media confusion about the carbon monoxide use.

What the teams have admitted to using is a carbon monoxide rebreather, which is a way of measuring haemoglobin mass (i.e. quantifying the effect of altitude training etc.). Using carbon monoxide as an ergogenic aid is different and would require quite frequent inhalation of a CO dose over a fairly extended period. I imagine CO therapy will be banned soon, but the CO rebreathers probably not.

I realise I’m not answering the question here, but it’s funny how the perception of tyre grip changes with your riding style (and mates).

For me most of the time and my XC riding mates: Mezcal / Bonty XR2 / Racing Ralph / Race Kings would be considered all-rounders. Barzo / Bonty XR3 / X – Kings / Rocket Rons are wet weather tyres unless it’s proper slop. Then when things are properly dry the slicks come out!

This weekend I’ll (hopefully) be using a Terrano (file tread) front and rear at the XC National at Woodys. It’s all bike-park-y so very little hard braking is needed. If they did them in  a 29er XC carcass I’d use my all time favourite jump bike tyres: DMR Supermotos!

The downside of all the silly fast tyres is my enduro bike feeling like a heavily sedated slug.

Brief add on from the above, some example ride fuelling summaries.

Sunday roadie cafe ride: Carb drink in bottles (40g/hr) + bars on the bike. Coffee and sandwich at halfway. Total 60g/hr intake.

Easy MTB ride: bars only and pastry at halfway (low intensity and lots of stops so predominantly fat utilisation). Total 30g/hr.

XCO race: 1-2 gels per hour + carb drink at high concentration. Total 80g/hr.

Marathon race (6hr): 3-4 gels or one packet of bloks per hour + high conc. carb drink, with additional gels/bloks as needed. Total 110g/hr.

Thank you!

The sustainability thing is something I struggle with – it’s hard to get away from bike racing being an fairly ‘pointless’ thing that requires a lot of travel.

I did an earlier episode of the podcast going into more detail on the training and physiology side of things that (I think) was more interesting than me rambling about my childhood. Ash has had some other clued up guests on too to talk about training, so worth a listen if that interests you.

It’s very trainable, and something you’ll have to work on rather than expect passive hunger to sort out. Blood flow to the gut and stomach is significantly reduced during exercise meaning you can struggle to take in anything that’s not easy to absorb (i.e. not gels, carb drink etc.). This reduction is proportional to intensity, so if you’re pushing hard you’ll need simple easy digestible food, if you’re bimbling sandwiches will do nicely.

Carb requirements are also related to intensity and to fitness – the higher the power output the higher the energy expenditure. The 120g/hr+ numbers that road pros are hitting these days are required due to them being capable of 6000kJ+ races without blinking, and those intakes tends to be seen in the heavier classics guys. A 60kg climber on an easy endurance training ride would be doing less than half the energy output of Mathieu van der Poel at Flanders.

All this being said, taking in easily digestible carbohydrates on a regular basis is one of the easiest ways to improve performance (or at least avoid catastrophes). Don’t get caught up in worrying about health concerns of sugary snacks on the bike (with the exception of dental health) – during exercise is an altogether different situation than at rest.

If you’re currently struggling at 30g/hr you’ll likely have to try quite hard to push up to more sustainable figures – using carbs in a bottle alongside solid/gel food is a good way to achieve this.
We can take carbohydrates in at an increased rate by including multiple sources of monosaccharide sugars – fructose and glucose (don’t worry ab0ut galactose). In short, there are different pathways in the stomach and gut that absorb each of these. If you’re making or purchasing sports drink, try to make sure it contains both of these (sucrose (table sugar) contains both in a 1:1 ratio; maltodextrin is effectively 100% glucose in a faster absorbing form; dextrose=glucose).

I make my own carbohydrate drink with a 1:0.8 ratio of maltodextrin:fructose and added electrolytes. It’s palatable up to about 150g/litre concentration. I then combine this with gels/bloks/bars/sandwiches etc (dependant on intensity) to total about 70g/hr for training and 110g/hr for racing.
I have an alert set on my garmin every half an hour during training and every 20 minutes during racing to remind me to eat. This is something I’d highly recommend.

Key points from this ramble:

• Train your gut and work up to the higher intakes.
• Tailor food to intensity. The easier the ride the more ‘real’ food you can manage.
• Eat regularly – little and often.
• Try to use multiple carbohydrate types.
• Use liquid carbohydrate sources to increase intake.

I’ve built a L’Etape du Tour event time estimator, which is quite different to XC but comparable to XCM. Taking 1kg off the bike or rider weight takes the estimate from 6:44 to 6:40. A fair chunk of time, but that’s about the most climbing dependent event I could imagine.

From my perspective as an elite-ish rider, my bikes are as light as they end up without worrying too much about it. I’ve never weighed my Top Fuel, but it’s significantly heavier than some of my race bikes from the past, yet a lot faster. For example in 2014 I had a Canyon HT with rigid post, 2.0″ tyres, rubbish lightweight rotors, 640mm bars, 11-34 cassette etc. I’m now got rear suspension, 2.4″ tyres, a dropper, more comfortable saddle, massive cassette, wider bars etc, and going much faster for it.

As a junior I’d spend hours researching the weight of every little component. These days I just get whatever seems like it’ll work best and is designed for XC, and assume it’ll be fairly light.

That all said, my enduro bike is a colossal lump at 18.5kg – on the occasions that I’ve joined the XC group rides on that I’ve struggled.

Do you know what number you are?
What bike are you on?

No idea on the number yet, they’ve not published gridding. I’ll be in GB kit with white shoes, helmet and gloves, riding a lurid orange Trek Top Fuel. You can spot it from across a valley!

The main thing I’m after knowing is tyre choice and ground conditions. The weather forecast looks damp but not torrential, and there is a fair chunk of road/firetrack to think about. Does the ground on the natural stuff hold up to the rain fairly well, or would slick (ish) tyres be a really bad idea?

Following on from that, how ‘puncture-y’ is the ground likely to be. I’ve the option of some heavier tyres if needed, although the only place I’ve used them this year so far was Finale Ligure. Cheers everyone!

I’ll be up to race the XC marathon! I’ll be up from Thurs to Tues, so sadly can’t really watch anything else.
At my level all I want to achieve is a good day out riding and beating people I know personally, I won’t be within sight of the medals! The course looks infinitely better than last year though (Denmark), so should be easier to have some fun.

Anyone had any sneaky riding on the XCM course? Home advantage would be wasted if we can’t get some insider trading going.

I was in for the champs race, hoping for top ten and a secure place at world champs.

I ended up with the poison chalice of fantastic legs in the first two hours, absolutely floating round. Then on lap three the cramp started, and I realised I’d been writing cheques I couldn’t cash. The final lap was spent nearly entirely stood up to avoid the cramp that kicked in while sitting and descending with completely locked out legs.

I had been in the big group that was fighting for sixth, so fairly disappointed to end up 13th having been passed by a couple of people on my miserable last lap.

I’ve never had cramp that bad, even towards the end of 12 hour races. I heard from quite a few people who’d had the same; maybe a combination of a relentless course and sweaty day.

Still somewhat hopeful for a world champs selection, from what I hear the marathon course should be fantastic.

Fair cop about Wharncliffe – we’re XC racers that are happy on BPW hard reds/blacks (as an example, not that BPW is the gold standard!). Would Wharncliffe be worth having a look at on XC rigs with slick tyres?

Sherwood/Clumber/Rother sounds a bit too much like home. Flat XC in the plantations can be had in Suffolk! 😁

It’s the other way round. The Yorkshire one is absolutely a race and is held entirely on private land.

Taken straight from their website: “Please note: As the event is a challenge event we do not publish the results in order of finish times. However if you are interested in how your finish time compares to others overall you can select on the results cell and filter the results ‘smallest to largest’.”

As far as I know it’s due to UK laws about racing on rights of way and landowner things.

The Yorkshire marathon and Scott series get away with it by not being races, but for anything where you get a position (as opposed to just a time) it needs to be on private land (Pippingford, the FC land at Kielder etc.).

The IOM has different laws, so they’re one of the only places in the British Isles you can do a proper 100km single loop race.

Nerdle 14 4/6

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https://nerdlegame.com

First time playing – should have done better after a strong second guess.

Your friendly neighbourhood spider-elite-amateur here. I tend to finish in the top 15 in elite national XC races, so not anywhere near bothering the pros.

I’ve been hovering around the high 4s for a couple of years now but never cracked the arbitrary 5. Interestingly my 20 minute derived FTP (Coggan protocol with the 5 minute max effort beforehand) is very close to that from an hour test. I’ve found that I can improve the value I get from a 20 minute test by doing what are effectively under-overs and surging on hills, but that just takes it further away from the aerobic capacity it’s trying to evaluate.

I do find that I’m weaker than most of my peers, and tend to do best in races where power matters the least. My best result this year was 5th at the National in Monmouth, where there was literally more running and falling over than riding.
I’ve plenty of friends at 5w/kg or above, but there are always other factors at play which level the playing field.

I also get absolutely battered on the road, although that’s as much a lack of tactical awareness than anything else. There are some very different demands on all the different events that suit different riders though. XCO tends to be about repeated 10-120 second efforts that don’t tail off too much over the course of the race. Marathon racing is mostly being able to do sweet spot all day, so is much more FTP determined in some ways. Then the road varies hugely, but you’ll be pretty stuck without a half decent aerobic capacity.
Even the sprinters on the road are endurance athletes at their core, just ones with a kick.

Anything in the UK that’s not multi-lap has been covered above.

My favourites in Europe:

MB race (Megève) – The hardest 140km of your life, and an absolute joy if it’s dry. Alpine trail goodness with 7000m of climbing.

Roc Laissagais (or any of the Roc series for that matter) (Laissac) – a bit more low key, but fantastic trails in a lesser known part of France.

Roc Ardennes (Houffalize) – another one with fantastic trails, and very easy to get to from the UK on the tunnel. This is the biggest of the Ardennes marathon series, which all look great.

Have a look at the UCI calendar and filter by marathon race type. https://www.uci.org/calendar/mtb/1voMyukVGR4iZMhMlDfRv0?discipline=MTB&raceType=XCM
Don’t be put off by the UCI classification if you’re not competitive – the elites set off first, followed by a thousand odd enthusiasts.

I had a bit of a sad time. Was leading the 12hr solos and had just gotten a reasonable gap to 2nd when I got caught up in a crash in front and squished my leg (on the end of a handlebar I think). I tried popping some pills and doing another couple of laps but it just wasn’t fun, and any hopes of a jersey had gone up the road.

Ah well, next year!

Mega! I have to admit I didn’t think Tom would be able to pull it off at the start but I’ve never been happier to be wrong. I just hope he sticks with mountain biking for a bit after this.

I’m pleased that I can now wheel out my two Tom related anecdotes – shutting the door on him in the national champs and being ranked above him all this year (with screenshot!) – to unsuspecting members of the general public as well as cyclists. It’s going to be a good year.

I’m pretty much universally quicker on a FS (Trek Top Fuel), although a properly rigid remote lockout is an absolute essential for me. Being on the heavier side I don’t notice any weight difference too much, and it more than pays off by being able to sit and plough through things.

I’ve recently had some shock issues that have meant I’ve been racing my winter frame, an X-Caliber. I’ve chucked all the stuff from my Top Fuel on it so it’s a near enough direct comparison between the two, and it’s so much slower. Most notably different are trails like supernova or telegraph in the Surrey Hills: where I’d normally be able to sprint I was getting properly rattled. On really steep or techy things there’s actually less of a difference, as I feel more limited by the (saddle up) position, brakes and tyres.

The only real situation in which I prefer the HT is horrendous sticky mud, like at the last national round at Monmouth. More than half of the course was running anyway, and a FS would have just meant more stuff for mud to stick to.

@carbonnfiend I saw you running a bit on the steep climb into the switchbacks and briefly thought about making a comment about it being ‘ride’ not ‘run jmc’, then thought better of it!

Echoing everyone else’s thoughts: that was bloody tough!

At the front of the 4 lap race it set off very quickly; think short track kind of numbers. I settled in OK and dropped off the pace of the front 3 who were going absolutely mental, then in the first pass over the moorland my cranks suddenly stopped turning. It turned out to be a stripped lower jockey wheel bolt, i.e. very unfixable. I ran the 2.7km to the pits with the intention of making a improvised singlespeed, but a friend’s dad had a spare derailleur cage plate. After fitting it I was down in 178th overall, so spent the next few hours trying to pass as many people as possible.
I made it up to 14th in the end, and by Christ it took it out of me!

It’s exactly the sort of event I think we could do with more of. Long lap, ‘short’ marathon race (as opposed to 12/24hr), with a challenging but accessible course.

The number one takeaway from mine was pacing and gearing. Specifically lowering both more than you might think necessary.
The first 5 hours I did at a fairly solid pace (I was going for the British record, which would be much harder now!), then completely popped and ended up having a sit-down lunch in the van. The first half should feel properly easy, if not you’re pushing too hard!
Gearing wise, go as low as you reasonably can, there’s not really any downsides. I left fairly standard road bike gearing on, which was fine while I was on for the record, but once the pace dropped I did a lot of weaving about and swearing.

For me, the fact of always going up or down made the nutrition aspect a lot harder. Even in a marathon MTB event there are normally a few flat bits where you can sit up and properly wind in some food, but if you’re always climbing or descending these moments are much harder to come by. Because of this I’d strongly recommend the use of liquid calories, from a sports drink or similar. If you can be constantly taking in calories fairly passively with your drink, you remove some of the risk of bonking, and it’s not something you have to stop breathing long for, unlike a sandwich. As others have said though, take in lots of food and in good variety. I like to set an alarm on my garmin for every half an hour to remind me to eat something, then eat ad hoc on top of that schedule.

Oh and don’t go mad on the descent. It’s easy to find yourself wanting to make up time by going full Nibali, but the risks on an open road far outweigh the reward.

I think I’ve always found eating meat unsettling. As a kid all I’d eat were things that didn’t seem too much like chunks of flesh – sausages, chicken nuggets etc. The tipping point came at about 7 or 8 years old when I’d been to a friend’s birthday at McDonalds, eating horrible nuggets and the like. On returning home, my mum had slaughtered and cooked one of our hens for dinner, and I refused to eat it. My dad pointed out the hypocrisy and suggested I go vegetarian if I had a problem with it.

Ooof I felt rubbish today! Big weekend on the mountain bike, dodgy stomach today (too much Jerusalem artichoke) and coursework stress left me very flat.
Once it became clear we’d never see @crazyharry again I just tried to hold sweet spot for as long as I could.

Have any of you guys done any XC racing? If you can keep up this sort of effort and go round a few corners, a lot of you would cruise to a regional top 10.

That was fun! Was surprised how good I felt during the second one, especially given the hard run this morning. Although I think that might be because my running technique is so bad I can’t go fast enough to properly use my legs.

Ouch. Can we make the second one a TT please?

As for the gravelly route, it’s a long way….you’d never do it if it included gnarly trails everywhere. More of a scenic journey than a Trail Centre outing.

I did a 180km Surrey hills MTB day out last summer for a friends birthday. We did all the well known Hurtwood trails, lots of the North Downs stuff, and the Leith off-piste. It was absolutely fantastic, but did end up taking the best part of 12 hours. If anyone wants to join for this years edition (190km) let me know!

Computer cacked itself 10 minutes before the start, and I managed to get zwift running again at about 1931. Bugger.

See you next week chaps

If he was on the stock bike that would explain it.

Stock bike, ENVE climbing wheels (I think). No idea what my Zwift level is, but I don’t think it’s high enough to have unlocked any of the faster TT bikes.

Not the best effort for me tonight, felt horrible! Felt OK for about 10 minutes then popped and struggled around the rest.
I think I might have to invest in a fan at some point, anyone got any recommendations?

Well done to everyone, see you next week!

Looking forward to this evening, although I’m not sure I’ll be in peak form – coming off my highest load week since last summer, and feeling beaten up from 2 hours of olympic lifting lessons yesterday. At least I can’t get dropped in a TT!

But I’ve now watched @nixie’s stream back and I see that his massive sprint on lap two actually took him right across the gap to the front. So he was in range at that point, kind of.

It properly surprised me when he came steaming past! Thought my race was done for, as I’d already sunk a lot of effort in and didn’t have much in the tank, but luckily he sat up almost immediately.

Cheers guys, enjoyed (?) that!

I guess I must be looking forward to the TT because that’s pretty much what I ended up doing. Peak 2021 HR for 5 seconds up to 30 minutes. Apparently my housemates were knocking on my door asking if I was OK when they heard the sounds I was making.

Phil looks set to absolutely mince me in the TT or any longer climbs.

Patagonia Torrentshell was mentioned earlier which seems to fit the bill. It’s long enough in body and arms for me at 6’2″ and has kept all the water out so far.

I haven’t read all the way through this thread yet (really should be doing coursework right now), but there’s lots of interesting things to get stuck in to once I have the time!

Something some of you might be interested in:

I’ll be recruiting for my final year project study fairly soon – the effect of differing work interval durations on training adaptations. It’s essentially a comparison of two different HIIT based training interventions, both following a 2:1 work:recovery ratio (60:30 & 300:150). It’s not passed the final ethics check yet, but the protocol won’t be changing.

It’s all being done remotely, so all you’d need is some way of training indoors with direct power measurement (PM and ‘dumb’ trainer, smart trainer w/ direct power measurement, wattbike etc.).
We’re looking for people with a history of endurance activity (>5 hours per week ish), who aren’t currently engaged in an interval training programme (>1 session per week). It’s an 8 week intervention with testing either side (similar to the 4dp protocol mentioned above). You’ll get fully personalised training zones, some training recommendations, and there’ll be a prize draw for bike shop vouchers among those who finish the study.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, drop me a message on here and I’ll send over the full participant information/recruitment documents once the ethics committee are finished with them.

As per his wishes, I rode the Claife Heights and Parkamoor loop with my dad’s ashes in a rucksack on a rainy day in January. The best non-breakable container we had was a plastic quality street jar, but it was slightly too big for the pack so stuck out of the top. Happily nothing went wrong, but christ he was heavy.

On (a few carefully selected pieces of) paper I’m an elite athlete, sports scholar, all that jazz. At this time of year though I’m knee deep in my off season, so lots of crisps, nights out, social riding only. I’m about to go on holiday and don’t plan on touching a bike for the whole 2 weeks.

Obviously I’m a bit more disciplined the rest of the year, but for any kind of sustainability you can’t be too militant with the restrictions. Back in the junior days I’d send myself spiralling into self-doubt and anxiety if I ate one unhealthy thing or missed one session, which almost always had a detrimental effect on the rest of the weeks training. These days I’m much more relaxed with diet and scheduling and going much quicker for (or in spite of) it.

I don’t think anyone’s mentioned this yet: be fast not powerful.

(Seemingly) like you, I train and race on the road and MTB with a power meter, so have done many more 20 minute power tests than TTs. So on the rare occasion I find myself standing in a layby with other oddly attired people, I have to remember to switch off the instinct to go for the highest average power and try to go fast instead. In practice, this means focusing on taking corners well and getting up to speed quickly, pushing harder on the climbs than descents (more efficient due to drag being proportional to v^2), staying low, and keeping your head tucked in.

CR is 20:37 at 350w by an aero-looking gentleman, so I’m going to say 25:57

I’m writing this from a field somwhere near Warwick, where I am lying down and trying not to throw up. The perils of pre race eating.

First XCO race in a while at Cannock and went surprisingly well, even held my own off the start. Finished 16th elite, and dug deeper than I’d been in a few months holding off some late surgers. Pleased to still have some speed in the legs after a lot of marathon races.

How did everyone get on?