A few weeks ago, I completed my highest training volume on the bike in one week, 40 hours. Extremely high volume is a true test of all of your training skills, but keeping up with the caloric demands is one of the most important skills.
In total, I burned 30,782 kjs (on the bike) in those 40 hours. I did a few 8 hour rides and on those days I burned 6,000 kjs in one ride.
Without being able to keep up with the caloric demands this wouldn’t have been possible. So here’s a breakdown of what I ate throughout an 8 hour ride day.
Breakfast:
During these blocks I start my ride as early as possible without sacrificing any sleep. With such a short window from waking up to getting on the bike I didn’t eat breakfast on any of these days. I would wake up around 6 and be on the bike around 7.
I only skip breakfast on Z2 days, if I’m doing any sort of intensity I’m loading up on carbohydrate before I start pedaling. However, I immediately start fueling when I got on the bike.
During the ride:
Some of these most definitely aren’t the most optimal ride fuel but there’s a few things that influence my food choices on my endurance days.
- Cost: high volume requires a lot of food and buying from endurance sports brands gets really expensive. During these high volume blocks, I buy cheaper foods that have similar macros to traditional cycling foods. Such as for pop tarts or Haribo.
- Enjoyment: Smashing gels for 8 hours does not sound enjoyable to me. During these blocks one of my main priorities is enjoyment. Being able to eat snacks that sound more appealing keeps my morale high on these rides.
I essentially carry as much food as I possibly can, completely filling my pockets and top tube bag. I aim for about 80 g of carb an hour on these massive days. This day ended up being about 85 g of carbs an hour.
This high level of carbohydrate is definitely not necessary for endurance riding. However, this is what I’ve found that works for me. Maintaining this high level keeps me feeling motivated, energized, and alert. Also, eating this much on the bike helps reduce the amount of food I have to eat when I get back home.
Meals #1 and #2:
I would usually get home around 3pm with a mountain of around 4,500 calories left to eat before cutting food off for sleep at 7:30. Right when I get home I’ll take in my first meal. I’m a big fan of Trader Joe’s frozen meals.
Definitely, not the most nutritious option but they are relatively cheap, fast to make, low fat, and calorically dense. After that I’ll make sure all of my gear is good to go for the next day and take a shower. By then about an hour has passed and I’ll hit my second meal.
Snacks:
Between my second meal and dinner, my snacks are focused on carbohydrates. I like crackers, pretzels, fruit, cereal and anything else high carb/low fat.
Dinner:
We usually eat dinner around 6 and that day we had low-fat burgers and fries. This is one of our staple meals in the house and its one of my favorites on a big ride day.
After dinner snacks:
These snacks are a bit more fat than typical but these are what sounded really good after such a massive day. After dinner I like to have cereals and low-fat dessert options.
Macros for the day:
On this day my macros came out to 147g (2.3 k/kg) of protein, 123g (1.9 g/kg) of fat and a massive 1352g (21 g/kg) of carbs. This reflects what my normal macro percentages look like except, a lot more food due to the massive calorie expenditure.
This amount of food is pretty ridiculous and even after eating all of this I ended the day in a 500 calorie deficit.
Stacking big days makes it difficult to end the days in a caloric balance and, majority of the time I’m in a deficit training multiple days in a row. However, aggressively fueling my rides keeps energy availability high and; using my rest days to catch up on calories gets me back on track.
Summary:
Slamming pop tarts certainly isn’t in any sports nutrition books however this what works for me. I try my best to follow the endurance diet but I strike a balance trying to follow the rules and being practical.
When I’m riding extremely high volume my priorities are foods that are cost effective, enjoyable and calorically dense. These nutritional choices may not be the healthiest during these weeks but; on rest days or training weeks besides these big weeks, I eat much more nutritious foods.