Thoughts on Nutrition

Since I began rac­ing bicy­cles I’ve always been on the look­out for nutri­tional tips, advice, new prod­ucts, old prod­ucts and even try­ing noth­ing at all. Well, with the excep­tion of water of course. Over the course of 17 years of rac­ing and train­ing, I’ve tried many dif­fer­ent prod­ucts. Many have been well received and have con­tributed to suc­cess­ful results. Often times I find myself try­ing a new prod­uct or pre-race meal that yield excel­lent results the first go round, only to totally flop the next round. I think all of this is good. For me espe­cially. Over the past few years in par­tic­u­lar, I’ve made an effort to mix things up a bit more than in the past. Mainly with a dif­fer­ent drink mix through­out each sea­son. I feel like its ben­e­fi­cial for my body to learn to work with other options, plus I sort-of feel like I get a lit­tle immune to the same mix, over an over.

Chang­ing it up can be as sim­ple as using a dif­fer­ent fla­vor of a par­tic­u­lar mix, or, in my case, chang­ing the mix entirely. For exam­ple: 90% of the last two sea­sons, you’d find Carbo Rocket in my bot­tles at each race. Last sea­son I threw some GU Brew in the mix for a short stint, but quickly went back to CR.This sea­son I changed it up for a lit­tle bit longer period of time by swap­ping over to First Endurance EFS. I used it once dur­ing a train­ing ride and felt great. It had an old-school XL1 taste to it that I really liked so I decided to bring it to the races. It was a suc­cess. For about two months my CR sat unopened on the shelf, while the EFS was packed in my Cube and accom­pa­nied me at the races and on a few train­ing rides.

One thing I really enjoyed about the EFS was its strong kick, or the “strong kick” it seemed to have based on it’s tasted. I gen­er­ally mix my drinks pretty strong. Just a taste thing I acquired back in the Cytomax days. Last week­end on our big road ride I decided to bring back the CR but found my pre-mixed plas­tic bag­gies didn’t have the strength I was look­ing for, so I decided to add another scoop in a bot­tle or two dur­ing this weeks train­ing rides. The result… Like hang­ing out with an old best friend. Even though I mix it a bit stronger than some may sug­gest, it’s still easy on my stom­ach when you’re push­ing hard in the heat and goes well with my favorite GU prod­uct.

Today’s race saw the full return of my old buddy CR, and it was well received.

Also want to give a HUGE KDAY Rac­ing high-five to the crew of USCS race series. It was their first sea­son of races and you’d never have know it. They put on a stel­lar show with huge cash pay­outs and big checks that always make us rac­ers feel extra spe­cial. Nice work guys. You’re efforts are much appre­ci­ated.  Here’s a map of today’s 4th and final race of the series.