Operation Ötztaler Cycle Marathon - Part 3, Nutrition
"At some point I can't get the gummy bars down anymore, I prefer something savoury," says Joe Ramming, our candidate for the Ötztal Cycle Marathon. "At the Dolomiti, we once had barley soup, which was great after all the sweet stuff," he remembers. "It felt like it went straight to the legs!"
But you can't do it without sweets, that much is clear. The Ötztaler requires around 6500 kilocalories of energy, in an easily digestible form, not as a pork knuckle. There are also five refreshment points along the route, the first after 49 kilometres in Kühtai, the last at kilometre 196.
And of course there are the jersey pockets and bottles on the bike. Really fast riders don't stop at all, but have their personal carers hand them refreshments, preferably in liquid form.
Avoid hunger pangs at all costs
Joe won't go that far, because he's not racing for the top places, but for fun and to get there. Nevertheless, the right amount of energy is a big issue for him, as it is for everyone who wants to master a marathon of this calibre. Because the legs need fuel - once the tank is empty, the race is over. Anyone who gets into an energy crisis on the Timmelsjoch, the nasty final ascent of the Ötzi, has a poor chance of reaching the finish line by bike. Cyclists call this state of energy crisis "starvation" when the sugar level in the body drops dangerously. In extreme cases, this can even be life-threatening because the brain is no longer properly fuelled.
To avoid such crises, you have to practise eating on the bike - evenly, right from the start and a whole lot. Much more than most people realise. This is because the food you eat makes up the lion's share of the marathon's supply. Added to this is the fat metabolism, which provides a good background noise, as well as the body's own sugar stores in the muscles and liver, our super fuel for speed increases.
During the race, there is always a mixed burn from these three sources. Training condition, pace and the food consumed determine the respective percentage of energy sources. The good news is that with the right strategy, a medium pace can also be achieved over extreme distances such as the Ötzi.
The right time
However, the right food for the competition starts days beforehand. The aim is to provide the body with an oversupply of carbohydrates in order to load the stores as full as possible (carbo-loading). In this way, significantly more energy can be stored in the body. Experts provoke the overfilling of the body's stores by deliberately emptying them beforehand with a low-carbohydrate diet (Saltin diet). For Joe, eating a high-carbohydrate diet is enough.
>> ImportantThe pasta party the night before the race is definitely too late to prepare for the long distance. On the other hand, if you have been eating well for days, you can eat normally the evening before the race and are perfectly prepared without overloading your digestive system with gluttony in the usually short night before the start.
Good food plays an important and often underestimated role in training, not only during race week but also months beforehand. Training only with bottled water in order to get stronger and lose weight quickly, as was previously recommended? Not in modern cycling! Even professionals no longer set off sober, but with the exact amount of energy required for the training in question.
Fresh, natural food is best
Food provides energy for sport, but not only that. With food, we also take in all the building blocks and nutrients that the body needs to recover, regenerate and gain strength. Not only the quantity, but also the quality of the food has an influence on our training and competition success. Some substances are even essential because the body cannot produce them but still needs them. These include, for example, essential fatty acids - which are not found in chips, but in sea fish, algae oil or walnuts.
Fresh, natural food offers the best range of nutrients. Fruit, vegetables, fish, lean meat, nuts and good fats should be on the table, as well as carbohydrates such as pasta, potatoes and wholesome rice, especially during sport. Industrialised products should be avoided.
Joe also knows these basic rules. The problem is sticking to them in everyday life. After all, pre-prepared food is less trouble. Which is why Joe has never used the cooker in his official flat, where he spends three days a week. "I don't even have a pan there," he admits. Joe trains sober on the roller in the mornings, works on emails on the side, then grabs a croissant from the bakery on the way to work and eats in the canteen at lunchtime.
Critical sobriety training
This routine has helped him to reduce his weight, which at 74 kilos at the end of February is lower than usual at this time of year. "If I start the day sober, I can manage with less food overall," says Joe, describing his observations. But is this the right strategy to get better? We called in nutrition expert Robert Gorgos, who also advises professional teams, to analyse Joe's eating habits. Joe kept a log for several days (see an example day in the picture).
Gorgos takes a critical view of Joe's start to the day with fasting training and advises him to be very careful with it. The expert says: "I recommend a consistent supply during all training sessions. Aim for 30 to 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour, depending on the amount of training and intensity." The benefits are obvious to him: "Less release of stress hormones, less protein catabolism, better training performance, better recovery, less chance of the muscle glycogen stores emptying completely and less cravings after training."
Amateur athletes must learn to eat much more during training, which is a key to better competition performance.
Gorgos advises improving the quality of food around training and getting used to carbohydrate intake during exercise in order to optimise nutrition during competition. Overall, Joe's documented diet is too one-sided and too meat-heavy. "Sausage has no place in an athlete's diet," was his dry comment.
Operation Ötztaler - Less sausage
With Robert Gorgos' input in his ear, Joe, who lists sausage goulash as his favourite food, is motivated to change his eating habits, at least a little: "I'm going to take a pot to my office flat and reduce my fasting training," he says. However, he doesn't want to completely overturn his eating behaviour: "I believe that the sum of many small measures will already have a significant effect. After all, I'm improving in many areas at the same time," says Joe.
"The important thing for me is that it has to be achievable with little extra effort - I'm not a professional athlete." However, Joe doesn't just want to incorporate improvements into his everyday life; above all, he wants to improve his training regime. He will experiment with eating significantly more on the bike and recovering better and faster after training with the right food. Drinks with adapted carbohydrate doses will provide the necessary boost on the bike.
Joe will therefore consume recovery shakes, a mix of proteins and carbohydrates, after training, especially intensive sessions. There are ready-made products for this, but in principle a normal milkshake does a similar job. Robert Gorgos recommends 50 per cent carbohydrate content in the recovery drink because the body is particularly receptive to this immediately after exercise. After extensive training sessions, a carbohydrate-rich meal is served afterwards.
Joe will be testing the competition food on long mountain rides in the coming weeks. His current favourite is gummy bears with a gel filling. Whether they will still taste good in the required quantity needs to be tested in advance. In any case, nutrition expert Robert Gorgos advises against savoury snacks during the race: "It's better for Joe to save that for the finish!"
Refreshment stations at the Ötztal Cycle Marathon
The energy requirement of the Ötztaler is enormous. It mainly depends on the weight of the athlete, less on the pace. For our candidate Joe, we reckon with 6500 kilocalories - comparable to the consumption of a Tour de France mountain stage. Joe will need around 11 hours of riding time at an average power output of 140 watts.
This gives it time to absorb a relatively large amount of energy during the race. There are essentially three sources of energy, from which the body can draw: the carbohydrates (KH) stored in the body (estimated at 450 grams), the energy supplied by food (around 60 grams of KH per hour) and the burning of fat.
The body's own KH stores are the super fuel that Joe has to use as sparingly as possible. Because this source is the most limited and is increasingly tapped into every time the pace increases. Proportion of total metabolic rate: 21 % (with 70 % utilisation of stores).
Ötztaler Cycle Marathon: Most of the energy is consumed on the way
Most of the energy comes from the food consumed on the way. At 60 grams of KH per hour, this is around 44% for Joe. This is where he can still improve the most, as 90 grams of KH per hour would also be feasible for him once he gets used to it in training.
Joe will probably fulfil his energy needs during the Ötztaler mainly with gels, which he will regularly consume every 20 minutes. At the refreshment points he will mainly refuel with water and small pieces of fruit for refreshment.
35% of the energy comes from the fat metabolism - which means that Joe has trained this beforehand and chooses his pace so that the fat metabolism really works (don't ride too fast!). According to the diagnostics, Joe already had a fat-burning rate of 281 kcal/h at 137 watts at the start of training. That would easily be enough. However, his fat burning rate decreases at higher speeds.
At 180 watts, it only delivered 200 kcal/h in the test, which would correspond to the calculated requirement, and at 210 watts it drops to zero. If fat burning were to be stifled by riding too fast, energy would be in short supply at the end of the race! Particularly harsh external conditions - cold or heat - further increase the energy requirement.
Ötztal Cycle Marathon - Managing the flow of energy
