Bike Camp is complete! And now the real fun begins…
As promised in my previous post, last Monday through Saturday I logged every food item, its corresponding calorie count, time of day it was consumed, along with the calories burned during workouts (according to my Garmin devices), plus the calories burned during my Resting Metabolic Rate: ((RMR) kcal/day: (males) = 9.99 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 4.92 x age (years) + 5; (RMR) kcal/day: (females) = 9.99 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 4.92 x age (years) – 161.), to determine the optimal fueling needed to maintain energy/emotional stores during a heavier load of training, i.e BIKE CAMP, 2022: 300+ miles of bike riding, four easy run workouts, two easy and two challenging swim workouts, and three strength workouts. Although the detailed nature of measuring every single morsel I ate throughout the day, and computing the calorie count every night was mildly annoying, and somewhat shocking, it was a very worthwhile experiment.
I have been debating how deep into the weeds I want to divulge in this post, (is anyone still with me?) Clearly, we are all unique, what worked for me may not work for you, and since I am not a Nutritionist, and do not want to lead anyone down a path that is suboptimal/unhealthy for their own biology, I will leave out *most* of the numbers I tabulated, but *SPOILER ALERT: I should’ve eaten more.
After three stellar days of pedaling and various training Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, bouncing back each day just fine, but noticing a sizable calorie deficit tally every night, (something I had never paid attention to before), by Thursday, I was not feeling so hot.
The kicker was, I had always blamed lack of sleep, and other “life” stresses for feeling brain fog, or punchy in the past during heavy training blocks, but none of those factors were present last week. I slept well and long every night, (7+ hours = PLENTY of sleep for me), and nearly every other aspect of my life was cruising along just fine, therefore the only culprit for my lack of energy was lack of nutrition.
Honestly, I am more than a little embarrassed to reveal such a foible in tactics. I should’ve known better. Although rusty, (it had been months since I had trained with such consistent volume and intensity) I assumed my sturdy 5’10.5ft + 158lbs., body (Yay! Muscle!) would absorb the uptick in training load just fine.
An obnoxious, but telling example of strength progression/weight gain over the years: Screen left: The morning of Alaskaman, July, 2017. Screen right: Some warm afternoon last Fall, 2021.
Nope.
However, instead of wasting more energy trying to decipher the problem like I had done numerous times over the last decade, for example the often-repeated unraveling pep talk, “Why am I doing this to myself? I really, really, really do NOT want to “Triathlon” today!” This time I had hard data to back it up, more calories, please!
Therefore, on Thursday morning after a gentle swim, and before a horribly windy bike ride, I went to work ingesting more fuel throughout the day and topped out 500+ calories more than I had the three previous days. I still ended the night in the caloric red, but the gap was much less staggering, and I felt much better.
Friday morning pre-swim/fully fueled and well-rested feels.
On Friday I took a day off from riding. That break was part of the original plan I had designed before I hit the "Bonk" wall on Thursday, but it proved to be especially crucial in order to recharge my cycling legs, and simply swim, run, lift, and fuel up for the finale ride of the week, a gorgeous 100+ mile ride up and down Pacific Coast Highway on Saturday.
In a clever twist from the Universe, it turned out to be helpful to have a few hours open in the middle of Friday to spend at my local Verizon store after my phone died at around 12:15P. Fun stuff! Meanwhile, the upside of not having a functional phone for over 72 hours, besides bliss, is that I had time to read two books.
*By the time this blog is posted my new phone should be up and running, but from now on, I am shifting my action shooting practices to alternative camera equipment. PRO TIP: Tripods are no match for 30+ MPH wind gusts.*
The Century+ ride on Saturday (101.7 miles) was FANtastic!
I ate plenty before I sauntered from my house to the starting point by the sea, and throughout the 5+ hours I was pedaling up and down the coast. I felt gleefully energized from start to finish, but after burning a marathon’s worth of calories, I made sure to close the calorie gap as tight as possible before I was in bed by 9:00PM.
When I woke up on Sunday morning, the thought of moving any of my limbs faster than 0.7MPH seemed like a hilariously challenging task. Luckily, I only had an hour run on my schedule, and I was not in a hurry. I didn’t even have any football games to rush home to watch. Therefore, I ate a bountiful breakfast, rested some more, then headed out for a less than graceful, but more than satisfying run.
I decided to close out my daily logging on Saturday and ate my way through Sunday without a calculator. It was lovely.
*Some* of my daily supplements.
Although I enjoyed this fuel tracking exercise, I don’t believe logging every single (approximate) calorie is necessary or healthy for an endurance athlete, (or anyone), but I am glad that I now know for sure that what and when I have been eating for years works well for me, but that I was off in my hypothesis of how much to increase the amount of fuel I need to consume to maintain sustainability during heavier training. Thus, proving I am still a work in progress.
The song and video choice this week might be a repeat??? But it’s worth it.:)
P.S. Cold showers are back in the rotation.:)