For me, it’s not just about fueling the ride though. It’s about managing the rest of the day. And, I have to assume…recovery for the next day/week of training. Maybe it’s an age thing. But if I dig too deep of a calorie hole by not eating enough + exercise, I won’t recover for the rest of the day, even if I ‘make it’ through the ride. I’ll be lethargic, tired, low energy levels later. I’ve had this happen countless times before I wised up and started fueling better. My wife noticed too…if I went too hard, too long, and didn’t eat enough…I’d crash like clockwork about 2-4 hrs after the ride. Didn’t have to be a marathon session either…a 2-3 hr group ride was more than enough.
As far as ‘it’s only an hour…’ that’s true. And for me at least, that isn’t quite enough to cause a crash. But it’s not too far off either. First thing in the day, not eating, after not eating all night…getting on the trainer and burning maybe 700 calories. I’d now at -700 calories net for the day, after over an hour of being awake. I try not to dig that kind of hole. If you don’t dig it…you don’t need to climb out. It’s just unnecessarily hard on the body IMO.
After asking a similar question to you on the forum I got a tip about Tailwind carb drink, which I’ve found I can tolerate very easily, so I consume that at the start of an early ride before switching to bananas, bars or stopping for real food. I’d say that was worth a try. Other carb drinks might work too, but I prefer Tailwind to SiS and others I’ve tried.
All that said, for 1 hour on the turbo first thing in the morning I do not take on any carbs, just coffee before hand and water during the session, and by the end I can easily eat breakfast.
I find it hard to get anything down super early so I just have water or a carb drink depending on the intensity of the ride and a bag of jelly babies next to me. Anyone can get jelly babies down. In fact sometimes I think I might just be training for the jelly babies.
Nope, not me. Maybe one or two, but I find stuff like jelly babies too sickly. I’ve recently got hold of the Feedzone Portables cookbook so I’m going to try and make some easy to digest savory snacks
Along with workout duration i would factor in expected TSS and IF.
This is what works for me:
Anything above 100TSS i go full ride nutrition, it doesn’t matter how short it is. Pre workout drink(very little calories) with light breakfast and Sports drinks mix from start to finish.
Between 70 and 100 i will have a pre workout drink(very little calories)+light breakfast and drink only water during the ride.
Anything below 70 I do on fastened state drinking only water with coffee before the ride to fire up the system.
I have 2x week rides that i start between 530 and 600.
I red a forum entry once that said that the poster used jelly babies as incentives for the intervals. say he had 10 intervals, he would get out 10 jelly babies lined up facing him. For each completed interval he got the jelly baby. For any failed intervals, he turned the jelly baby around to face away from him as if the jelly baby has turned his back on him for failing!
Oh man, I couldn’t handle those disappointed jelly babies pointing away! I have my ramp test tomorrow and I am already looking forward to those jelly babies, I just don’t know which color to start with.
My weekday trainer sessions typically begin at 5am and are 60 minutes in duration. I wake at 4:30 am to drink a pint of water ahead of time but find any food or on-bike nutrition to be unnecessary. Post-ride nutrition depends on the intensity of the ride. I’ll withhold food until arriving at my desk at work at 7am following low intensity rides. Following high intensity rides I’ll have a Science in Sport recovery shake before my normal breakfast muesli and fruit.
As coach Chad states in the podcasts, you never adapt to the early morning sessions but you learn to adjust. Higher quality sessions might be achieved later in the day but my family schedule dictates the pre-dawn sessions. The added bonus is the training is done when I arrive at home in the evening when my motivation isn’t always there to train after a stressful work day.
I actually love the early morning sessions. I’m a morning kind of guy though. When I was younger and racing I used to love the early evening crits and would be dead asleep within an hour after finishing and that was with caffeine tablets too. I don’t think I’d sleep for a week if I had that much caffeine and raced so late now! I’ve been mixing my own energy drink recently. Scoop of electrolyte (follow dose on packet and adjust to preference) 2 parts maltodextrin and 1 part fructose. Tastes fine. I sometimes have a glass of that just before getting on the bike.
So… if I carboload the right amount of carbs for my weight and anticipated performance next morning, is it possible to NOT eat and basically jump right on the bike/trainer in the morning?
In my case, I go to sleep at 22:30 and wake up at 6:30. Now I need my coffee and something in my stomach, so let’s say a banana and then go at 7:00-7:30-ish. Wondering if that should theoretically work… workout is 1-1h30.