At last year's Dirty Reiver Suvi bonked spectacularly! Can styrkruk and an expert nutrition plan prevent it from happening again!? cycling Sponsored
Fueling for a multi-hour endurance gravel event is not an easy task. You need to ensure you have enough energy to complete the ride but because you’re off-road, you also face added elements contributing to the difficulty of eating and drinking while riding.
Without further reminiscing about my near-tear feelings from last year, let’s see how things went this time around.The first step of the process of becoming an expert in fueling myself was to create a fueling plan. I set up a call to get some expert help with this from Styrkr's Head of Sports Nutrition & Innovation, Leon Veal. Because as much as I can claim to be a semi-expert in eating lots, I think there’s always a lot more to learn about what I should be munching.
Next, we talked about where to get the carbs from. Instead of figuring out how many carbs I could get from a banana or a handful of Haribos, products like Styrkr gels, drink mixes and bars help you easily figure out your carb intake. The plan suggested I aim for about 60 grams of carbs per hour from the Styrkr products and support my energy intake with the normal food available at the Dirty Reiver feed stops. I was happy with that, so the only thing that remained was to get familiar with the products.As Leon highlighted, nutrition is very personal and what works for one doesn’t necessarily suit others.
On a long bike ride like the Reiver, it’s very easy to get bored of eating, especially if the products you have with you aren’t something you actually enjoy. The Styrkr gels and drink mix both have no real ‘flavour’ to them, which made them very easy to consume.
My aim was to improve my time from last year and overall, to finish feeling stronger, and it’s exactly what I did. My time wasn’t the fastest on the course - it got me a third in my age category, though - but I felt heaps better at the finish line than I ever have before after a 200km ride.
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