No OC today

Remember the classic Movie I'm Gonna Get You Sucka? In the movie June Bug is found dead from an OG. Over Gold. I term the overdose of carb as OC and after my last overdose several weeks ago I've been on a mission to figure out how to intake carbs better.

This mission got derailed when I tried some Hammer HEED. I originally went to HEED because it has reputation for being light tasting and source from complex carbohydrates and supposedly creates less stomach distress.

Every time I used it, my stomach had problems but I mistakenly thought that it was the carb level being too high to clear from my stomach. In reality it was just the HEED.

Today I tried a scaled back pre-event meal and some Gatorade mixed at 30g/20oz bottle. It was a mountain bike ride so I was assured of getting shaken up like a martini.

Riding at 11 am. Finished eating my 8am

Oatmeal 39g
Yogurt + grape Nuts Mix Crunch 34g+37g
2 veggie sausage links 3g
Ensure+ 50g
----------
163g

On the ride I brough wo 20oz bottles mixed with 2Tbsp of gatorade at 13g/tbsp = 26g each.

I finished the first bottle at 1hr and the second bottle at 1:50. Ahead of schedule even. No stomach problems except for hunger. The downside was that I was starting to bonk a little.

The amount of carbs taken in at the pre-event meal was about 100g lower than what I'd be shooting for in a race. But the good news is that 26g/hr of gatorade did not upset my stomach and I didn't have that telltale sign of OC. Where that sweet sugary aftertaste permeates everything and I can't get anything in my stomach for hours afterwards. The question is can I go higher to say 35-40g/hr w/o OCing?

One problem with the situation in accessing water bottles. The triangle on my frame is very very small and tight with the full suspension linkages. Getting to the bottle isn't easy and I'm not too good at it. In addition, I have a second cage on the underside of the down tube, and I've been carrying a third bottle in a jersey pocket to prepare for events longer than 2hrs.

Everytime I go for the bottle, I feel my speed decrease and several times almost steered off the trail. It's a liability. I'm thinking of putting the energy drink in my water pack and carrying pure water in the cage.

I had a very very bad experience doing that years ago at a 24hr race. I was so obsessed with not bonking that I mixed a real strong energy drink solution into my pack and didnt bring any water. It was so strong that I ended up actually dehydrating because once in my system the stuff actually started to pull water out of me.

This time though I wouldn't mix a heavy concentration, It would be mixed to the recommended 6% solution. The good thing about using energy drink instead of gels is that you get the hydration benefit of energy drinks. So you really don't need that much more water on top of the drink as long as it is mixed properly and isn't too strong.

The good thing about bottles though is it's easy to regulate how much you are intaking. 1 bottle an hour=20oz =X grams depending on how you mixed it.

With a camel bak there is no guage. I am going to measure how much a swig is from the camel back and figure out how often I'd need to drink to equate to 20oz/hr. Then I'll set my timer on my wach.

I also rode pretty well today. I thought I'd be in the tank but amazingly my legs felt pretty good. I think the Sportlegs helped and it's also been 2 weeks since some really strong rides, so I've supercompensated from those. So this is good. Now I know my legs are on the upswing.