THE FAIL: FLUID FLUB
Let’s start in Kansas. Lim says what likely
happened there was a case of dehydration,
heat illness, and possibly hyponatremia. I
had been eating enough, but ran low on
f luids about 150 miles in. I wasn’t thirsty, so
I figured I’d be okay. Wrong. The two major
mistakes I made there are common ones:
Underestimating Needs / “Dehydration
can impair the integrity and function of
the small intestine, as can heat stress,”
Lim says. “This can lead to puking, diar-
rhea, and other GI distress.”
Overlooking Sodium / You can get
dehydrated without feeling thirsty, because
thirst is your body’s way of maintaining
blood sodium balance, not necessarily
hydration. When you lose water throughout
the day, blood sodium concentration goes
up, so you drink more to bring it down. As
you sweat out both water and sodium, you
actually need less water to keep relative
sodium balance, so your thirst may not
compel you to drink as much as you need
to keep total blood volume up.
THE FIX Limit Your Losses / You c a n’t
replace every ounce of f luid you lose with
plain water if you are also losing salt, but
aim to limit your sweat loss to no more
than 3 percent of your body weight—
that’s about four and a half pounds for a
150-pound rider. Weigh yourself before
and after a few training rides to estimate
your hourly sweat rate, then plan your
hydration to keep the overall loss in check.
Get Salty / To keep your thirst mecha-
nism working for you—and prompting you
to drink enough—replace the salt you lose,
Lim says, noting that on average, riders
lose about 500 mg per pound of sweat loss.
A sports hydration drink with a healthy
dose of sodium (300 to 400 mg of sodium
per 16 f luid ounces of water) along with
the food you eat will do the trick.
THE FAIL: CARB CONTROL
My biggest race-day nutrition blunder was
at Absa Cape Epic—an arduous mountain
bike stage race in South Africa. I knew I’d
need lots of f luid and fuel, so I filled my
bottles with a high-carb energy drink and
sucked down about 900 calories in the
first few hours. It was like I’d swallowed
a Molotov cocktail as I dashed for the
bushes 40 miles into the ride. One massive
misstep here: Carbs in were greater than
carbs out. This was an eye-opening lesson,
with two important points to know:
Your stomach is a gatekeeper. / As a
reservoir that holds food and drink, your
stomach digests what you consume and
trickles it into your small intestine. Liq-
uids and gels pass through more quickly
than solids.
Your intestine is a traffic cop. / Like
an on-ramp to your bloodstream, your
intestine only allows so much fuel to pass
at one time before you have a traffic jam.
That’s when you run into GI distress or
gut rot. In extreme cases, the traffic cop
will send that backed-up traffic to the
next exit. Nobody wants that.
THE FIX Replace Half / You don’t have
to stuff yourself like a Thanksgiving
turkey to avoid bonking, Lim says. “As a
general rule, replace about half of what
you’re burning per hour for rides longer
than three or four hours to keep fuel levels
topped off.” (The average cyclist burns
around 500 calories an hour.)
Skip Gels / For long events, you actu-
ally want some real food that fills your
stomach and can trickle down slowly so
you don’t pummel your gut, Lim says.
Real food, like a PB&J, is the ticket here.
Time It / Do yourself a favor and eat
enough carbs leading into an event, so
you start with full glycogen stores. Then
keep them topped off.
Sip Slowly / With liquid nutrition, drink
slowly, or look for a product that is
designed to work with your stomach and
intestines. Always test it before relying
on it for a key event.Training your gut as diligently as you
train your muscles is an often-overlooked
but important part of the equation for
peak performance. By practicing eating
and drinking on long rides, you can
improve absorption and lessen your
likelihood of GI issues. Because when it
comes to long days on the bike, you’re
only as strong as your stomach.BUILD A
HEALTHY
BIOMEA healthy gut biome also protects against gut rot during exercise.
A recent study showed that marathon runners taking probiotic
supplements for four weeks had fewer GI troubles on race day.
“Make probiotic-rich, fermented foods such as yogurt, sauerkraut,
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22 BICYCLING.COM • ISSUE 5
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