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Noob Mistake: Not Replenishing Protein

11.18.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 3 Comments

There’s a plethora of material out there, both online and in print, about nutrition and exercise. For the most part, I have ignored it. That’s because I’m a procrastinator. I just don’t get around to reading up on stuff I know I should be up on.

Take tiredness after long rides. It’s a particular problem for me, one I’ve written about before. I just could never figure out why, after a couple of hours in the saddle, I would crash on my bed for a long nap. Those naps were more trouble than they were worth, because they threw off my sleep schedule for the next 24 hours, and I had a lot of trouble readjusting my internal clock.

My routine after a long ride is to settle in at a coffee shop or restaurant or even the living room at home, and have a large drink of something. Usually, it’s iced tea. That takes care of the liquids I lose on a ride through sweating, but doesn’t do much to refuel my body.

I remember riding once with an acquaintance — an experienced cyclist — who couldn’t wait to get some food after we’d finished the ride. “I have to have some protein within a half hour of the ride,” he said. I chalked it up to his personal idiosyncrasy.

Turns out, he was right on the money.

When you take a long bike ride, you’re using up branched chain amino acids. When these essential nutrients are depleted, that leads to the doubling of tryptophan, another amino acid. Once it’s in the brain, tryptophan converts to serotonin, which makes us drowsy.

That drowsiness can set in during the ride itself, as fatigue. If you overtrain, you’ve probably experienced it. But if you maintain adequate levels of branched chain amino acids, you should be able to ward off fatigue. So as my friend does, try to get some quality protein into your system immediately after a ride.

Where do you find quality proteins? Meat, dairy products, and legumes. That might be why cyclists are adopting chocolate milk as a recovery drink.

Today, after two and a half hours riding over rolling hills, I whipped up a ham sandwich right after getting out of the shower. Sure enough, although I felt my eyes get a little heavy while sitting in my chair watching football, I soon snapped out of it. Any other day, minus the sandwich, I would have been crashed on my bed.

It’s a simple solution, but one I’ve bypassed for far too long. I guess I’m still a noob.

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Categories // food, training Tags // food, noob mistake, recovery

Ever Had Trouble Eating on a Ride?

08.05.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 11 Comments

I was looking forward to the club ride this morning. We were going to head out on Fitzhugh Road, which goes through rolling Texas Hill Country landscape southwest of Austin. The club has several different lengths for this out-and-back route, so the rider can tailor it to his or her own abilities.

Today, I planned to go beyond the usual B ride turnaround point, and go another seven miles to the A turnaround. That would give me a 46-mile round trip instead of 30. I was amused to see that a few of our group decided to start at 7:30, instead of our usual 8:15 a.m. start time, to beat the heat and add some additional distance for a 60-mile round trip.

I have a love-hate relationship with Fitzhugh. It’s a fairly scenic ride, and the rolling hills can be a challenge. But I’m often well behind the group even before we get to Fitzhugh, about nine miles west of our starting point. It’s common for me to ride Fitzhugh all by myself, with the  main group well ahead and out of sight.

Some riders stopped at a convenience store at the beginning of Fitzhugh, to top off their water bottles. While the day promised to be another hot one, it wasn’t terrible yet, and a light breeze cooled my sweaty skin. I passed up the store, and pedaled on alone.

But a few miles down the road, I could hear some chatter behind me. The half dozen riders who had stopped caught up to me and passed me. One of the problems I have when riding alone is a tendency to ride easy. I saw that I could push myself a little more, and stayed with the group for several miles.

At the turnaround, I arrived by myself again, but found the rest of the crowd still there, grabbing what little shade could be found. I drank deeply from my bottle, and fished some fig bars out of my back pocket. Fig bars are a common snack at breaks, and I like them better than the energy bars. I had three small bars with me, and figured I had time to eat them all to recharge myself for the ride back.

But as I chewed the first bar, I realized that I wasn’t going to eat all three. Heck, I was having trouble getting one down. I chewed and chewed. I didn’t want to munch on solid food. I would have preferred some kind of energy drink, but all I had with me today was plain old water.

Since I was the last one to the turnaround, I got the shortest rest period before we started back. I was still chewing the one fig bar as people put their helmets back on and took one last swig from their bottles. By now, the fig bar was a gooey blob in my mouth, and I couldn’t seem to get it to go down the pipe. Finally I did, and set out on the return leg several hundred yards behind the others.

At the convenience store at the head of Fitzhugh, I caught up to everyone again — just as they were leaving. I refilled my bottles and sat down in the shade to have another fig bar. Same thing. It was like chewing on taffy. I had trouble getting it to go down. I’m sure it held me up and kept me from leaving soon after the rest of the riders, but I had to choke the food down and wash it down before I felt ready to leave.

The day was hot, but not remarkably so in this hot summer. I was bushed from pushing myself up the rollers, and my right thigh was showing signs of potential cramping. So the conditions were testing me, but they weren’t anything I haven’t experienced before — just as recently as the day before.

Somehow, the combination of the heat, the sweat, and the fatigue all combine to prevent me from enjoying food during rides. As I write this, the third fig bar is sitting on the kitchen counter, still in its baggie. I’ll probably snack on it later tonight. Obviously, I’ll have to come up with something else to eat on long, hot rides. I’ve used energy gels in the past, and for the most part, don’t care for them. The candy-like gel blocks work okay, and Gatorade has just introduced their own version that is easier to chew than others. I might have to stock up on those.

It’s a shame, though, because I much prefer “real” food when riding to those scientifically mixed concoctions. But I’m open to suggestions. What kinds of foods do you like to eat during a longer summer ride, and have you ever experienced the same difficulty swallowing food as I do?

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Categories // food Tags // food

Sushi Rice Cakes

07.19.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 3 Comments

Looking for a different taste treat when you’re on a ride? Guest poster Don Blount might have just the ticket.

Nutrition is one of the components of cycling that I have been looking at recently. I do not like to eat big meals, so before or during rides on most days I will eat a Trader’s Joe cereal bar with a tablespoon of peanut butter, adding a piece of fruit on days when I will be riding harder. Because of this, I always carry food with me, such as a Clif Bar and some Clif Shot Bloks. I have also carried fig newtons and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches but didn’t like how they often ended up squished in my jersey pocket. And at most of the stops on group rides the food offerings are pastries, other sweets or processed foods.

So I started digging for other options and came across recipes from Allen Lim, the exercise physiologist who has worked with Lance Armstrong and a number of cycling teams.

One recipe I had test-tasted by several people who are into fitness, including members of my biking club, was for Lim’s sushi rice cakes.

Lim has said he made them as a fresh and savory alternative to the sweet, pre-packaged foods his cyclists were eating.

These rice cakes are far from the ones available in grocery stores. They are soft, moist, salty and/or sweet depending on how they are seasoned and have a shelf life in the refrigerator of about a week.

They are also surprisingly easy to make. (Click pictures to enlarge.)

Cook the sushi rice. This sticky rice serves as a binder for the rice cake.

While that is cooking, cut up and cook bacon (I used turkey bacon) and also the eggs (I used egg whites).

Mix in a bowl with the other ingredients – soy sauce, grated parmesan cheese, brown sugar.

Then place in a pan, shape, cut and wrap in foil.

Lim also has a way to wrap these so that they are easily opened even while riding.

Most don’t get it but once it is explained it is surprisingly simple and efficient to hold and eat the rice cake. The recipe I used made eight, which I stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Here is the nutrition breakdown of one rice cake: Calories 225, Fat 8g, Sodium 321mg, Carbs 30g, Fiber 1g, Protein 9g.

I prefer mine salty to balance all of the sweet foods available and to help avoid cramping.

You can get the full recipe here and view a video of Lim making the cakes here.

—

And while we’re talking about Allen Lim, remember that he is making his SkratchLabs drink mix available to Bike Noob readers at a 15% discount. Just go to the website, skratchlabs.com, and use the code Bike Noob when ordering.

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Categories // food, guest post Tags // Blount, food, guest post

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