FOOD FOR RACING
What to eat during an adventure race is best answered on an individual basis. We all have different preferences, as well as simple likes and dislikes. This means that whatever you choose to eat just needs to work for you, so try a lot of different things during your workouts and establish your own list of foods for racing. That said, there are some basic considerations for selecting the foods you carry in an adventure race.
How Much?
Obviously, this will depend largely on your body size and caloric need. During a race you could be expending as many as 10,000 calories or more per day. As a result you need to make a conscious effort to take in as much fuel as possible on a consistent basis to keep you going strong throughout the race. That means trying to take in somewhere between 300 to 600 calories per hour for optimum racing. Practice this during your training efforts because it is not an easy thing to do. During a race you must try to eat a minimum of 100 to 200 calories every half-hour.A few things to remember:
1. It helps to have one team member remind everyone to eat every half-hour
five star hotel in Valkenburg2. If you are feeling good and notice that a teammate is not eating, get some food out and give them some of yours - sometimes the effort of getting the food out is more than a tired teammate can handle, but they will eat what you offer and hopefully recover quickly.
What Kinds?
Standard adventure racing fare includes gels (use a plastic squeeze bottle attached to the outside of your pack for easy access and a quick hit of calories), and energy bars. These may get old quickly so have lots of different options. Look for foods that will provide a good combination of fat, carbohydrates and protein. Favorites include foods like salami, jerky, cheese, Ritz Bitz (cheese or PB), other PB crackers, chocolate (if it's not so hot that it will melt) like bite size Snickers, peanut M&Ms, malted milk balls, fruit snacks (Roll Ups or other). Most important, create a variety that you enjoy and will eat.
Salty foods are good (nuts) and will help to keep the electrolytes in balance, but in a race over many days, salty food can begin to play havoc with the inside of your mouth. You might find that eating salty foods is too painful after awhile. You might want to consider using electrolyte tablets during the race to help water empty rapidly from the stomach and improve your hydration status. Certain tablets also contain a chemical buffering system that neutralizes the acids formed during exercise, which in turn reduces the nausea often associated with exercise in the heat. Maintaining your electrolyte levels will also help to prevent swelling of your hands and feet, which can reduce the occurrence of blisters on the feet and allow you to get your bike shoes on for the next leg of the race!
Some racers carry dehydrated food during the longer races. Some of the foods hydrate in cold water pretty quickly (such as potatoes). Experiment with these in training. Don't be afraid to carry something that might be a little heavy (i.e., sandwich, slice of cold pizza, bean burrito) and eat it first to reduce the weight. Sometimes these little treats are literally what keep you going!
Packing
Most racers put a variety of foods in small Baggies that they carry in places that are easy to get to. You want to be able to get your food out without stopping or taking off your pack. Eating on the bike is extremely difficult. Practice riding without your hands on the handlebars, so that you can take advantage of non-technical sections and eat while riding. If you will be racing with a support crew, ask them to have everything out at the TA, smorgasbord style (i.e., salami and cheese cut up, sandwiches made, bars/candy out) so that you can quickly pick what looks good to you at the moment, put it into a baggie and be ready for the next event.
Remember - always get a rough idea of how long each leg of the race is (check with your support crew if they have been looking at the maps, your team captain or navigator, or check the maps and course instructions yourself) so you can estimate the amount of food you will need to carry. It's no fun running out of food on the course!