Thursday, May 18, 2006

Banana Loading

Highs in the 90s predicted for Kanas this weekend. That should make things interesting. TransIowa was in the 40s and now this. Truth be told I do better in cold weather. My results in the Arrowhead should bear me out here. The last time I did an endurance ride in 90+ weather I bonked pretty hard about 10 miles from my goal. I had to sit down in the shade by the convenience store in Palo, IA, drink a Gatorade, suck down a Carboom gel, and recover a bit before moving on. That day (my first century) was 130 miles of paved road in 11 hours on one of the hottest days of the year. I ran out of water at about mile 60 and since it was the 4th of July all the stores in the small towns I was passing through were closed. I had to go about 15 miles without water before I found an open convenience store in Keystone.

I'm a little more experienced than I was then so I don't intend to repeat the performance, but I will be sucking down more water than I have been recently. I did 130 miles of gravel and B road last summer on an 80+ day and felt pretty good at the end of it. My legs were cramping and twitching at the end, but the rest of me was okay. More electrolytes is the lesson I suppose. Not only am I carb-loading for this one, I'm banana loading.

4 comments:

mr. f. g. superman said...

Hmmm. Banana loading. No digestive problems with over-doing "the Atheists Nightmare"? I'm a regular banana eater, so what constitutes loading? 5+ 'naners per day?

Simmons said...

You better bring some adult diapers along if you're eating that many nanners :)

mr. f. g. superman said...

Will these work, do you think?

http://hillison.com/snl/oops.mpg

Matt Maxwell said...

Banana loading for me = 2 per day. Shouldn't hurt me too much, but then you never can tell. I'm bringing TP along just in case.