Park City Point 2 Point Nutrition Redux

This is as much for myself to look at next year as anything else but in case you were curious, read on.

Nutrition Breakdown: I'll just do day of. If I did night before I'd want to get in to the whole day before, and then the day before that... you get the point. I did eat a bunch of pasta and a chicken sausage for dinner among other things.

Breakfast: Oats with walnuts, maple syrup, pinch of salt and a sliced banana. Tropicana Orange juice with calcium and vitamin D, lots of pulp. 1 Monavie active gel left over from last year. Coffee too. That is essential. All this taken in a little after 5, was out of the house by 5:35 en route to pick up Ohran at the Canyons.

Feed strategy: I went with drop bags for the Deer Valley feed zones and it worked well. My bag was bright yellow so it was easy to see. I drove over to the Park City feed the morning of the race and left a cooler. It killed any warm up time but it was worth it when I stopped and grabbed an ice cold bottle and some cold Gu's before heading up Sprio in the heat of the day.

H20 form: 2 hydration packs with 50-60 oz each. I used one for the first leg and then grabbed the other at the 2nd feed. I finished the 2nd one with about 30 minutes left in the race but didn't finish the first. I had a spare tube in each pack and a spare CO2 in my jersey pocket. I also carried a tube and CO2 on my bike. Gotta have backup!

Sports drink form: 3 bottles of Carbo Rocket- again the first I did not finish but the 2nd and 3rd I did. Maybe should have been drinking more early on...

Gel Form: 8 total Gu's, 4 Roctane and 4 Regular. 6 of the 8 were caffeinated, 2 not. 4 of these were done in the last 2 hours. I popped a Jet Blackberry up Spiro, a Blueberry Pomegranate Roctane on Mid Mountain, an Espresso Love climbing that bitch of a fire road past the Canyons, and then a Vanilla Orange Roctane at the start of the last singletrack climb. I was cramping there and I swear that as soon as the Roctane hit my mouth I stopped cramping. I'm not just saying that because I sell Gu either...

Block Form: 2 bags of Chomps. Non caffeinated, I get enough caffeine in the Gu's and morning coffee.

Solid form: 3 Fig Newmans, 1 big chocolate chip cookie that crumbled in my jersey. I started just shoving cookies or whatever in my jersey in Breck and it works well because you don't have a wrapper to deal with. Just grab a handful and stuff it in your mouth. Oreos taste fine soaked in sweat!

What was lacking: I had planned to stop ad the aids and grab a brownie or other sugary treat and a Coke but Tostado was super fast in the feeds (and blew through the last one) and I didn't have time... I think I could have used something like that at aid 3, maybe next year I'll put a Double Shot Starbucks drink, Redbull or Coke in my cooler. A handful of Sweedish Fish would have been a good jersey pocket addition.

Overall thoughts- I really can't complain as I managed to win the race and beat last years time by 9 minutes, though I think I could have drank and ate more early on. I tried to put some pressure on Tostado on Steps and started to bonk... bad. He passed me and I just sat behind him and started to take on calories. Those eventually hit the system and I was better by Spriro but if I had paid more attention to eating early that may not have happened. But how do you not have one of those moments in a hour race. Maybe its inevitable, better ask Dave Wiens. He seems like he has it dialed for that duration...

I also made myself a little sick by downing all those Gu's in the last 2 hours I think. They were necessary to get me to the finish but made me feel crummy for an hour after. Just a lot of sugar and caffeine in my stomach when I was already a bit dehydrated. This may have been avoided by fueling more early, though who knows. That's the theme though- early, early early!!