Knights & Dames of Sufferlandria (KDoS - I think I’m officially coining the term. My comp sci brain pronounces it “Kay DOS” ),
Working out the plans for my KoS attempt, with KoS prep plan in place. I’m sure I’ve seen random comments before, but can’t seem to find them in the forum, so will put it out there: I’m curious about your nutrition and hydration planning for your attempt(s). What did you use?, how much, how did you time things? What worked, what didn’t? What would you do differently?
FYI, Knights are all Knights. You’d refer to us as Sirs or Dames but in Sufferlandria, a Knight is a Knight. I’ll check in later with some food advice.
As far as food, you’ll want to be eating about 300 calories per hour, about the limit of what your body can handle. And have multiple sources, savory, sweet, soft, crunchy and lots of hydration. This gives you plenty to choose from, too much of the same type will seem disgusting after a bit. Be sure to add in real foods too. Some examples: fruits, cookies, pb&j, rice, trail mix, Chex mix, gels, shot blocs. Caffeine is nice too. Having some vinegar and or hot sauce can help with cramps, spicy pickle juice.
So it feels like forever ago Feb 18.2018 but we had planned it for the better part of a year. My 2 cents:
be sure to be and stay well hydrated for the whole week up to and including on the day.
I think I had a bottle(ish) of water per hour sipping regularly
I used a thing called Liquid Shots by EFS nutrition that served as calories and electrolytes
also had gummies and loads of treats (M&Ms with peanuts, some junky chocolate minty things, chips (crisps) so a mix of salt and sweet)
for real food I had corned beef sandwiches and egg salad sandwiches (both of which were the highlight foods as the day wore on).
had some full test Coca Cola
had a large cooler right beside the bike with all my pre-filled water bottles in it as well as the real food (some may recommend you refrigerate your chamois cream too )
my eating was all on bike (primarily during the warmups but also during the cool downs) saving the precious break time for nature breaks, stretching, changing kit, taking pics, posting to FB, saving the workout, uploading to Strava, setting up the next vid, making sure all sensors stayed or re-connected.
having a history of horrible and debilitating leg cramps I also took a HotShot (https://teamhotshot.com/) at the start of each video after vid #1 and was able to stave off cramps for the entirety of my quest.
nothing I ate was new, an endurance event is NOT the time to experiment
I think @Sir_Brian_M mentioned 300 cals per hour which is pretty darn close to what I was aiming for primarily via 30-40 gms of carbs
So this was all what worked for me. I made everything in advance and ALL of it was within arms reach (my minions, both as their preference and as mine, didn’t come anywhere near me or my pain cave until I was done). I had way more food ready than I needed but don’t regret that for a minute.
Be sure to share your menu of most glorious suffering with us here and please don’t hesitate to ask more questions if you have em. Do you have that list yet? Do you have your date set? I’m sure I won’t be the only one who would like to heckle, erm laugh, emmm, support you, yah, that’s the word I was looking for.
Quite a few Knights have had their personal support minions bringing the team car around for fresh supplies and encouragement. This Knight needs to embrace the darkness alone. I think it’s one of the reasons why I LOVE The Sufferfest for training. Grunter knows when I need a little tough love and when I need a sticky bottle.
A body can typically handle about 60gm of carbs/hour max. ~90gm if you mix and match glucose and fructose.
I had all my snacks laid out ahead of time and I created a spreadsheet so I knew how many carbs and calories each of my snacks had in them, including my Gatorade Endurance mix. I planned to drink 500mL of Gatorade and 500mL of water every hour. I knew exactly how many carbs were in those 500mL of Gatorade and then used my snacks and gels to make up the rest of the 60 grams per hour. M&M’s, dried fruit, energy gels, granola bars.
Then I got a surprise gift of 3 pb&j sandwiches during my 6th video that I ate during my 6th and 7th videos. Like Sir @Glen.Coutts I did almost all my eating on the bike and reserved my breaks for refilling water bottles, clothing changes, quick comfort breaks, and resolving random tech issues. Other than my technical snafu’s, most of my breaks lasted only about 5 minutes.
Make sure you start eating and drinking BEFORE you start your quest. Otherwise you’ll never catch up. I got all my bottles ready the night before and woke up an hour and half early so I could have plenty of food and water already in my system when I started.
As long as the outside of the bottle is sticky. Not the inside.
I rode mine entirely solo, and didn’t eat enough. But fortunately a good friend who knows me well rocked up at the end of video 6 with a cup of hot Yorkshire tea and marmalade sandwiches of all things. She then force fed me while I rode video 7 then left me to it.
My only advice on food is, have more than you know you’ll need and a wide variety. I prefer solid fuel, I won’t touch gels. I also craved more salt than I expected. Winners for me were cold meat lovers pizza, and a ham and cheese sandwich. I’d never normally be able to stomach stuff like that but clearly was craving the fats and proteins as well as the carbs.
It was actually marmalade on croissants. Toasted. Bizarre combo and not a common one, but it was a good way to get food down. The marmalade cut the sweet from all the sweet crap I’d had earlier on. She knew I needed different flavours
'Nothing I ate was new" is definitely the rule of the day. Same with drinks. You should have nutrition and hydration dialed in before you start.
Have WAY more than you think you will need is also a good thing. Food can be kept around and you will want to drink until your pee is corn straw broom color.
Be prepared for cramps. Sir Glen says “hotshot”. I say ANYTHING with vinegar and some sort of spice. They will return unless you up your electrolyte game.
Also, be prepared for the unexpected. Have just about spare everything. A spare bicycle is a luxury, but you may just need one (one attempt had to be abandoned when the bicycle physically broke in two.)
Good luck on your journey and don’t forget to visit the Knowledge Centre when you finish and fill out the form!
When I do the KoS (attempt) I would be most worried about my undercarriage, 10hours on the indoorbike won’t be comfortable (physically I think I’ll be alright, I’ve done longer hours on the bike outside)
you wouldn’t be alone in those worries. Advice is liberal application of chamois cream after or before every single ride, wear the best chamois you have and change kit at least a good couple of times throughout the quest and if you have more, then change more. Other advice is to change position regularly (even if the vid doesn’t call for it, ie. get out of the saddle and climb even if its only for 10-20 seconds).
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