Food for Racing

One of the most common question I get about racing (besides sleep strategy) is what do I eat. This is pretty easily answered - but first you must understand that you will

- Burn 500-800 calories per hour
- Eat 200-300 calories per hour

in at typical 24-40 hour race. So to gage your eating you simply need to figure out how many calories you'll need for a leg; say 10 hours * 300 calories = 3000 calories.

Next you need to pack these calories. The easiest way is to simply put 1000 calories of food in a plastic bag and grab one bag for every 3-4 hours.

OK - so now what do you put in the bags. First, I like a flask of hammer gel with me on every leg, so that goes separate from the bags and is refilled every TA. In the bags, I first want something crunchy - granola bars are my favorite. I like some fruit, mostly apples and bananas. I like some meat - usually beef jerky, hot dogs, and vienna sausages. Then your typical candy bars, energy bars, and other assorted bars. Finally sandwiches; PBJ, Ham, Turkey - anything on bread - though I prefer mine on bagels. These are all mixed in the bags.

Next mix it up - the idea is simple - nothing looks good to eat when you are exhausted - but hopefully you'll find something palatable if you give yourself a good selection.

As for fluids - I always carry some mixed drink in my hydration bladder (usually Gatorade), and on the bike at least one of my bottles will be pure water. The idea is to get as many calories as I can from fluids.

For those who want to lose weight (which is not usually adventure racers), I have lost more than 10 pounds in a single race and this was not hydration loss. Even with eating as much as you can bear - you will still run a calorie deficit of possibly 400 calories per hour. In 10 hours this is 4000 calories, which is nearly 2 pounds ! Now extend this over a multi-day race (like the 3 day Florida Coast to Coast and it is an easy calculation to see how you can lose 10 pounds.