The Beast of Ballyhoura 2015 AR European Champs

career move

Kerry

sconhome

career move wrote: »

Kerry

Didn't see them on the list of sponsoring Co Co. But we never know.

career move

AKW wrote: »

Didn't see them on the list of sponsoring Co Co. But we never know.

It's a decoy

Neady83

My tummy is in knots, it doesn't know whether it's excited or very very afraid :eek:

Food is pretty much sorted: packed into 9 bags that should last 8 hours each. Is it too soon to say that the long range forecast is looking okish?

lgk

career move wrote: »

I have my food divided up into: transition, bike/kayak and trek. Comes to approx 10600 kcal. Does that sound reasonable?

Plenty of good guidance online, including this on the biggest mistakes endurance athletes make. 150 cal/hour seems to be enough for most people, but everyone's different. I raced with one particular Irish army adventure racer a couple of years back who went through a phenomenal amount of food! Key is not to force it, too much food is as bad as too little, and stomach/nutrition problems are probably next to foot problems in seeing people drop out of races.

Bag up your food so that each bag has sufficient calories for a set number of hours, say 6. Then you'll have a good idea in advance how many bags you need to grab in each transition, speeding things up. Always carry some extra as your leg times won't always match pre-start estimates.

You don't want to be stopping to prepare a 4 course meal in transition, but use them as a good way to get in some balanced nutrition that is too bulky/awkward to carry.

After the race, take note of what you got through, what worked and what didn't. Use that to hone your planning for future races.

sconhome

lgk wrote: »

Plenty of good guidance online, including this on the biggest mistakes endurance athletes make. 150 cal/hour seems to be enough for most people, but everyone's different. I raced with one particular Irish army adventure racer a couple of years back who went through a phenomenal amount of food! Key is not to force it, too much food is as bad as too little, and stomach/nutrition problems are probably next to foot problems in seeing people drop out of races.

Bag up your food so that each bag has sufficient calories for a set number of hours, say 6. Then you'll have a good idea in advance how many bags you need to grab in each transition, speeding things up. Always carry some extra as your leg times won't always match pre-start estimates.

You don't want to be stopping to prepare a 4 course meal in transition, but use them as a good way to get in some balanced nutrition that is too bulky/awkward to carry.

After the race, take note of what you got through, what worked and what didn't. Use that to hone your planning for future races.

That's a very good link.

The protein bit is critical!

If you fail to include protein in your fuel, your body has only one other choice: your own muscle! Called lean muscle tissue catabolism or muscle cannibalization, this process devastates performance through muscle deterioration and increased fatigue-causing ammonia accumulation, and also negatively affects the immune system and recovery..

:eek: :eek:

I take most of my protein and carbs in liquid form through drinks and supplement with nuts, trail mix, secret recipe flapjacks and lots of rashers!!

career move

Ya good article. Thanks for the link Although I don't think I could keep drinking the lower volume of fluid recommended 470ml/hr even if I could carry it :eek:

Enduro

Lads, ye're totally overcomplicating things. A few simple points from experience:

- drink to thirst. If you're not thirsty then all is good.
- It doesn't matter what you think you should eat, you'll start rejecting all types of things after a day or two. Bring food that you know you'll want to eat.
- only use "sports" bars if you really really like them. Normal food that you normally eat is better.
- Gels are like defibrulators... they'll kick start you if you keel over, but don't use them unless you need to (they'll inhibit your fat burning engine).
- have a good mix of food. Try to have something savoury. Cheese works for me, also beef jerky.
- you need a lot less food than you think you do. You should be racing in the fat burn zone. You've probably got about a months worth of energy to draw on without having to eat. Over the years I copped on to the fact that I was transporting the same food from the start to the end of races as I had packed more than I needed. You actually "need" very little.
- If you get the opportunity to eat in transition, make it something different again. Preferably real food.

tip: divide your food into half day sized bags (zip locks or whatever). grab one for short stages or two for longer at the prior transition.

sconhome

Enduro wrote: »

You've probably got about a months worth of energy to draw on without having to eat.

I'd say I've a year's supply going spare

shotgunmcos

Interesting counting on your fat stores for fuel. Makes sense. But how much do you get from them each hour for 72 hours?

So, are you saying the race nutrition is just to top up glycogen stores? How far does your standard 2k glycogen store go? I've been pondering this the last few days. Maybe you are more adept at staying in the fat burning zone the most but with the amount of hills involved I fully expect to be chomping through carbs!

So 1g of fat is 9kcals.
I won't go into the math but at 150 kcals an hour, you would still go through your gycogen store and chew through 2lbs of fat. Not trying to draw this into a science debate, just celebrating the sore, battered, dehydrated, sleep deprived but leaner version of oneself in just 3 days :pac:;)

Grand a few snacks on the move and meals in TA... sweet! Or no... savoury :pac:

For sure we packed enough food for a winter last year and carried half of it around for 40 hours

sconhome

1lb of body fat they reckon is 3500kcals.

Sure you see the size of me and how little I eat on rogaine, training days etc. 1.5lts of the mix in a bladder and plain water bottle 750ml did me the 24 hours (with some remaining) :-)

I hear you on the leaner version of self.

sconhome

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Interesting counting on your fat stores for fuel. Makes sense.

TBF Enduro and Barry Murray have it down to a fine art at this stage.

All of us can do it - especially at the intensity of racing that we are doing.

Enduro

AKW wrote: »

TBF Enduro and Barry Murray have it down to a fine art at this stage.

All of us can do it - especially at the intensity of racing that we are doing.

Yeah absolutely. For years I knew that conventional nutritional advice as regards calroies needed etc was BS, as I was breaking all the "rules" and thriving. It was talking to Barry that clued me in to the more advanced thinking in sports science and nutrition, and it explained extremely well what I had figured out from experience of racing multiday ARs. Talking with Barry, and doing more of my own reading allowed me to fine tune my training to make even more gains w.r.t. fat adaption and racing.

MCOS, it's a very interesting area and you'd enjoy reading into it. Have a google for Tim Noakes (He really is a great sports scientist!). There's some great videos of him on you tube explaining the basics. You're in a good place anyway as I know you're big into food quality, which is the most important thing to get right, irrespective of carb/protein/fat balance.

I'm well fat adapted (I've read it takes about 6 months or so to truely get fat adapted), but I find I don't have to worry about eating anything at all to stay moving and not have glycogen depletion problems. My normal racing liquids are enough to keep me ticking along. I've raced for 5 days (New York 6 day running race last year) without a problem and eating hardly anything, just the odd ice cream treat in the heat (I had the race under control and effectively won by then and indulged myself with a little food in the last day).

pgibbo

Barry's a great man for talks and seminars. You should try to get to one Mike. You'd find it very informative

sconhome

pgibbo wrote: »

Barry's a great man for talks and seminars. You should try to get to one Mike. You'd find it very informative

Meant to say to you he was out our way today. Invited me for a spin on Twitter through the Burren.

career move

Neady83 wrote: »

Is it too soon to say that the long range forecast is looking okish?

Naw I like the way your thinking and the internet never lies
http://m.yr.no/place/Ireland/Munster/Ballyhoura_Mountains/long.html

shotgunmcos

career move wrote: »

Naw I like the way your thinking and the internet never lies
http://m.yr.no/place/Ireland/Munster/Ballyhoura_Mountains/long.html

The wettest intervals of that forecast is Sat 1800-0000. When do you think we will get to the trails?! :rolleyes:;):cool:

Neady83

shotgunmcos wrote: »

The wettest intervals of that forecast is Sat 1800-0000. When do you think we will get to the trails?! :rolleyes:;):cool:

Just made space for my hiking boots in the kit bag

shotgunmcos

Neady83 wrote: »

Just made space for my hiking boots in the kit bag

Packing already! Excited are we?! Countdown clock for live site on 4 days 23hrs

Already warned my boss that I'll be legging it out of the place on Tuesday Can't wait to get over to UL and start soaking up the atmosphere.

sconhome

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Packing already! Excited are we?! Countdown clock for live site on 4 days 23hrs

Already warned my boss that I'll be legging it out of the place on Tuesday Can't wait to get over to UL and start soaking up the atmosphere.

WALK please!!!

Last thing we need is you tripping and wrenching an ankle before we even started!!!

Neady83

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Packing already! Excited are we?! Countdown clock for live site on 4 days 23hrs

Already warned my boss that I'll be legging it out of the place on Tuesday Can't wait to get over to UL and start soaking up the atmosphere.

Excited, nervous, eager, frightened ...... woke up this morning and thought, this time next week we'll have been out for two nights and still have a night to go :eek:

sconhome

Neady83 wrote: »

woke up this morning

Lucky you! I haven't been sleeping

Señor Fancy Pants

Best of luck to all of you!

I'm jealous but also delighted I'm not doing it! You are lunatics.....stay safe and have fun!

Dilbert75

Enjoy it all each one of you lunatics!

martyboy48

Good luck one and all.... May the force be with you

joey100

Best of luck folks, hope at the very least the weather isn't too bad, 72 hrs is bad enough without having to put up with an Irish summer doing it!

sconhome

joey100 wrote: »

Best of luck folks, hope at the very least the weather isn't too bad, 72 hrs is bad enough without having to put up with an Irish summer doing it!

Thanks Joey.

In fairness you can fit a lot of Irish seasons into 72 hours, once we don't get snow we'll be grand

pgibbo

Best of luck this weekend everyone. Enjoy :cool:

mossym

BTW, i'm providing updates on team #triharder over here

http://triharderar.com/

i'll also keep an eye on Neady's team so you might see some updates on them too

Djoucer

Looks the whole field except the top 10 have been short coursed.

VIA sleepmonsters:

"The sea paddle stage is taking longer than expected and in worsening conditions most of the race field took the second short course option. They will come ashore and walk to Dunmore East to start the next stage, missing checkpoint K5. (The photo shows Dumore East bay and the beach teams come ashore on.)"

"It looks like only the top 10 remain on the full route. Team 9, Black Hill/OpavaNet have retired with the girl on the team sick."