August 13, 2025 • 40 mins
OVERVIEW
We receive a lot of listener questions, so we're batching a few of them together into one episode. In Episode 258 of "The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast", Coach Adam Pulford and co-author of "The Time-Crunched Cyclist" book, Coach Jim Rutberg, rip through questions about the fear of descending, how to increase carbohydrate intake, preparing for big mountain days, and making the best of events when you're under-prepared.
TOPICS COVERED
- Question 1: How do I get over my fear of going downhill on a bicycle?
- Question 2: I understand I should increase carbohydrate intake on the bike, but how do I do it and how much should I consume?
- Carbohydrate scaling for different types of rides and races
- Question 3: How do I prepare for a big ride (RAMROD: Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Day) of 160 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing, more than half of it in the first 50 miles?
- Training by VAM (average ascent velocity) in elevation gain per hour.
- Long range vs. short range training
- Pacing and nutrition advice
- Question 4: How should I make the best of an event if I'm going in under-prepared?
ASK A QUESTION FOR A FUTURE PODCAST
Guest Host
Jim Rutberg has been an athlete, coach, and content creator in the outdoor sports, endurance coaching, and event industries for more than 20 years. He is the Media Director and a coach for CTS and co-author of several training and sports nutrition books, including Training Essentials for Ultrarunning with Jason Koop, Ride Inside with Joe Friel, and The Time-Crunched Cyclist with Chris Carmichael. He writes for trainright.com and his work has appeared in Bicycling, Outside, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Velonews, Inside Triathlon, and on numerous websites. A graduate of Wake Forest University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Exercise Physiology, Jim resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with his two sons, Oliver and Elliot. He can be reached at jrutberg@trainright.com or @rutty_rides on Instagram.
HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
From the team at CTS.
This is the Time Crunch Cyclistpodcast, our show dedicated to
answering your trainingquestions and providing
actionable advice to help youimprove your performance even if
you're strapped for time.
I'm your host, coach AdamPulford, and I'm one of the over
50 professional coaches whomake up the team at CTS.
In each episode, I draw on ourteam's collective knowledge,
(00:30):
other coaches and experts in thefield to provide you with the
practical ways to get the mostout of your training and
ultimately become the bestcyclist that you can be.
Now on to our show.
Now onto our show.
Everyone loves to talk aboutclimbing high carb intake, and
(00:53):
you know what Descending fast isfun too.
So let's talk about all of thatand more on today's podcast.
I'm Coach Adam Pulford, andhere alongside me once again is
special guest host Jim Rutberg,aka Ruddy Jim.
Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Oh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, and, and Ruddy will be asking me um the
questions once again today, andwe have a ton of them trickling
in from our audience members,which is you so?
I mean so much so that I can'tdo this on my own, so we're
going to rack and stack them aswe go.
Ruddy, let's get right down toit.
Fire away with question numberone.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
All right.
So how do you get over the fearof descending?
I lose momentum, hitting mybrakes on the downhill, and have
to work so much harder on theclimbs to catch back up.
I'm afraid of falling andhurting myself due to losing
control when encountering sand,gravel, bumps, potholes, other
unexpected terrain.
I even get nervous, thinking mybrakes might not work or the
(01:55):
tire might fall off and, to putit in parentheses, starting to
sound like I might needcounseling.
I'm getting better at speeds onknown hills, but I struggle
with new routes and in races.
And that is from Katie.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yes, katie, yeah, go see your counselor.
I would fully recommend that.
And your counselor should beJosh Whitmore, cts coach and
skills teacher, down inAsheville, north Carolina.
And that is both a joke slash,not joke.
We'll talk about that in aminute.
But but, katie, like I hear you,I actually, when I first came
(02:32):
to CTS Ruddy can probably speakto this I was crashing all the
time because I didn't reallyknow how to handle my bike all
that well.
Luckily, I did over time and Igot a lot better at it.
Luckily, I did over time and Igot a lot better at it.
And my advice is for you not todo what I did, which was pin it
all the time and try to keep upwith the fast coaches that I
(02:53):
was trying to keep up with andtherefore crash.
So what you want to do is getsome in-person, face-to-face,
actual coaching, and that willgo so much further, because
anything that I can really tellyou on this podcast it's not as
effective as finding someonethat you trust locally or going
(03:13):
to a destination location likeAsheville or Colorado Springs or
California where some of ourcoaches within the CTS network
can really help you out, and nopodcast out there I don't think
could teach you perfect likedescending, descending and
handling skills.
So, with that being said, Ihave a lot more to say about
(03:37):
this, but, ready, I'll kick itover to you If you have any
words of wisdom for Katie onthis topic if you have any words
of wisdom for Katie on thistopic.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, certainly.
I think that the biggest thingis there's this misconception or
difference in conception around.
Nobody has any problem takingski lessons or golf lessons or
some of the other things thatare highly technique-oriented.
And yet, because we all learnhow to ride well, not all, most
people learn how to ride abicycle as a child we think that
(04:08):
you should automatically beable to figure out how to go
downhill fast on a road,mountain, gravel, whatever.
Um, because you just suddenlywhat naturally have these skills
.
I mean, it doesn'tintellectually, it doesn't make
any sense.
We definitely should be able tolook at it and say you need
lessons, you need skills work togo downhill quickly and
(04:29):
everything, because it really isa matter of technique and being
able to follow somebody andhave somebody look at your body
position on the bike, how you'releaning into a turn, how you're
leaning the bike, where you'relooking, all of those kinds of
things.
And it is remarkable on theimprovements that we can make
(04:54):
and I'm not necessarily the topskills coach, like Josh is and
like you are necessarily buteven on our more generalized
cycling camps when we're goingup and down Mount Lemmon or
other places in Asheville andother areas.
It doesn't take thatcapabilities of your brakes
(05:15):
really are, so that you knowwhen you can take a risk and how
far you can push it a littlebit and still reel it back in.
Those things go a long way.
(05:36):
The other thing that cyclistsdon't do and I am completely
guilty of this myself becausemountain biking skills are not
my forte, but because I've beena a point to point or loop
cyclist for so long I don't goback and session things, and the
folks who are more you knowmountain bike specific or they
started out as mountain bikethey think nothing of stopping
(05:59):
and doing the same climb ordescent or the same rock feature
17 times before they move on.
It doesn't occur to me.
I'm thinking I need to get frompoint A to point B and I'll hit
that feature next week.
But really sessioning somethinglike a hill in your
neighborhood even, or corners ina parking lot or something like
(06:19):
that, is really a very helpfulthing to do as a road or gravel
cyclist as well a very helpfulthing to do as a road or gravel
cyclist as well.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, yes, it is.
And, ruddy, you should sessionmore.
Everybody should.
And Katie, to your point islike I'll keep on pushing some
in-person skill work becauseit's not just for speed and
performance, even though you'llget that too it's really for
confidence, fun in safety.
So when you're doing thesegroup rides, you know working
harder to catch back up afterthis.
You know downhill, where theother descenders and corners and
(06:52):
people who are better, theyspend like, like exponentially
less energy than you, uh, inthose sections and you spend
exponentially more than them inthose sections.
So like I hear what you'regoing through and you spend
exponentially more than them inthose sections.
So like I hear what you'regoing through and a little bit
of skill instruction will go along way here.
Josh and I just did a big skillsession at my house up here in
(07:15):
Frederick, maryland, and we hadvery diverse crowd.
We had anybody from, like, ajunior racer racing at the UCI
level to a former um, uh, superbike racer, like raced like road
motorcycles to uh you knowlocal people who just want to
(07:35):
learn how to ride their mountainbikes, more roadies uh, that
just started, um, on themountain bike trail.
They're very curious.
So we had the very diversegroup of people.
We started super basic in thegrass, just learning our
controls, so learning what thebrakes did, how much, when to
deploy them, how to deploy them.
And I'll tell you, likeeverybody picked up something
(07:55):
from even the grass skill stuff.
And we sessioned the entireweekend to the point where we
had somebody say, is there morethan just the nose trail?
Like cause, cause, we spentlike all of our time like on one
trail, but we we wanted to toteach the basics, even though we
had, like some of the mostadvanced people in Mapa region
there as well as like some ofthe beginners.
And so in that way I agree withRuddy.
(08:19):
It's it's crazy to me that likeit's very acceptable for people
to do ski instruction but notbike instruction and not to go
super dark, but it's likethere's no cars coming down the
hills, you know, during adownhill skiing, okay, but
there's cars out there.
So learning how to navigateyour bike, whether it's trails
(08:40):
or gravel or road or whatever,there's a lot of stuff out there
that could end your day in abad way.
So putting time, money andeffort into how to drive your
bike is wildly, wildly huge.
So, katie, I'll say this I willreach out to you, I will email
you directly and see where youlive or where you want to travel
(09:03):
to, and I will help find you agood skill instructor there.
So I'll just throw that outthere into the world and if you
want to capitalize on that,let's do it.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I will also say it's a skill that can be gained and
that anyone can gain, whetherthey're young, whether they're
in their 80s.
All people can learn to ridewithin their capacity, within
the bike's capacity, in a waythat is enjoyable and relatively
stress-free to go downhill.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yes, yep, and I will attest again.
I started riding bikes kind oflate in the game, when I was in
my twenties.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And I can attest that you were not good in corners or
descents at the time.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I wasn't good, that's true.
But I'll say that I enjoyedclimbing more, even though I
wasn't that good at that either.
But now I'm actually a reallygood descender and I'm a really
good bike handler, and and I amconfident in that.
And the reason I say that isbecause over time, like now,
I'll have a day where I'll say,oh, I'll go out and hit some
climbs, but my focus is going tobe the descent, because I just
(10:07):
want to have fun today.
So I'll just like ride likezone too easy on some climbing
route, rip some descents andcome back home because I want
like a low key day but I want tohave some fun.
So, katie, super good question.
I'll reach out to you and we'llget you some skill instructions
because I think it'll go a longway.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
All right, so second question I'll reach out to you
and we'll get you some skillinstructions, because I think
it'll go a long way, All right.
So second question uh, coach,I'm an avid listener to your
podcast.
Already in, you've alreadyanswered a previous question
that I sent in, so we have arepeat.
Um, my question now is if thereis a way or technique to
increase the amount ofcarbohydrate consumed on the
bike.
Is it just something that yougradually increase?
(10:46):
And if so, how do I do that?
And thanks again, Rodolfo.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Rodolfo, yes, I remember your name, rodolfo.
I don't remember your originalquestion, but thanks for writing
back in and this is a good one.
Yes, it is trainable and yes,you can increase it.
I would say general rules ofthumb is number one.
Just observe what you'realready taking in, right.
If it's nothing, well, probablybetter to take in more.
(11:12):
But the reason why I say startrecording with what you're
already doing to get somegeneral awareness or a benchmark
of where you're at.
Okay, if you have no clue, Iwould say start around 60 grams
of carbohydrate per hour, foryou know endurance days that
have some sort of intensity toit.
(11:32):
I'm not talking about like aneasy hour or less We'll talk
about that here in a second butI'm talking about some harder
rides, maybe some interval daysand that kind of stuff.
So start with 60 to 75 grams ofcarbohydrate per hour and do
that every hour, and do that forthe harder days and if that's
sitting good with your belly, ifthat's seemingly performing
(11:55):
just fine, then increase it.
Go up to 75 to 80 grams perhour and if that's working fine,
go to 80 to 90 grams per hour.
But I would say for most people, when we're talking about the
grams per hour and all this kindof stuff.
Most people are not going toneed more than 90 grams per hour
listening to this podcast.
Okay, some people will, though,and my advice on that and my my
(12:19):
advice to really anybody is tostart with the whole grams per
hour game.
Okay, but start to switch overto more of a sliding scale.
Start to think about apercentage of the intake for
your output.
I know that sounds weird, butwhat I mean is you want to aim
for a high percentage intake ofcarbohydrate when you have a
(12:42):
high output of kilojoule perhour, and that's coming from
your power meter.
Let me walk you through acouple examples.
First, I would say just havinga grams per hour that is, a high
carbohydrate for every singleride doesn't make sense to me.
Does it to you, ruddy?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
No.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Oh, 100 grams an hour for a ride for everybody, that
sounds great.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
The reason that you're consuming carbohydrate in
the first place is to replenishglucose that you're burning,
and if you're not burning verymuch, there's not as much of a
reason to take all of that in.
Also, similarly, the durationof your ride.
If your ride is two hours orless, you have plenty of stored
(13:29):
glycogen to be able to fuel theride and you don't need as much
additional carbohydrate on topof it.
Especially again, if it's twohours of endurance, you're going
to be at a carbohydratecontribution of 50% to begin
with.
So there's a bunch of math thatgoes into it, but I think the
(13:49):
general guidelines of startingat 60 make sense, especially
because you just want somebodyto be consuming food to begin
with on rides that are longerthan about 75 to 90 minutes.
But we're seeing right now, inthe middle of the Tour de France
, where everything is around,how much these guys are
consuming.
The Tour de France, whereeverything is around, how much
(14:10):
these guys are consuming.
They're consuming 150, 170grams of carbohydrate per hour.
It's just massive.
Most amateurs do not need toreplicate what they're seeing at
the level of the Tour de France.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Exactly.
I think to that end is likeevery day is a performance day
at the Tour de France.
To that end is like every dayis a performance day at the Tour
de France.
So they need to be consuming inas high of an intake of
carbohydrate as possible.
But they have easy days too andthey're not going to jam 120
grams of carbohydrate into theirface on their one hour recovery
(14:44):
rides.
So I'll suggest everybody startthinking about their training
as the hard performance days orthe easy endurance days.
And now I would start to thinkabout a scalable approach to the
carbohydrate intake On the hardperformance days.
This means, like the long ridewith climbs, the threshold
(15:05):
intervals, maybe three by 20,something that's going to push
you.
My recommendation I've put thison podcasts before, but it's to
aim for 40% to 50% intake ofcarbohydrate coming from the
kilojoules of your power meter.
And to give you an example hereif Ruddy's out there training
(15:26):
and he's hitting a thousandkilojoules per hour as a work
measurement coming from hispower meter, that means that if
we take 40 to 50% of 1000kilojoule per hour, that's four
to 500 calories per hour and wewant that come from carbohydrate
.
Divide by four that works outto a hundred to 120 grams of
carbohydrate per hour that Ruddyshould be taking in.
(15:49):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
For the record, I have not hit a thousand
kilojoules an hour in probably25 years, and that's even trying
as hard as I can sometimes Likea thousand kilojoules an hour.
People really have to take itand do it with a grain of salt.
You see it listed in Vela Newsand all these other places.
But talk a little bit about,like, what's realistic.
(16:11):
What do you see when yourathletes let's say a master's,
40 year old, 50 year old uh, catthree like even a hard training
day for them, are they going tohit a thousand kilojoules an
hour?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
well, since we already talked about ruddy at 20
, let's talk talk about ruddy at50.
Ruddy at 50 in a hard day,maybe 600 kilojoules an hour.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
That's six to seven, I can do that.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Okay, five hour ride 600 kilojoules Because again
it's easy math just the 1000.
So if we do 40 to 50% of that600 kilojoule per hour now,
we're talking about 240 calories, up to 300 calories per hour.
And if we divide by four Adam'sgoing to check out on math
(16:58):
we're talking about 60 to 75grams of carbohydrate per hour,
which brings us right back downinto sort of the normal ranges
that have been prescribedforever, exactly, exactly.
And so these ranges, folks like,where are these ranges coming
from?
First of all, the gram ofcarbohydrate per hour.
(17:21):
That's coming from a ton ofresearch that kind of started
with Oskar Jukenrup that hascascaded into a lot of different
circles with, like Scratch Labs, never.
Second, a lot of theseresearchers making sure that the
exact blend of sugars goinginto these products, combined
(17:42):
with the grams per sachet or pertube or whatever that you're
consuming, is going to be in theballpark area.
Over the past 20 years of justobserving what I'm recommending
to my athletes which I've alwaysbeen on the high carb train, by
the way and that is because ofCTS, because of a lot of the
(18:05):
colleagues that I worked withback in the day even helped
Power Bar, if we remember whenPower Bar came out with their
endurance drink we CTS helped toformulate that we were pushing
hard carb.
From the very beginning it wasjust like a lower high carb of
like 40 to 60 grams per hour andwe were excited to get our
athletes to do that.
(18:26):
Then it was like 60 to 75, andnow it's like 60 to 90, right.
So the percentage of intake peroutput is something that I've
observed over the years and inmy opinion we should have a
slidable scale, that Ruddy'shigh performance days and
(18:47):
Matthew Vanderpool's highperformance days.
We should be able to find anumber that kind of fits each of
them.
Okay, and it does If youMatthew Vanderpool's pumping on
a lot of thousand kilojoule perday and he's hitting a hundred
to 120 grams per hour.
But I took that same 40 to 50%and applied it to Ruddy's hard
days of 600 or 700 kilojoule perhour and it came out on a very
(19:11):
acceptable, probably what you'redoing from an intake standpoint
.
Okay, so those are theperformance days.
I've been working withTrainingPeaks and maybe
SneakPeak.
There might be a podcast comingout in a couple of weeks about
some of the stuff that we'redoing on TrainingPeaks for a
fueling insights tool that'sgoing to be implemented into the
(19:31):
Training Peaks suites of stuff.
So sit on your edge of yourseat for that.
But then we have our endurancedays.
That's where you either drinkwater or you take in less.
So my percentage for that well,first of all, I'll generally
say, if it's an endurance rideof two hours and less, with not
a ton of intensity and you'reeating normally, you can just
(19:53):
drink water or electrolytes andyou probably don't need to take
in uh grams of carbohydrate.
But if we're doing like sometempo or a 90 minute ride or a
two hour ride was like someHills, that kind of thing let's
just say an endurance ride.
My general recommendation is25% to 35% intake of
carbohydrate per the output ofkilojoule.
(20:16):
In this example, let's just sayMatthew Vanderpoel was having an
easy day of 600 kilojoules perhour.
That would come out to 150 to200 calories per hour, or 40 to
roughly 55 grams of carbohydrateintake per hour.
That's how to use the slidingscales.
I know it's a little mathy anda little hard to listen to slash
(20:37):
.
Boring to listen to slash.
My wife is going to hate thispodcast.
But play around with thosenumbers.
Just remember 40 to 50% forperformance days, 25 to 35% and
you're going to take that fromthe kilojoule expenditure from
your power meter.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Okay Now to add a little bit more to the math
terrible side.
There's also that equation forif you're generally consuming on
the lower end of the scales,you know so 40 to 60, 65, 70,
kind of in that range, a two toone uh, glucose to fructose uh
(21:13):
formulation works really wellwhen these folks are going for
the big numbers.
When you're going for a hundredgrams, 120, 150 grams an hour,
then the percentages uh change alittle bit in terms of what you
want from a um, from aformulation, and so a lot of the
really high carb formulationsare going more towards a 1 to a
(21:37):
0.8 formulation.
And it's just because it'seasier on your gut, because the
biggest downside to this kind ofhigh carbohydrate, extreme
carbohydrate kind of strategy isyou to end up with gastric
distress, and so there's the guttraining component of gradually
increasing what you'reconsuming.
But you also have to make someadjustments at the high end to
(22:02):
the formulation that you'reusing if you're starting to have
some GI distress from highcarbohydrate.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
And I'd even go so far as to say that the two to
one versus one to 0.8, Iwouldn't like coming back to
Rodolfo, I wouldn't stress aboutthat all that much right now.
I would, number one, justbecome aware that that is a
thing, if you're not already.
Number two, look at yourpackaging to see if they even
(22:32):
put that on there and consumemore products that actually
promote, like their ratios.
So if they do have a two to oneor one to one or one 2.8, that
is a very transparent and verygood, and then you can identify
which products suit you betterfor those high intensities,
because I do have some uh folkthat the one to 0.8 just works
(22:55):
for them, kind of at allintensities, and when I play
around with two to one versusone to 0.8, it kind of doesn't
matter, um, and so just knowthat that definitely does exist,
become more aware of that, andthen maybe some of the products
that don't work for you if theydon't have this stated, or maybe
it's just like a ton ofmaltodextrin and that gives you
(23:18):
GI issue.
Okay, now we've identifiedperhaps why that is.
Additionally, and this kind ofcomes first, is all this food
talk that we're talking aboutwon't bode well if you're
dehydrated.
So if all you're doing isguzzling carbohydrate or chewing
bars that have carbohydrate butyou're not paying attention to
total fluid intake ie stayinghydrated this fueling plan won't
(23:41):
go well.
So stay hydrated.
First, fuel with carbohydrate,on top of that.
We won't talk about sodium inthis one, but big fan of sodium,
put that in too.
And with the bars, yeah, aslong as it's a bar that is
pretty exclusively carbohydrate,like probably 50 grams of
carbohydrate to three to fivegrams of fat only and almost no
(24:04):
protein, that's a goodcarbohydrate bar.
There's bars out there thathave 12 grams of fat and say 30
to 40 grams of carbohydrate atthe highest level, maybe some
protein.
That's going to sit differently, meaning it's going to, it's
going to digest a lot moreslowly.
So you want that.
On, say, longer rides, whereyou want a little bit more
sustenance, rather than three tofour hour hard gravel races,
(24:28):
where you want to choosesomething, you need something
that's more carbohydrate based.
So, yeah, I mean nutrition.
We could talk for so many hourson nutrition.
Rodolfo, very good question.
But the last thing I will sayis on those percentages and I
know I'm like pushing that hard,but the general, the reason why
(24:49):
I've been trying to push thishard into the audience and with
my kind of agenda on.
It is like people have finallygot the word that high carb is
better, right?
Or is good right do high carb?
(25:10):
They think that that high carbis good for everything, but it's
not so.
Knowing how to scale up yourcarbohydrate for the intensity,
or hard days and knowing how toscale it down for the less hard
days is really my messages, andso that 40 to 50% for the hard
and 25 to 35% for the easy ish,that's really what I want you to
take home.
I think we might have time forone more, rudy.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
All right.
Third question is Arnie isdoing Ramrod.
It's a ride around MountRainier.
It's one day 160 miles, grandtotal of 10,000 feet of
elevation gain.
However, in the first 50 milesthere are 6,700 feet of
elevation gain.
So any training advice?
The event is July 31st, so wedon't have a whole lot of time
(25:51):
to make a lot of improvement,but we can at least provide some
advice.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yes, Arnie, I believe you wrote this into us not this
week, probably a couple monthsago.
Sorry, we are getting to thisone a little late.
Let me just answer this.
(26:27):
If you were to ask me thismiddle of July, you have maybe a
couple of weeks to go, and thenwhat we can do is backtrack
into some the training thatyou've been doing leading up to
this.
There's not a ton more you cando in a couple of weeks.
However, there's probably atleast one or two big final
training sessions that you canutilize to really give you
confidence in an extra kind oflike boost for game day.
(26:49):
So some of that is like a just ahuge, massive amount of
climbing, whatever you have towork with around your area and
you want to try to match therate of climbing that's known as
VAM vertical ascent in metersor climbing per hour that you
would expect to do on the dayand you want to mimic that in
training.
For a lot of people that I finda lot of masters, riders and
(27:10):
all this kind of stuff goodclimbers 2000 feet of climbing
per hour is usually a prettygood rate of climbing on some of
these big epic things, If youcan tolerate that, at least for
the first part of it, whichsounds like you probably will do
that.
Try to mimic in training.
That's the specificity of thetraining on that.
This is also a gut training day.
(27:31):
So this leads into Rodolfo'squestion how many grams to push
and all this kind of stuff youwant to dial in your exact
fueling for the race day on thisday.
So push the high carbs, seewhat you can do at kind of a
maximum, have a really goodhydration plan and incorporate
that into this kind of specificclimbing day.
(27:53):
And you want to do this probably10 days or two weeks out from
the main event, because this isgoing to cost you a lot.
This is going to be veryfatiguing.
So by the time you hear this,Arnie, you probably will only
have one day of it.
Then you do it, Then you rest,refine your process, see if
that's going to work for you,and away we go From there.
(28:14):
I'll just say two things andI'll turn it over to.
Ready is coming in fresh to.
This one is really going toserve you well, Cause it's just
such a huge day, you know.
So, like training up untilthree days out, that's not
enough to freshen up.
You need probably a week easygoing into this one, the very
least, and so arrive fresh.
(28:36):
That's really going to help you.
And then, finally, if you don'tget this big training thing in,
or maybe your training hasn'tbeen all that awesome, and if
you're still going to do it,fueling really well is your best
strategy on the day, regardlessof the fitness that you're
bringing into it, so readyanything else to throw on top of
that.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Yeah, I think probably mostly a caution really
is that if you do go in freshwhich you absolutely should the
consequence, or one potentialconsequence that trips people up
when they go into events reallyfresh, is that they rip their
own legs off in the first hourbecause they get excited, they
(29:16):
feel fresh, they you're, youknow, like you end up going
faster and harder than you thinkyou are, and then you should
and you just burn way too manymatches too early.
Um, chris Carmichael was mycoach when I first, when the
company first started and allthose years ago, and one of the
simple, non-technical bits ofadvice that he gave me that
(29:36):
still sticks with me is don'tride like an idiot.
And he would kind of tell methat before races or big rides
and things like that, because heknew that I would tend to do
exactly that.
I would go out feeling greatand totally cook myself in the
first hour and a half orsomething like that, and then be
toast great and totally cookmyself in the first hour and a
half or something like that, andthen be toast.
So if you're going into thisevent, regardless of the amount
(29:59):
of fitness that you have andhopefully well-rested, it's
important to just staydisciplined in that first 50
miles, because any matches thatyou burn you're not going to get
back and you kind of want tosave yourself, save some energy
for the last 50 miles.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, that's really good advice on pacing and I
would agree with that for sure.
I mentioned on the podcast Idid the track this year and one
of my goals was just to feelstrong all day and 100% of that
was in the first hour.
Like so many people were ridingso crazy, like super crazy hard
(30:41):
, I just let them go.
I was I'm like okay, cause I'vemessed it up so many times
before.
I'm like okay, I'll go.
I feel good, I'm going to gowith the lead group or whatever
that means for the track.
Like it was hard, it was aproper event.
If anybody, you know, wants agravel race that checks all the
boxes, do it.
But because I let people go,whoever they were, and I knew my
(31:03):
pacing held to it, I climbedstrong all day.
I stopped at the aid stations,got water, kept on going and in
the end you know it's the lasthour or so.
You know I would.
I was passing a lot of people,made some friends and and we're
climbing along and and one guywas like out of water.
I had an extra bottle cooledthem off and I was just like
okay, like hop on my wheel,let's bring this thing home.
(31:24):
And I was, you know.
So I was able to help somepeople out.
I felt strong, rode through anduh, kristen and I, my, my wife,
we had a nice dinner that night, as opposed to uh being
destroyed, having to stay in theyou know the hotel or the APRB
and wonder if I'm going to peein the next six hours because of
the extremeness of the event,right, so, again, the pacing on
(31:47):
the day is super important, butlet's just assume we answered
this question long time ago.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Well, hang on Before you get to that.
I do want to go back to theidea of the climbing rate per
hour.
People who don't have access tosuper long climbs.
Can you do climbing repeats andaccomplish that VAM that way?
Or is it a necessary thing thatthey have to have a steady
(32:15):
climb for that?
Um?
Speaker 1 (32:17):
really good question and I and I think it's the
pragmatic answer is you use whatyou have, right.
And from a specificity oftraining, you know Ramrod has
long climbs and if you are goingto train properly for it, use
long climbs.
If all you have is five minuteclimbs, well then use the five
minute climbs and so in that way, then, doing climbing repeats
(32:41):
or intervals of going up andcoming down and going up and
coming down, um, would be a fineway to train, because it's it's
hill climb training, okay.
And then I want some outdoortraining for these athletes so
that they know how to climb outof the saddle in the saddle and
then descend as well.
What I would do, not knowingArnie's full situation or
(33:02):
anything, but I would have dayswhere I would climb fairly hard
call it threshold, maybe alittle bit above up, and I would
pin it on the way down tominimize the time in between.
So I'm going to do more work inless time by shortening the
interval time.
So, instead of kind of thetypical what we'd normally do
(33:23):
with climbing up, turning aroundand coasting and drinking
whatever, I'd get up to the top.
You know, spin around safely,spin it, do a U-turn and then
start pedaling hard on thedownhill, take a minute or two,
whatever it's going to take youto get down, turn around safely
at the bottom and then hit itagain.
So that's, that's how it wouldhelp train an athlete who had
(33:45):
short climbs doing somethinglike this.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
And then, as you said , if we did have more time, if
we're talking to somebody who'ssix months or three months, et
cetera, out from an event likethis, then how would you prepare
someone for a big climbing day?
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, so it's.
Let's just put climbing asidefor a second.
It's a big day.
So what that means is you need ahuge aerobic base.
That means is you need a hugeaerobic base.
So I would, um, arnie, I wouldmaximize your CTL, meaning in
the base and build time period.
I just I would ride you, Iwould maximize your volume, um,
(34:23):
within reason, and try to getthat CTL as big as possible, and
then at some point I wouldchange the training intensity
and really focus on thresholddevelopment.
That's where hill climbs comein a lot of FTP work and time to
extension work, maybe somesweet spot in there or whatever
and then I would intensify thetraining because there's going
to be some steep pitches inthere and I'm going to do more
(34:44):
hill climb work.
Okay, but I think it's importantto recognize on a day like this
and what's hot right now isdurability right so I wouldn't
be doing all the intervals earlyon in the ride.
I would have long rides with umhard hill climbs at the very
end and, um, I would work onyour ability to produce a
(35:05):
similar power, say, six hourslate in the day, than you can
when you're fresh.
That's really working ondurability is being able to
produce really high power.
That's maybe similar to whatyou can do when you are fresh
and ready to go.
Finally, I'd be working on thefueling plan throughout and then
(35:26):
bring you in fresh, like wetalked about.
That's a pretty general broadstrokes of how to answer the
question from a long ways out.
But I think too, when you'redoing something like that epic,
you need to be really fit.
And, arnie, I'm kind of curiousif you are quote time crunched
athlete or not.
Feel free to write back in andlet us know maybe total hours of
(35:47):
what you have been doing totrain for Ramrod, because that's
that's a pretty gnarly one soto that end uh, just not a
question that we got from fromlisteners.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
But something to add on quickly to this would be what
is your advice to somebody whohas to go, who needs to go into
an event somewhat underprepared?
Not one of these.
I'm not advocating somebody youknow go off the couch to do
ramrod or ledville 100 orsomething like that.
But everybody, we've allencountered athletes who
training didn't quite work outthe way we thought it would, et
(36:18):
cetera.
And they're they know they'reunder prepared, not unprepared,
but just not quite there.
How do they approach their biggnarly day when they're not
quite ready for?
Speaker 1 (36:30):
it.
I get asked that a lot and andkind of have to deal with that a
lot.
So I think like the first thingto recognize is fueling and
pacing on the day are the twobiggest things to focus on,
regardless of whatever fitnessthat you're bringing in.
So if you've been only trainingsix to eight hours and your CTL
(36:50):
is 45, 50, and you're going todo Leadville, my advice is, man,
let everybody go.
Just ride your pace, a niceaerobic pace.
Make it feel like a five ormaybe six all day.
Five while you're cruisingalong, six on the hill climbs,
and don't overextend yourself.
Stop at the aid stations, stickto your fueling plan of what
(37:14):
you know is going to work foryou.
Be efficient in those feedzones meaning you're not going
to hang out for 15 minutes, butgrab what you can high five, a
volunteer and just keep itpositive Because you got to
recognize that a huge day likethat it's all aerobic.
So as long as you're stayinghydrated and you're staying
happy and you're staying wellfed and you're giving yourself
(37:35):
you know delicious snacks, youshould be able to go all day.
Really, the problem is going tobe how bad your butt and your
hands hurt afterwards.
I mean that's the biggest thingso long as you keep on the
fueling and all that kind ofstuff.
So but I do think that thewhat's unique about timeed
Athlete is if you do it foryears and years and years, if
(37:57):
you've had five years of kind ofhovering between 40 and 60 CTL,
that's real different thanstarting two years ago and
building up to like a 70 CTL andthen trying to do Leadville 70
CTL and then trying to doLeadville.
Because if you have all thoseyears in the bank maybe you have
(38:17):
some of these long events orsomething like that.
There's stuff that metrics onTrainingPeaks or some of these
other platforms can't reallymonitor for.
So that time crunched athletecan get through some of these
huge epic days with wise pacing,proper fueling and let's face
it like a positive and happymindset.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
I sure hope so, because that's pretty much my
plan for Leadville this year.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Well, Ruddy, you've got a few behind you.
So the people who areunderprepared they normally do
the opposite of what I justdescribed and it's because they
don't have the experience andthey get kind of caught up in
the moment and they think theyshould keep up with everybody,
Cause that's what everybody'sdoing and a lot of cascade of
problems, you know.
Go from there, and so generalrule is stay within yourself,
(39:07):
stick to your guns, Don'toverextend yourself, keep it
positive out there and, uh yeah,keep hitting the snacks.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
So, speaking of snacks, it's snack time around
here, so, uh, we'll wrap thisone up and then, uh, let you get
on your the rest of your day.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yes, I could go for some snacks and ready.
Thank you, we, we.
You know we ripped through uhlike five audience questions
over the past couple of weeks,so that really helped me out.
Thank you for your time.
I super appreciate it.
Let's go back and watch somemore Tudor France.
Thanks for joining us on theTime Crunch Cyclist podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
(39:42):
If you want even moreactionable training advice, head
over to trainrightcom backslashnewsletter and subscribe to our
free weekly publication.
Each week you'll get in-depthtraining content that goes
beyond what we cover here on thepodcast.
That'll help you take yourtraining to the next level.
That's all for now.
Until next time, train hard,train smart, train right.
From the team at CTS.
This is the Time Crunch Cyclistpodcast, our show dedicated to
answering your trainingquestions and providing
actionable advice to help youimprove your performance even if
you're strapped for time.
I'm your host, coach AdamPulford, and I'm one of the over
50 professional coaches whomake up the team at CTS.
In each episode, I draw on ourteam's collective knowledge,
(00:30):
other coaches and experts in thefield to provide you with the
practical ways to get the mostout of your training and
ultimately become the bestcyclist that you can be.
Now on to our show.
Now onto our show.
Everyone loves to talk aboutclimbing high carb intake, and
(00:53):
you know what Descending fast isfun too.
So let's talk about all of thatand more on today's podcast.
I'm Coach Adam Pulford, andhere alongside me once again is
special guest host Jim Rutberg,aka Ruddy Jim.
Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Oh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, and, and Ruddy will be asking me um the
questions once again today, andwe have a ton of them trickling
in from our audience members,which is you so?
I mean so much so that I can'tdo this on my own, so we're
going to rack and stack them aswe go.
Ruddy, let's get right down toit.
Fire away with question numberone.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
All right.
So how do you get over the fearof descending?
I lose momentum, hitting mybrakes on the downhill, and have
to work so much harder on theclimbs to catch back up.
I'm afraid of falling andhurting myself due to losing
control when encountering sand,gravel, bumps, potholes, other
unexpected terrain.
I even get nervous, thinking mybrakes might not work or the
(01:55):
tire might fall off and, to putit in parentheses, starting to
sound like I might needcounseling.
I'm getting better at speeds onknown hills, but I struggle
with new routes and in races.
And that is from Katie.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yes, katie, yeah, go see your counselor.
I would fully recommend that.
And your counselor should beJosh Whitmore, cts coach and
skills teacher, down inAsheville, north Carolina.
And that is both a joke slash,not joke.
We'll talk about that in aminute.
But but, katie, like I hear you,I actually, when I first came
(02:32):
to CTS Ruddy can probably speakto this I was crashing all the
time because I didn't reallyknow how to handle my bike all
that well.
Luckily, I did over time and Igot a lot better at it.
Luckily, I did over time and Igot a lot better at it.
And my advice is for you not todo what I did, which was pin it
all the time and try to keep upwith the fast coaches that I
(02:53):
was trying to keep up with andtherefore crash.
So what you want to do is getsome in-person, face-to-face,
actual coaching, and that willgo so much further, because
anything that I can really tellyou on this podcast it's not as
effective as finding someonethat you trust locally or going
(03:13):
to a destination location likeAsheville or Colorado Springs or
California where some of ourcoaches within the CTS network
can really help you out, and nopodcast out there I don't think
could teach you perfect likedescending, descending and
handling skills.
So, with that being said, Ihave a lot more to say about
(03:37):
this, but, ready, I'll kick itover to you If you have any
words of wisdom for Katie onthis topic if you have any words
of wisdom for Katie on thistopic.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, certainly.
I think that the biggest thingis there's this misconception or
difference in conception around.
Nobody has any problem takingski lessons or golf lessons or
some of the other things thatare highly technique-oriented.
And yet, because we all learnhow to ride well, not all, most
people learn how to ride abicycle as a child we think that
(04:08):
you should automatically beable to figure out how to go
downhill fast on a road,mountain, gravel, whatever.
Um, because you just suddenlywhat naturally have these skills
.
I mean, it doesn'tintellectually, it doesn't make
any sense.
We definitely should be able tolook at it and say you need
lessons, you need skills work togo downhill quickly and
(04:29):
everything, because it really isa matter of technique and being
able to follow somebody andhave somebody look at your body
position on the bike, how you'releaning into a turn, how you're
leaning the bike, where you'relooking, all of those kinds of
things.
And it is remarkable on theimprovements that we can make
(04:54):
and I'm not necessarily the topskills coach, like Josh is and
like you are necessarily buteven on our more generalized
cycling camps when we're goingup and down Mount Lemmon or
other places in Asheville andother areas.
It doesn't take thatcapabilities of your brakes
(05:15):
really are, so that you knowwhen you can take a risk and how
far you can push it a littlebit and still reel it back in.
Those things go a long way.
(05:36):
The other thing that cyclistsdon't do and I am completely
guilty of this myself becausemountain biking skills are not
my forte, but because I've beena a point to point or loop
cyclist for so long I don't goback and session things, and the
folks who are more you knowmountain bike specific or they
started out as mountain bikethey think nothing of stopping
(05:59):
and doing the same climb ordescent or the same rock feature
17 times before they move on.
It doesn't occur to me.
I'm thinking I need to get frompoint A to point B and I'll hit
that feature next week.
But really sessioning somethinglike a hill in your
neighborhood even, or corners ina parking lot or something like
(06:19):
that, is really a very helpfulthing to do as a road or gravel
cyclist as well a very helpfulthing to do as a road or gravel
cyclist as well.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, yes, it is.
And, ruddy, you should sessionmore.
Everybody should.
And Katie, to your point islike I'll keep on pushing some
in-person skill work becauseit's not just for speed and
performance, even though you'llget that too it's really for
confidence, fun in safety.
So when you're doing thesegroup rides, you know working
harder to catch back up afterthis.
You know downhill, where theother descenders and corners and
(06:52):
people who are better, theyspend like, like exponentially
less energy than you, uh, inthose sections and you spend
exponentially more than them inthose sections.
So like I hear what you'regoing through and you spend
exponentially more than them inthose sections.
So like I hear what you'regoing through and a little bit
of skill instruction will go along way here.
Josh and I just did a big skillsession at my house up here in
(07:15):
Frederick, maryland, and we hadvery diverse crowd.
We had anybody from, like, ajunior racer racing at the UCI
level to a former um, uh, superbike racer, like raced like road
motorcycles to uh you knowlocal people who just want to
(07:35):
learn how to ride their mountainbikes, more roadies uh, that
just started, um, on themountain bike trail.
They're very curious.
So we had the very diversegroup of people.
We started super basic in thegrass, just learning our
controls, so learning what thebrakes did, how much, when to
deploy them, how to deploy them.
And I'll tell you, likeeverybody picked up something
(07:55):
from even the grass skill stuff.
And we sessioned the entireweekend to the point where we
had somebody say, is there morethan just the nose trail?
Like cause, cause, we spentlike all of our time like on one
trail, but we we wanted to toteach the basics, even though we
had, like some of the mostadvanced people in Mapa region
there as well as like some ofthe beginners.
And so in that way I agree withRuddy.
(08:19):
It's it's crazy to me that likeit's very acceptable for people
to do ski instruction but notbike instruction and not to go
super dark, but it's likethere's no cars coming down the
hills, you know, during adownhill skiing, okay, but
there's cars out there.
So learning how to navigateyour bike, whether it's trails
(08:40):
or gravel or road or whatever,there's a lot of stuff out there
that could end your day in abad way.
So putting time, money andeffort into how to drive your
bike is wildly, wildly huge.
So, katie, I'll say this I willreach out to you, I will email
you directly and see where youlive or where you want to travel
(09:03):
to, and I will help find you agood skill instructor there.
So I'll just throw that outthere into the world and if you
want to capitalize on that,let's do it.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I will also say it's a skill that can be gained and
that anyone can gain, whetherthey're young, whether they're
in their 80s.
All people can learn to ridewithin their capacity, within
the bike's capacity, in a waythat is enjoyable and relatively
stress-free to go downhill.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yes, yep, and I will attest again.
I started riding bikes kind oflate in the game, when I was in
my twenties.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And I can attest that you were not good in corners or
descents at the time.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I wasn't good, that's true.
But I'll say that I enjoyedclimbing more, even though I
wasn't that good at that either.
But now I'm actually a reallygood descender and I'm a really
good bike handler, and and I amconfident in that.
And the reason I say that isbecause over time, like now,
I'll have a day where I'll say,oh, I'll go out and hit some
climbs, but my focus is going tobe the descent, because I just
(10:07):
want to have fun today.
So I'll just like ride likezone too easy on some climbing
route, rip some descents andcome back home because I want
like a low key day but I want tohave some fun.
So, katie, super good question.
I'll reach out to you and we'llget you some skill instructions
because I think it'll go a longway.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
All right, so second question I'll reach out to you
and we'll get you some skillinstructions, because I think
it'll go a long way, All right.
So second question uh, coach,I'm an avid listener to your
podcast.
Already in, you've alreadyanswered a previous question
that I sent in, so we have arepeat.
Um, my question now is if thereis a way or technique to
increase the amount ofcarbohydrate consumed on the
bike.
Is it just something that yougradually increase?
(10:46):
And if so, how do I do that?
And thanks again, Rodolfo.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Rodolfo, yes, I remember your name, rodolfo.
I don't remember your originalquestion, but thanks for writing
back in and this is a good one.
Yes, it is trainable and yes,you can increase it.
I would say general rules ofthumb is number one.
Just observe what you'realready taking in, right.
If it's nothing, well, probablybetter to take in more.
(11:12):
But the reason why I say startrecording with what you're
already doing to get somegeneral awareness or a benchmark
of where you're at.
Okay, if you have no clue, Iwould say start around 60 grams
of carbohydrate per hour, foryou know endurance days that
have some sort of intensity toit.
(11:32):
I'm not talking about like aneasy hour or less We'll talk
about that here in a second butI'm talking about some harder
rides, maybe some interval daysand that kind of stuff.
So start with 60 to 75 grams ofcarbohydrate per hour and do
that every hour, and do that forthe harder days and if that's
sitting good with your belly, ifthat's seemingly performing
(11:55):
just fine, then increase it.
Go up to 75 to 80 grams perhour and if that's working fine,
go to 80 to 90 grams per hour.
But I would say for most people, when we're talking about the
grams per hour and all this kindof stuff.
Most people are not going toneed more than 90 grams per hour
listening to this podcast.
Okay, some people will, though,and my advice on that and my my
(12:19):
advice to really anybody is tostart with the whole grams per
hour game.
Okay, but start to switch overto more of a sliding scale.
Start to think about apercentage of the intake for
your output.
I know that sounds weird, butwhat I mean is you want to aim
for a high percentage intake ofcarbohydrate when you have a
(12:42):
high output of kilojoule perhour, and that's coming from
your power meter.
Let me walk you through acouple examples.
First, I would say just havinga grams per hour that is, a high
carbohydrate for every singleride doesn't make sense to me.
Does it to you, ruddy?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
No.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Oh, 100 grams an hour for a ride for everybody, that
sounds great.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
The reason that you're consuming carbohydrate in
the first place is to replenishglucose that you're burning,
and if you're not burning verymuch, there's not as much of a
reason to take all of that in.
Also, similarly, the durationof your ride.
If your ride is two hours orless, you have plenty of stored
(13:29):
glycogen to be able to fuel theride and you don't need as much
additional carbohydrate on topof it.
Especially again, if it's twohours of endurance, you're going
to be at a carbohydratecontribution of 50% to begin
with.
So there's a bunch of math thatgoes into it, but I think the
(13:49):
general guidelines of startingat 60 make sense, especially
because you just want somebodyto be consuming food to begin
with on rides that are longerthan about 75 to 90 minutes.
But we're seeing right now, inthe middle of the Tour de France
, where everything is around,how much these guys are
consuming.
The Tour de France, whereeverything is around, how much
(14:10):
these guys are consuming.
They're consuming 150, 170grams of carbohydrate per hour.
It's just massive.
Most amateurs do not need toreplicate what they're seeing at
the level of the Tour de France.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Exactly.
I think to that end is likeevery day is a performance day
at the Tour de France.
To that end is like every dayis a performance day at the Tour
de France.
So they need to be consuming inas high of an intake of
carbohydrate as possible.
But they have easy days too andthey're not going to jam 120
grams of carbohydrate into theirface on their one hour recovery
(14:44):
rides.
So I'll suggest everybody startthinking about their training
as the hard performance days orthe easy endurance days.
And now I would start to thinkabout a scalable approach to the
carbohydrate intake On the hardperformance days.
This means, like the long ridewith climbs, the threshold
(15:05):
intervals, maybe three by 20,something that's going to push
you.
My recommendation I've put thison podcasts before, but it's to
aim for 40% to 50% intake ofcarbohydrate coming from the
kilojoules of your power meter.
And to give you an example hereif Ruddy's out there training
(15:26):
and he's hitting a thousandkilojoules per hour as a work
measurement coming from hispower meter, that means that if
we take 40 to 50% of 1000kilojoule per hour, that's four
to 500 calories per hour and wewant that come from carbohydrate
.
Divide by four that works outto a hundred to 120 grams of
carbohydrate per hour that Ruddyshould be taking in.
(15:49):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
For the record, I have not hit a thousand
kilojoules an hour in probably25 years, and that's even trying
as hard as I can sometimes Likea thousand kilojoules an hour.
People really have to take itand do it with a grain of salt.
You see it listed in Vela Newsand all these other places.
But talk a little bit about,like, what's realistic.
(16:11):
What do you see when yourathletes let's say a master's,
40 year old, 50 year old uh, catthree like even a hard training
day for them, are they going tohit a thousand kilojoules an
hour?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
well, since we already talked about ruddy at 20
, let's talk talk about ruddy at50.
Ruddy at 50 in a hard day,maybe 600 kilojoules an hour.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
That's six to seven, I can do that.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Okay, five hour ride 600 kilojoules Because again
it's easy math just the 1000.
So if we do 40 to 50% of that600 kilojoule per hour now,
we're talking about 240 calories, up to 300 calories per hour.
And if we divide by four Adam'sgoing to check out on math
(16:58):
we're talking about 60 to 75grams of carbohydrate per hour,
which brings us right back downinto sort of the normal ranges
that have been prescribedforever, exactly, exactly.
And so these ranges, folks like,where are these ranges coming
from?
First of all, the gram ofcarbohydrate per hour.
(17:21):
That's coming from a ton ofresearch that kind of started
with Oskar Jukenrup that hascascaded into a lot of different
circles with, like Scratch Labs, never.
Second, a lot of theseresearchers making sure that the
exact blend of sugars goinginto these products, combined
(17:42):
with the grams per sachet or pertube or whatever that you're
consuming, is going to be in theballpark area.
Over the past 20 years of justobserving what I'm recommending
to my athletes which I've alwaysbeen on the high carb train, by
the way and that is because ofCTS, because of a lot of the
(18:05):
colleagues that I worked withback in the day even helped
Power Bar, if we remember whenPower Bar came out with their
endurance drink we CTS helped toformulate that we were pushing
hard carb.
From the very beginning it wasjust like a lower high carb of
like 40 to 60 grams per hour andwe were excited to get our
athletes to do that.
(18:26):
Then it was like 60 to 75, andnow it's like 60 to 90, right.
So the percentage of intake peroutput is something that I've
observed over the years and inmy opinion we should have a
slidable scale, that Ruddy'shigh performance days and
(18:47):
Matthew Vanderpool's highperformance days.
We should be able to find anumber that kind of fits each of
them.
Okay, and it does If youMatthew Vanderpool's pumping on
a lot of thousand kilojoule perday and he's hitting a hundred
to 120 grams per hour.
But I took that same 40 to 50%and applied it to Ruddy's hard
days of 600 or 700 kilojoule perhour and it came out on a very
(19:11):
acceptable, probably what you'redoing from an intake standpoint
.
Okay, so those are theperformance days.
I've been working withTrainingPeaks and maybe
SneakPeak.
There might be a podcast comingout in a couple of weeks about
some of the stuff that we'redoing on TrainingPeaks for a
fueling insights tool that'sgoing to be implemented into the
(19:31):
Training Peaks suites of stuff.
So sit on your edge of yourseat for that.
But then we have our endurancedays.
That's where you either drinkwater or you take in less.
So my percentage for that well,first of all, I'll generally
say, if it's an endurance rideof two hours and less, with not
a ton of intensity and you'reeating normally, you can just
(19:53):
drink water or electrolytes andyou probably don't need to take
in uh grams of carbohydrate.
But if we're doing like sometempo or a 90 minute ride or a
two hour ride was like someHills, that kind of thing let's
just say an endurance ride.
My general recommendation is25% to 35% intake of
carbohydrate per the output ofkilojoule.
(20:16):
In this example, let's just sayMatthew Vanderpoel was having an
easy day of 600 kilojoules perhour.
That would come out to 150 to200 calories per hour, or 40 to
roughly 55 grams of carbohydrateintake per hour.
That's how to use the slidingscales.
I know it's a little mathy anda little hard to listen to slash
(20:37):
.
Boring to listen to slash.
My wife is going to hate thispodcast.
But play around with thosenumbers.
Just remember 40 to 50% forperformance days, 25 to 35% and
you're going to take that fromthe kilojoule expenditure from
your power meter.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Okay Now to add a little bit more to the math
terrible side.
There's also that equation forif you're generally consuming on
the lower end of the scales,you know so 40 to 60, 65, 70,
kind of in that range, a two toone uh, glucose to fructose uh
(21:13):
formulation works really wellwhen these folks are going for
the big numbers.
When you're going for a hundredgrams, 120, 150 grams an hour,
then the percentages uh change alittle bit in terms of what you
want from a um, from aformulation, and so a lot of the
really high carb formulationsare going more towards a 1 to a
(21:37):
0.8 formulation.
And it's just because it'seasier on your gut, because the
biggest downside to this kind ofhigh carbohydrate, extreme
carbohydrate kind of strategy isyou to end up with gastric
distress, and so there's the guttraining component of gradually
increasing what you'reconsuming.
But you also have to make someadjustments at the high end to
(22:02):
the formulation that you'reusing if you're starting to have
some GI distress from highcarbohydrate.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
And I'd even go so far as to say that the two to
one versus one to 0.8, Iwouldn't like coming back to
Rodolfo, I wouldn't stress aboutthat all that much right now.
I would, number one, justbecome aware that that is a
thing, if you're not already.
Number two, look at yourpackaging to see if they even
(22:32):
put that on there and consumemore products that actually
promote, like their ratios.
So if they do have a two to oneor one to one or one 2.8, that
is a very transparent and verygood, and then you can identify
which products suit you betterfor those high intensities,
because I do have some uh folkthat the one to 0.8 just works
(22:55):
for them, kind of at allintensities, and when I play
around with two to one versusone to 0.8, it kind of doesn't
matter, um, and so just knowthat that definitely does exist,
become more aware of that, andthen maybe some of the products
that don't work for you if theydon't have this stated, or maybe
it's just like a ton ofmaltodextrin and that gives you
(23:18):
GI issue.
Okay, now we've identifiedperhaps why that is.
Additionally, and this kind ofcomes first, is all this food
talk that we're talking aboutwon't bode well if you're
dehydrated.
So if all you're doing isguzzling carbohydrate or chewing
bars that have carbohydrate butyou're not paying attention to
total fluid intake ie stayinghydrated this fueling plan won't
(23:41):
go well.
So stay hydrated.
First, fuel with carbohydrate,on top of that.
We won't talk about sodium inthis one, but big fan of sodium,
put that in too.
And with the bars, yeah, aslong as it's a bar that is
pretty exclusively carbohydrate,like probably 50 grams of
carbohydrate to three to fivegrams of fat only and almost no
(24:04):
protein, that's a goodcarbohydrate bar.
There's bars out there thathave 12 grams of fat and say 30
to 40 grams of carbohydrate atthe highest level, maybe some
protein.
That's going to sit differently, meaning it's going to, it's
going to digest a lot moreslowly.
So you want that.
On, say, longer rides, whereyou want a little bit more
sustenance, rather than three tofour hour hard gravel races,
(24:28):
where you want to choosesomething, you need something
that's more carbohydrate based.
So, yeah, I mean nutrition.
We could talk for so many hourson nutrition.
Rodolfo, very good question.
But the last thing I will sayis on those percentages and I
know I'm like pushing that hard,but the general, the reason why
(24:49):
I've been trying to push thishard into the audience and with
my kind of agenda on.
It is like people have finallygot the word that high carb is
better, right?
Or is good right do high carb?
(25:10):
They think that that high carbis good for everything, but it's
not so.
Knowing how to scale up yourcarbohydrate for the intensity,
or hard days and knowing how toscale it down for the less hard
days is really my messages, andso that 40 to 50% for the hard
and 25 to 35% for the easy ish,that's really what I want you to
take home.
I think we might have time forone more, rudy.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
All right.
Third question is Arnie isdoing Ramrod.
It's a ride around MountRainier.
It's one day 160 miles, grandtotal of 10,000 feet of
elevation gain.
However, in the first 50 milesthere are 6,700 feet of
elevation gain.
So any training advice?
The event is July 31st, so wedon't have a whole lot of time
(25:51):
to make a lot of improvement,but we can at least provide some
advice.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yes, Arnie, I believe you wrote this into us not this
week, probably a couple monthsago.
Sorry, we are getting to thisone a little late.
Let me just answer this.
(26:27):
If you were to ask me thismiddle of July, you have maybe a
couple of weeks to go, and thenwhat we can do is backtrack
into some the training thatyou've been doing leading up to
this.
There's not a ton more you cando in a couple of weeks.
However, there's probably atleast one or two big final
training sessions that you canutilize to really give you
confidence in an extra kind oflike boost for game day.
(26:49):
So some of that is like a just ahuge, massive amount of
climbing, whatever you have towork with around your area and
you want to try to match therate of climbing that's known as
VAM vertical ascent in metersor climbing per hour that you
would expect to do on the dayand you want to mimic that in
training.
For a lot of people that I finda lot of masters, riders and
(27:10):
all this kind of stuff goodclimbers 2000 feet of climbing
per hour is usually a prettygood rate of climbing on some of
these big epic things, If youcan tolerate that, at least for
the first part of it, whichsounds like you probably will do
that.
Try to mimic in training.
That's the specificity of thetraining on that.
This is also a gut training day.
(27:31):
So this leads into Rodolfo'squestion how many grams to push
and all this kind of stuff youwant to dial in your exact
fueling for the race day on thisday.
So push the high carbs, seewhat you can do at kind of a
maximum, have a really goodhydration plan and incorporate
that into this kind of specificclimbing day.
(27:53):
And you want to do this probably10 days or two weeks out from
the main event, because this isgoing to cost you a lot.
This is going to be veryfatiguing.
So by the time you hear this,Arnie, you probably will only
have one day of it.
Then you do it, Then you rest,refine your process, see if
that's going to work for you,and away we go From there.
(28:14):
I'll just say two things andI'll turn it over to.
Ready is coming in fresh to.
This one is really going toserve you well, Cause it's just
such a huge day, you know.
So, like training up untilthree days out, that's not
enough to freshen up.
You need probably a week easygoing into this one, the very
least, and so arrive fresh.
(28:36):
That's really going to help you.
And then, finally, if you don'tget this big training thing in,
or maybe your training hasn'tbeen all that awesome, and if
you're still going to do it,fueling really well is your best
strategy on the day, regardlessof the fitness that you're
bringing into it, so readyanything else to throw on top of
that.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Yeah, I think probably mostly a caution really
is that if you do go in freshwhich you absolutely should the
consequence, or one potentialconsequence that trips people up
when they go into events reallyfresh, is that they rip their
own legs off in the first hourbecause they get excited, they
(29:16):
feel fresh, they you're, youknow, like you end up going
faster and harder than you thinkyou are, and then you should
and you just burn way too manymatches too early.
Um, chris Carmichael was mycoach when I first, when the
company first started and allthose years ago, and one of the
simple, non-technical bits ofadvice that he gave me that
(29:36):
still sticks with me is don'tride like an idiot.
And he would kind of tell methat before races or big rides
and things like that, because heknew that I would tend to do
exactly that.
I would go out feeling greatand totally cook myself in the
first hour and a half orsomething like that, and then be
toast great and totally cookmyself in the first hour and a
half or something like that, andthen be toast.
So if you're going into thisevent, regardless of the amount
(29:59):
of fitness that you have andhopefully well-rested, it's
important to just staydisciplined in that first 50
miles, because any matches thatyou burn you're not going to get
back and you kind of want tosave yourself, save some energy
for the last 50 miles.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, that's really good advice on pacing and I
would agree with that for sure.
I mentioned on the podcast Idid the track this year and one
of my goals was just to feelstrong all day and 100% of that
was in the first hour.
Like so many people were ridingso crazy, like super crazy hard
(30:41):
, I just let them go.
I was I'm like okay, cause I'vemessed it up so many times
before.
I'm like okay, I'll go.
I feel good, I'm going to gowith the lead group or whatever
that means for the track.
Like it was hard, it was aproper event.
If anybody, you know, wants agravel race that checks all the
boxes, do it.
But because I let people go,whoever they were, and I knew my
(31:03):
pacing held to it, I climbedstrong all day.
I stopped at the aid stations,got water, kept on going and in
the end you know it's the lasthour or so.
You know I would.
I was passing a lot of people,made some friends and and we're
climbing along and and one guywas like out of water.
I had an extra bottle cooledthem off and I was just like
okay, like hop on my wheel,let's bring this thing home.
(31:24):
And I was, you know.
So I was able to help somepeople out.
I felt strong, rode through anduh, kristen and I, my, my wife,
we had a nice dinner that night, as opposed to uh being
destroyed, having to stay in theyou know the hotel or the APRB
and wonder if I'm going to peein the next six hours because of
the extremeness of the event,right, so, again, the pacing on
(31:47):
the day is super important, butlet's just assume we answered
this question long time ago.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Well, hang on Before you get to that.
I do want to go back to theidea of the climbing rate per
hour.
People who don't have access tosuper long climbs.
Can you do climbing repeats andaccomplish that VAM that way?
Or is it a necessary thing thatthey have to have a steady
(32:15):
climb for that?
Um?
Speaker 1 (32:17):
really good question and I and I think it's the
pragmatic answer is you use whatyou have, right.
And from a specificity oftraining, you know Ramrod has
long climbs and if you are goingto train properly for it, use
long climbs.
If all you have is five minuteclimbs, well then use the five
minute climbs and so in that way, then, doing climbing repeats
(32:41):
or intervals of going up andcoming down and going up and
coming down, um, would be a fineway to train, because it's it's
hill climb training, okay.
And then I want some outdoortraining for these athletes so
that they know how to climb outof the saddle in the saddle and
then descend as well.
What I would do, not knowingArnie's full situation or
(33:02):
anything, but I would have dayswhere I would climb fairly hard
call it threshold, maybe alittle bit above up, and I would
pin it on the way down tominimize the time in between.
So I'm going to do more work inless time by shortening the
interval time.
So, instead of kind of thetypical what we'd normally do
(33:23):
with climbing up, turning aroundand coasting and drinking
whatever, I'd get up to the top.
You know, spin around safely,spin it, do a U-turn and then
start pedaling hard on thedownhill, take a minute or two,
whatever it's going to take youto get down, turn around safely
at the bottom and then hit itagain.
So that's, that's how it wouldhelp train an athlete who had
(33:45):
short climbs doing somethinglike this.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
And then, as you said , if we did have more time, if
we're talking to somebody who'ssix months or three months, et
cetera, out from an event likethis, then how would you prepare
someone for a big climbing day?
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, so it's.
Let's just put climbing asidefor a second.
It's a big day.
So what that means is you need ahuge aerobic base.
That means is you need a hugeaerobic base.
So I would, um, arnie, I wouldmaximize your CTL, meaning in
the base and build time period.
I just I would ride you, Iwould maximize your volume, um,
(34:23):
within reason, and try to getthat CTL as big as possible, and
then at some point I wouldchange the training intensity
and really focus on thresholddevelopment.
That's where hill climbs comein a lot of FTP work and time to
extension work, maybe somesweet spot in there or whatever
and then I would intensify thetraining because there's going
to be some steep pitches inthere and I'm going to do more
(34:44):
hill climb work.
Okay, but I think it's importantto recognize on a day like this
and what's hot right now isdurability right so I wouldn't
be doing all the intervals earlyon in the ride.
I would have long rides with umhard hill climbs at the very
end and, um, I would work onyour ability to produce a
(35:05):
similar power, say, six hourslate in the day, than you can
when you're fresh.
That's really working ondurability is being able to
produce really high power.
That's maybe similar to whatyou can do when you are fresh
and ready to go.
Finally, I'd be working on thefueling plan throughout and then
(35:26):
bring you in fresh, like wetalked about.
That's a pretty general broadstrokes of how to answer the
question from a long ways out.
But I think too, when you'redoing something like that epic,
you need to be really fit.
And, arnie, I'm kind of curiousif you are quote time crunched
athlete or not.
Feel free to write back in andlet us know maybe total hours of
(35:47):
what you have been doing totrain for Ramrod, because that's
that's a pretty gnarly one soto that end uh, just not a
question that we got from fromlisteners.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
But something to add on quickly to this would be what
is your advice to somebody whohas to go, who needs to go into
an event somewhat underprepared?
Not one of these.
I'm not advocating somebody youknow go off the couch to do
ramrod or ledville 100 orsomething like that.
But everybody, we've allencountered athletes who
training didn't quite work outthe way we thought it would, et
(36:18):
cetera.
And they're they know they'reunder prepared, not unprepared,
but just not quite there.
How do they approach their biggnarly day when they're not
quite ready for?
Speaker 1 (36:30):
it.
I get asked that a lot and andkind of have to deal with that a
lot.
So I think like the first thingto recognize is fueling and
pacing on the day are the twobiggest things to focus on,
regardless of whatever fitnessthat you're bringing in.
So if you've been only trainingsix to eight hours and your CTL
(36:50):
is 45, 50, and you're going todo Leadville, my advice is, man,
let everybody go.
Just ride your pace, a niceaerobic pace.
Make it feel like a five ormaybe six all day.
Five while you're cruisingalong, six on the hill climbs,
and don't overextend yourself.
Stop at the aid stations, stickto your fueling plan of what
(37:14):
you know is going to work foryou.
Be efficient in those feedzones meaning you're not going
to hang out for 15 minutes, butgrab what you can high five, a
volunteer and just keep itpositive Because you got to
recognize that a huge day likethat it's all aerobic.
So as long as you're stayinghydrated and you're staying
happy and you're staying wellfed and you're giving yourself
(37:35):
you know delicious snacks, youshould be able to go all day.
Really, the problem is going tobe how bad your butt and your
hands hurt afterwards.
I mean that's the biggest thingso long as you keep on the
fueling and all that kind ofstuff.
So but I do think that thewhat's unique about timeed
Athlete is if you do it foryears and years and years, if
(37:57):
you've had five years of kind ofhovering between 40 and 60 CTL,
that's real different thanstarting two years ago and
building up to like a 70 CTL andthen trying to do Leadville 70
CTL and then trying to doLeadville.
Because if you have all thoseyears in the bank maybe you have
(38:17):
some of these long events orsomething like that.
There's stuff that metrics onTrainingPeaks or some of these
other platforms can't reallymonitor for.
So that time crunched athletecan get through some of these
huge epic days with wise pacing,proper fueling and let's face
it like a positive and happymindset.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
I sure hope so, because that's pretty much my
plan for Leadville this year.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Well, Ruddy, you've got a few behind you.
So the people who areunderprepared they normally do
the opposite of what I justdescribed and it's because they
don't have the experience andthey get kind of caught up in
the moment and they think theyshould keep up with everybody,
Cause that's what everybody'sdoing and a lot of cascade of
problems, you know.
Go from there, and so generalrule is stay within yourself,
(39:07):
stick to your guns, Don'toverextend yourself, keep it
positive out there and, uh yeah,keep hitting the snacks.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
So, speaking of snacks, it's snack time around
here, so, uh, we'll wrap thisone up and then, uh, let you get
on your the rest of your day.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yes, I could go for some snacks and ready.
Thank you, we, we.
You know we ripped through uhlike five audience questions
over the past couple of weeks,so that really helped me out.
Thank you for your time.
I super appreciate it.
Let's go back and watch somemore Tudor France.
Thanks for joining us on theTime Crunch Cyclist podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
(39:42):
If you want even moreactionable training advice, head
over to trainrightcom backslashnewsletter and subscribe to our
free weekly publication.
Each week you'll get in-depthtraining content that goes
beyond what we cover here on thepodcast.
That'll help you take yourtraining to the next level.
That's all for now.
Until next time, train hard,train smart, train right.
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