• You race hard and deplete your glycogen levels (stored glucose in the liver, blood and muscles)
• You know that glycogen synthesis happens 2-3x faster in the 30 minute window immediately following that hard race or workout so…
• You take in carbohydrates immediately after exercise to replenish those glycogen stores.

All sounds good but what about stage races like the Tour de France, TransAndes, BC Bike Race and hard microcycle workloads that are specifically designed to stress the body and force adaptation? Replenishing glycogen stores in the glycogen window is a bare minimum for recovery in these environments.

You actually need to be thinking about recovery while on the bike because full glycogen recovery takes between 24-48 hours. So at best it’s a deficit management exercise to stay with the pack day after day and be competitive. At worst the paceline drops you leading to the big climb at the end of the last stage in a tight race. So what to do?

Look for energy sources that contain Branch Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs) and a combination of simple and complex carbohydrates, ideally maltodextrin and fructose, so you can start to recover for the next stage, while racing. In addition to helping prevent central fatigue, research shows that introducing additional BCAAs during both light and intense training can increase muscle protein synthesis after exercise – which will help muscles recover and be ready for the next day’s training or racing.  And combining maltodextrin and fructose will allow greater absorption of carbohydrate during exercise compared to maltodextrin alone – resulting in less glycogen utilization, and decreased requirement for glycogen resynthesis after exercise , ie. better recovery.

This is why Roctane products have BCAAs and a ratio of complex to simple carbohydrates to aid in recovery during and after intense or very long efforts. Replenishment of glycogen stores during the glycogen window is likely not enough to achieve peak performance day after day after day in ultra endurance efforts.

Things had been going pretty well in the early part of the race. Gear selection, nutrition, team tactics and mechanicals were all dialed, giving the team confidence in each stage. Stage 3 saw strong pulls by both riders as they leveraged their confidence that bikes, legs and lungs were in proper working order. Stage 4 saw some racing within a race when Yuri and Brian picked off fellow racers cresting a hill, hit the gas on the downside and fended off a late charge to take back time on a competing team.  But a minor mechanical adjustment threatened to derail things midway through stage 5.

Blown communication around stopping to adjust a seatpost lead to some expletive-laden “clarification.” There were reports the f-bomb was heard all the way back in Berkeley.  The problem wasn’t so much in what actually happened but more the context of intense competition and grueling endurance efforts: minor things take on a life of their own and become major things. But are they really major things? In ultra endurance racing, minor is major and major can sometimes be minor…

So for the next 24 hours the team cooled down, sorted it out and regrouped before the final stage 6. And this is where they actually got back on track, even after Brian got stung by a bee mid-stage, in the eye, and Yuri had to guide him down by simple voice commands. So, to recap, the guys blow a gasket over something that’s relatively minor, stew on it for a night but find a way to regroup, then when something arguably more major like getting stung by a bee comes along, respond quickly and effectively to have their best racing day of the whole race. Interesting. But maybe that is why we sign up for this stuff – the potential to get into and out of trouble. Yes, sometimes self-inflicted. And to take an impressive 2nd place in the team category as a result. Nice job guys – looking forward to the next installment.

And since pictures are worth a thousand training hours… compare the before…

and the after…

“Hydration and calories were the name of the game today. Fueling for today’s stage was important, but we were also conscious that today’s calories, amino acids, carbs, etc. would help us recover and be ready for the days ahead. We are relying heavily on Roctane because of its high amino acid count that’ll help minimize muscle breakdown. If we can lessen the muscle breakdown during and after each stage with our nutrition plan, we will recover that much quicker, be that much more ready for the strenuous efforts that lie ahead.”

Update: Brian’s Strava data is uploaded on Strava.com – And it looks like he is ranking high on the “Suffer Scale”…

TransAndes Challenge website

Yuri’s Blog

Rebecca Rusch Blog

Chris Carmichael’s Feed

When does 1+1=3?  If you hold up 2 black lines evenly spaced on a sheet of white paper and ask people how many lines they see, most people answer “2″. But if you count the white line inbetween the two black lines then there are, in fact, 3 lines that are visible. It just depends whether you count the “white space” as a line, which it is. 2 riders racing as a team are more than just one rider plus another rider – you have to count the “white space” that makes them a team.

Stage 1 of the TransAndes Challenge was all about teamwork…and humidity… and trees, both upright and horizontal. Though a storm blew in the night before downing many trees and the humidity forced both Brian and Yuri to carry 100oz Camelbaks, it was finding a rhythm that worked for both riders that defined the stage. Riding with Rebecca Rusch and Chris Carmichael for the first couple hours made things interesting team-wise- 4 riders, 2 teams and about a million different pacing options. As Yuri briefly noted:

“Teamwork, working together, finding a rhythm/pace that worked for Brian and then pushing it a bit. This is where two racers are more powerful than one.”

Brief Stage Recap

Fast “neutral” roll out at a leisurely 9:30 AM local time out of Pangupulli on pavement, which split the 200 + group. Brian and Yuri made the front split. Pavement became loose gravel for the next 10k as they started to climb into the lush forests. After about 2.5 hrs in the jungle/forest they hit a long stretch of pavement where Yuri went up front and became the “little engine that could”, pulling the whole way. 4:53:33 finishing time – 25th and 26th overall – or thereabouts…

Coordinates

TransAndes Challenge website

Yuri’s Blog

Rebecca Rusch Blog

Chris Carmichael’s Feed

First, Yuri and Brian have never raced together and they are a bit mismatched as a pair – Yuri is a lesson in physics and inertia – point him downhill and he flies. Brian is a lesson in gravity defiance – point him uphill and he’s off like a rocket. They’re definitely fit racers but they need to stay within 2 minutes of each other for the entire race. So if one should fall behind, the other is going to be…angry, supportive, silent, useful, useless??? We’ll see.

Secondly, we’ll view their experience through the lens of “Everything counts in ultra endurance racing.” And we mean everything. Not only everything before, during and after the race like tires, weather, shoes, mechanical parts, chamois choice, nutrition, aid stations, and sleep but everything leading up to race week as well – training, nutrition plan, course knowledge, race experience and climate acclimation. These two guys are the guinea pigs for seeing just how much everything counts.

Obviously with Brian’s passion for performance energy and ultra endurance sports nutrition there will be a premium placed on nutrition planning and execution. The new Roctane Ultra Endurance Energy Drink will be a cornerstone of their nutrition strategy and you’ll get a window seat into how it works in the field and in the wild. Brian and Yuri will be joined by fellow athletes and team racers Rebecca Rusch and Chris Carmichael.

Getting there is truly half the battle

Guess what? Custom clearance counts for a lot when you are traveling to another hemisphere to race bikes. And early reports indicate Brian and Yuri had to get creative when a customs officer almost confiscated some equipment (Trail Mix) and possibly bikes at a border checkpoint. Yuri did not get shot and Brian still has some money left after bailing him out.

STAGE 1 Vitals:

82 km, 2287 m climbing. Let’s call this the parachute stage – take a look at the drop off midway through…Can’t wait to see how they handle the metric conversions too…

DETAILS:

TransAndes Challenge website

Yuri’s Blog

Here’s how Roctane Energy Drink performs:

• Need a calorie-dense source of energy for going long? Check.
• Need key electrolytes to keep those muscles firing hour after hour? Check.
• Need increased mental clarity and reduction of perceived effort? Check.
• Need amino acids to minimize muscle damage and speed recovery? Check.

Here’s how it tastes:

“The Roctane drinks taste good!  I am very surprised that they do not taste overly strong even though they are so high in calories.  Even my wife likes the taste of the drinks and she is notoriously anti-sports drinks because they usually taste too strong for her.” – Todd

“The Fruit Punch Roctane is one of the best, if not the best tasting performance drink I’ve ever used.” - Brad

“All I can say is FINALLY.  The flavor is great and especially the lime, it is not too sweet.” – Ben

Roctane Ultra Endurance Energy Drink is unlike anything on the market – specifically designed to increase performance during prolonged exercise.  Ultra distance events require too much training, too much planning and are too much fun to screw around with nutrition. Roctane Energy Drink was created because everything counts in ultra endurance.

Learn more

I came to the sport of triathlon when it was still very pure (not that it isn’t today, but I think anyone that has been around for awhile likes to claim “they were there when….”) and still pretty young. Maybe it would be better to say that I arrived when the sport was ending it’s awkward teenage years and long after it was still in diapers and similarly still learning to crawl, stand, walk and it’s eventual run. By the time I did my first sprint triathlon it would now be time to see if the values and proper parenting that so many others had contributed to the sport would hold and if this thing with so much potential would become a superstar as an adult…

The sport has indeed become not only a full fledged adult but also a rock star and much has changed. But for all the time and effort we spend on wind tunnels, compression gear and the likes we have seen the biggest gains come from within. Meaning what we put into our engines, not what we build around them and how we detail them out with the likes of shinier chrome or boring out the valves. We would be nothing if it were not for the fuel we fire our legs, lungs, arms, bodies and brains on.

GU was way new and the idea of gel packs were still not the norm, especially with weekend athletes. People would still bring a water bottle with themselves to a workout, they most certainly did not have a nutritional strategy or plan. There was a group of guys in town who used to make what they called an “ironman” cocktail and it was some sort of horrid concoction of powders, electrolytes, oils and fluid. It was lumpy, tasted like shit (yes, shit) and I don’t think anyone had any real idea of what it was or certainly what purpose it must have served. It was the classic “this is how we have always done it” mentality. I would imagine that early on the guy who nerded out in his garage building this in some sort of jerry-rigged laboratory actually had the right idea but as it was passed from one geeked out triathlete to the next it was adulterated with additive after additive (not that we have ever been guilty of excess in our sport…). Here were your options:

1. Gatorade – sugar water that had an athlete on the bottle
2. Water
3. “Ironman Cocktail” or some other type of first generation of supplement

Bottom line, it wasn’t much and what was available was untested, unreliable and really tough to duplicate. A few years back GU dedicated themselves to building a product that would do two things better than anyone else:

1. Meet the nearly impossible needs of the endurance athlete who was under incredible stress and duress
2. Meet the standards of the above stated “bottom line” – thoroughly tested, completely reliable and consistently deliver exactly what the athlete needed

You now could meet all of your nutritional needs in one place. Electrolytes, carbohydrates and calories delivered in a product that wouldn’t turn your stomach and that would allow you to actually consume enough to meet your quickly depleting stores without crushing your intestines. For style points they made it taste great and brought it to you in a bunch of different flavors. They made it available in gels which could quickly be shot into the mouth and they built it in powder form so you could easily sip it down while you plowed down the Queen K.

I’ve been using Roctane Energy Drink since it was first sent to me in small, unmarked gray cannisters while in R&D and being refined and still use it today. The sport has completely grown up and so has the science behind the nutrition.

I have also been using Roctane Drink on days where I have already been in the mountains and then head into the gym for strength training.  The Mountain Athlete Strength and Conditioning  center in Jackson is one of the most difficult facilities in the United States.  It helps me maintain a high level of focus and energy output so I can stay fast and strong.

Brenton Reagan- Exum Mountian Guide, Professional climber, Skier and Training Fanatic.

After slogging on like that for two weeks, I decided to give the Roctane Energy Drink a try. Up until this point, I used GU Brew occasionally, but mostly relied on water because I didn’t really notice a difference unless it was a 2+ hour swim. My first day with the Roctane drink was a breakthrough workout. I was stunned – only two weeks into training and already feeling good? Must be a fluke, I thought. The next day I did the same thing, more Roctane and an amazing workout. It wasn’t magical; it was a bumpy road to getting back in shape, but one that was much quicker and more enjoyable than it normally is. And there may have been some other factors alongside the Roctane that contributed to the fast improvements, but the drink definitely played a role.

Mainly, what I believe I had been missing in GU Brew was the caffeine. The benefits of caffeine on endurance performance are well-known, but I had not been using this in training. I felt stronger and sharper in the water in the early mornings, and had more energy throughout the day. This may also be because the Roctane Drink has more calories than regular Brew and many other energy drinks, so you don’t feel so depleted. Finally, Roctane uses a special blend of key amino acids that are believed to ward off fatigue and promote recovery, making subsequent workouts more productive.

So if you plan on doing some serious training, increasing volume and/or intensity, I highly recommend trying out the Roctane Energy Drink and see how it works for you.