Eating

In some ways, cycling again at this point in my life has become for me a story about eating. And, like a lot of stories, there are high points, low points, tension, intrigue, moments of despair, and ultimate triumph. One of the main lessons I've gleaned is, it's amazing how little most of us know about what we put into our bodies and what the effects can be.

When I got on a bike again, I was overweight and out of shape, a typical story for most people getting back into cycling after a hiatus for building a career and starting a family. In order to lose weight, I began taking notice of what I was eating, but cycling alone began to peel the pounds away, so I didn't analyze my diet too much. I really didn't know that much about hydration or carbohydrates at that point, so I didn't know what I was doing wrong. Ignorance ruled.

Once I was able to train harder, ride longer, and go faster, I began to create some gaps in my nutrition plan. My hydration was obviously inadequate, and my recovery was, in retrospect, an abomination. But, at the time, I thought I was doing pretty well, because I was losing weight and feeling stronger. I was faster, and I was riding centuries. I bought some more things to drink on the bike and for recovery, and a box of gels. It seemed sufficient.

Juggling my dietary options became a new dimension of my life. To lose some weight, I'd trim out a part of breakfast, or stop eating a type of food wholesale (no ice cream, no cheese, etc.). Instituting these simple rules made avoiding some foods very easy. However, looking back, this was a form of fad dieting at its worst, and didn't make much sense.

Another approach I drifted into was to be disciplined throughout most of the day. I'd start with a small breakfast, snack a little, have a small lunch, snack a little, and so on. The problem became the "and so on." What I soon discovered was that starting with dinner and continuing throughout the rest of the evening, I would be so famished that I would devour anything in my path, including cookies, cereals, nuts, and such. I was holding my weight, but at a price -- I was grumpy, unfocused, and lightheaded if I stood too quickly, throughout most of the day, mainly because of this poor nutrition pattern. My favorite primary care physician, when consulted about the lightheadedness and after giving me a once-over, diagnosed it properly. "Maybe you aren't eating enough," she said. I scoffed, but she was right.

I simply couldn't bring myself to believe I had to eat more. To me, that meant eating more food. What I didn't know is that it meant eating the right food at the right times.

During all of this, I resisted getting analytical. Enter Google Spreadsheets and the Nutrition Data web site. After reading a couple of cycling nutrition books and getting the quantitative aspects through my thick skull, I decided to create a spreadsheet to track my eating habits. Because Google's spreadsheets are virtual, I could enter data from work or home or on the road, and track what I was eating. Because Nutrition Data has a great database, I could look up nearly anything and get the right portion size and actual data. What I found was that my "diet early, gorge late" habit was giving me sparse nutrition through the afternoon, and then I was almost making up for it with the evening chowdown. However, even at that, I was probably chronically depleted of glycogen, due to training and poor recovery. The effects of this -- foggy thinking, bad mood, poor recovery, and such -- were very apparent. And, as with so many things, the symptoms created an inability to think clearly about the cause. Foggy thinking isn't the best state for epiphanies.

However, bull-headed analytics had shown me the problem I'd created for myself through iterations of dietary voodoo. Once I corrected these things using basal metabolic rate (BMR) estimates for daily caloric intake, percentage allocations for carbs, protein, and fat, eating timed with the goal of eliminating late-evening snacking, and actual caloric consumption for rides with matched recovery, including 0.5 g of carbs per pound consumed in the first 30 minutes after a ride, everything fell into place. My mental acuity returned, from morning until night; my sense of humor came back to where it had always been; I recovered from rides faster; incidents of lightheadedness after rides disappeared; and I rarely snacked before bedtime. Best of all, my average speeds rose yet again, I felt better, and riding 3-4 days straight didn't leave me a burned out heap of glycogen-depleted human anymore.

What I learned from the analyses I conducted was that when I added up what I was eating before I made these improvements, despite it seeming plentiful from a visual perspective, it wasn't adequate from a nutritional perspective. A sandwich and two Fig Newtons were not an adequate lunch, for example. It looked OK, but it wasn't even close. With the new plan, it looks like I'm unloading a day's rations when I get out my lunch, but I know that this is what I need for a nice, big mid-day intake of about 800 calories. It will last through until I have a smaller dinner, and balances out a smaller breakfast. The facts from the analysis had to emerge to trump what I was using before, which was just visual feedback informed by a wish to lose weight, a combination that was producing very misleading guidance.

Looking back, it seems somewhat ridiculous that eating properly took me so long to dial in. All the numbers were in front of me, all the information had been published, and the math is absurdly simple. I was just reluctant to implement it, and probably a little lazy. Also, ironically, I was too tired when I needed it most, because my diet was so poor. After 2-3 weeks of tracking my daily eating by calories, carbs, fat, and protein, as well as hydration, calories burned riding, and nutrition on the bike and during recovery, I know what to do. It's completely different than what I was doing, but it works a lot better. I have feedback that is much more meaningful than just what it looks like I'm eating.

Ultimately, with a lot of details in the midst about what foods to include, the basics still seem to be: Eat a good breakfast, a good lunch, and a good dinner; don't snack; eat 0.5 g of carbs per pound of body weight after a long ride (smoothies are great for this); eat more carbs later (bagels are great); and drink plenty of fluids.

And track your diet using a spreadsheet, real data, and goals. Do the math. You might be surprised at how far off-target you really are with your eating.

Pickup Trucks

Cyclists have a special relationship with pickup trucks, and lately I've found myself trying to figure out why. The relationship is full of tension, and even anxiety for cyclists. When a cyclist hears the familiar roar of a pickup truck engine, which is usually accompanied by some rattling as equipment or gear rattles in the bed, a chill of expectation surges through the rider's nervous system. The impression that a high percentage of cyclists are hit by drivers of pickup trucks -- whether this is true or not -- comes to mind as the pickup truck nears, along with the stories of riders brushed off roads by passing pickups.

Most encounters with pickup trucks are uneventful. My experience is that the drivers are only slightly more aggressive or more anti-cycling than any other driver category. I think there is an attitude against cyclists and what they may or may not represent that is a little more prevalent among the people who use pickup trucks. And I share the anxiety provoked by the approaching pickup truck. I've seen my share of encounters that went less than well.

I think cyclists and pickup trucks intersect more often because both are typically on the road earlier than other vehicles. A lot of contractors are up at the break of dawn, and on the roads, and cyclists like to get their rides done before work starts. From both perspectives, it can seem like the morning is filled with bikes (if you're driving a pickup) or pickups (if you're riding a bike). The roads are relatively clear otherwise, emphasizing the presence of each to the other.

The anxiety created when the rattling ladders and growling engine of a truck are heard has real causes. Trucks are larger than cars, with more protuberances (large side mirrors, ladders hanging off the sides, materials sticking out). On a narrow road, they can seem immense. And while the drivers may not be more anti-cycling than any others, they often seem rather distracted and irritable in their driving habits. They also seem to be more hurried, unaware of their truck's limitations as a vehicle, and more convinced of their invincibility. Of the near-misses I've had, the majority have involved pickup trucks -- right turns directly in front of me (overestimating their speed and maneuverability); brush backs on narrow roads (squeezing through impatiently when waiting a few seconds would make more sense); and darting out of side streets (again, impatience and overestimating their acceleration and maneuverability).

Finally, there are the angry pickup truck drivers, who I have encountered on large group rides. The congregation of many cyclists, and the congestion this can create on a road, seems to trigger the worst among the pickup trucks. Windows roll down, crude advice and admonishments are provided, and gestures are demonstrated. It seems that a natural frustration with being slowed and poorly processed fears of hitting cyclists generate irrational anger. For cyclists, this same type of irrationality can make us anxious about pickup trucks, and so perhaps at the base of this strange relationship is a sort of mutual irrationality.

This is strange, because when the vehicles aren't involved, the people in pickups and on bikes actually get along quite well, more proof that fear and loathing of one another is purely irrational.

Reality

Early in the cycling season, perceptions can be deceiving. Nearly every year, I castigate myself over poor performance, shaming myself for what must be the obvious end product of lackluster winter/holidays training, sloppy nutritional planning, and inadequate commitment to my goals. I feel slow on the road, sluggish on climbs, and fatigued during longer than normal recovery times. After more reflection, I also begin to feel older, when I realize that my nutrition, training, and commitment have actually been adequate. Maybe I'm getting too old for this, I despair, and, if that's the case, then what?!

I was having one of these mini-meltdowns after a 30-mile ride early in the season, but while I was recording my stats in my homemade ride log, I found the time to compare this year's ride with rides of the same route at the same time of year in prior years. What I found surprised me, namely that I was actually riding the same route faster this year than in previous years, even with tougher headwinds. Aside from the relief I felt at this news, it also brought to mind the value of objective data during training, and how dunderheaded humans can be.

Basically, I don't think cyclists (or humans in general) are very good at assessing or recollecting reality, especially when it comes to purely sensory input. We are unreliable witnesses. We don't explain ourselves well. Collectively, we used to think the world was flat, the stars pinpricks in a cosmic sphere encircling the Earth, and the sun moved across the skies. These were all valid perceptions, but only objective measurements and mathematical proofs revealed the true nature of reality. As Robin Williams said early in his career, "Reality . . . what a concept."

Most of the pleasures of cycling are sensory and perceptual. Riding, testing yourself, feeling fit, and improving over time are all aspects of recreational cycling that feel good and make it worthwhile. But I've found that balancing these perceptual aspects with objective data is critical to really measuring improvement during a season and over multiple years. I may feel I'm slower and older, but the data show that I'm not, so I can reinterpret the sensations of early season sluggishness as just that, not a sweeping and fatalistic indictment of my advancing years.

On the bike, objective data can help a lot, too, push you to do more. Riding up a hill with a perceived effort that feels difficult, you may glance down at your speed and note that you are going well under the threshold you prefer, so you pick up the pace and hurt a little in order to meet objective standards. You can be fooled by your perceptions, and these can be corrected by real-time feedback.

The days of affordable power meters for recreational cyclists are on the horizon. Once these devices arrive and are widely adopted, objective data of greater utility and importance will be within most cyclists' grasp. No longer will we have to infer from speed, perceived effort, heart rate, or other proxy measures. We will have power output presented to us, front and center, and be able to strive to that. This is akin to the sailing vessels of old going from sextants and star charts to GPS in one fell swoop.

Doses of reality are crucial for any recreational cyclist determined to improve. Keeping my ride log current and accurate -- and keeping rides named consistently across time -- has provided insights that my memory could never have summoned forth on its own. I can remember events in more detail, see trends, and plan training more accurately. And that's a concept worth making a reality.