gatorade pow(d)er... and subsequent musings

I mean really? That stuff is the bomb. All that gel gu stuff says "consume water with it" um... if I'm gonna suck down 80-100 calories of flavors sugar in a syrup form, that says "drink water" with it... why not just put those 80-100 calories in the damn water and just drink it?

Then you won't have egotistical jackasses riding for the Bicycling Magazine Team tossing empty gel packets on people's lawns (Palmer specifically - he did it 2x - because I guess after reaching back to get the gu out of your jersey pocket and then consume it ya just don't have the energy to put it BACK IN YOUR DAMN POCKET). That just screams EGOTISTICAL ATHOL. Sure that dude probably can kick my ass on the bike, that doesn't give him the right to make promoters job's tougher.

So yeah - at one point I was all over the Gu phase. When the stuff came out - i was sucking it down left and right. And i was riding with plain water.

Last year I went back to the gu's for a while. Tried a bunch of different ones. Mostly found the plain flavors w/o caffine and more sodium to be best. But even then. No real benefit over drinking a couple cups of coffee pre-ride and then drinking slightly strong gatorade. That bottled stuff is all high fructose corn syrup. The powder is simply sugars. And HFCS is not terribly good for anyone. It really should have a label "Imitation Sugar" but that's a story/rant when switching back to the Defense of Food book.

DC's headline this morning caught my eye:
" Don’t get Hammered by Hammer Nutrition "
I have one of the orange gel packs laying around. I can't stand the orange flavor (yes I tried it). The problem is with their pills. That goes back to eating and supplementation. There is no way to not get all you need from just eating.

Gatorade is nice - it is a good way to fuel the muscles - but it isn't a meal replacement. And honestly you could probably argue that carrying a bit of real food around with you in a pocket and some water in the bottles would be enough.

But here again.

Hydration, fueling, rest. Those three factors focused on in the race AND TRAINING will return far more benefits than using some toy to track your progress and report to a coach. If you are not well rested how can you effectively push and stress your muscles and make them stronger to make you faster? How can you do it if you spend all day dehydrated and hungry? The muscles won't be able to repair and recover from the stresses of cycling if you don't take care of yourself all the time.

Sure it is difficult. It is difficult to eat food that is real food, not over-processed food-like substances. But it isn't impossible.

Are you going to just eat a pop-tart or are you going to make a bowl of oatmeal, stick some fruit and yogurt on there? Both are similar in caloric content. Sure, one takes about 2 minutes to make, the other about 30 seconds. One takes a minute to eat and you can eat it while riding, the other, well ya need a bowl usually. So maybe you sit down for a second. Is your life really so complex and scheduled that you can't spare a few extra minutes to eat right?

Why are you rushed in the morning? Did you stay up too late? Why? Watching TV? Wow, that's a good excuse. You stayed up late because there's a show on TV you want to watch, but you are too tired to wake up with enough time to eat a breakfast of real food?

With very few assumptions, and just the tiniest bit of observation riding around a neighborhood at night, the TV is probably the biggest problem in the USA. Turn the damn thing off. Stop getting cable/dish/whatever. Motivation. If a toy can get someone to train better, maybe breaking a TV will work even better. "But then my kids can't zone out and watch movies." And that's a bad thing, how?

A basic tenet of scientific observation is that the phenomenon that is being observed is not affected or in any way changed by either the process of observation or the observer. In many cases, however, the reverse is not true. Often, when studying natural phenomena, the observer is profoundly affected. Whether gazing into a night sky to watch meteor showers occurring light years away, or sitting in the garden to detect the lemony scent an evening primrose releases at the moment its petals unfurl in the twilight, we humans have a propensity to be deeply moved by witnessing such seemingly magical events in nature – sometimes to the extent it changes the course of our lives.

Lets take that quote a different direction today. (I dug it out of this entry).
It makes me wonder if a coached athlete should actually never see the display on their powermeter. ever. Do the workout as prescribed. Email data. If it truely is for the benefit of the coach, then it has little measure for the athlete. No? Nah probably too radical of an idea. Some of the most effective 'users' of the power meters (meaning cyclists who use them) ride more often with the power numbers taped over so they can't see what the read out is.

I guess, well, there are so many aspects that influence the ability to make power, measuring it with absolute precision (down to at least 1-2%) seems pretty illogical. If being just tired, slightly dehydrated or hungry will reduce your power by 20-50% how can your device keep track of that and provide relative information? Sure the HRM aspect of it helps in some cases (showing decreased HR with fatigue or dehydration) but most power folks dismiss the whole HR side as a fallible metric compared to watts.

When it takes a whole day to write an entry. What does that say. Reading back through, I am kinda suprised that it links together despite a billion interruptions. Seems to flow.

One thing I did start to do was look back at when I really was riding more (based on the entries here) prep'n for Battenkill. It was pretty well into March, after an attack of the flu and a facility move when I finally got some serious miles in. Crazy. Things haven't changed much. Still missing the extra miles. BUT. But this year I am NOT riding myself into the ground every day on the commute. Going hard on most of the days, easy on a few of them and not riding once a week (during the week). Seems to be making a difference. I've still arrived at Friday a bit tired. But hey - who isn't.

Truths. We know what they are. Often we know what is best. But occasionally we slip. Occasionally we sacrifice the truth in favor of something else. So ya watch a show or two on TV. So what. So ya catch the nightly news. So ya watch a game or a race on TV now and then. So you eat a bit of food with some fake stuff in it. Few people are perfect. But. Acknowledging the bar of perfection and reaching for it most of the time will make a big difference. Ignoring it, deliberately being ignorant about what is right, about what CAN make a difference, that is where the gross errors start to build up. Work towards a positive end. Recognize that little things do add up. There isn't a quick fix. Everything takes work. And really, you know? Work isn't that bad. Put a little effort into your life. It will pay dividends.

Heddwch
G