I was lucky enough to get good enough weather to ride outside today, so I did my long ride.  I am looking to change up my nutrition and used my ride to try some new nutrition.

In my last couple of races, I have struggled to get all of my nutrition consumed on the bike.  For all of my races, I have used only liquid nutrition, supplemented by a few energy chews.  The fact that it has been hard to get the nutrition into my body, has me looking at some other options.

I think part of the problem I have been having, is the fact that all of my nutrition on the bike has basically been ‘sugar water’.  I use a custom Infinit blend, but towards the end of the bike leg, it is just hard to drink.

One thought I had was to try something more ‘solid’ early on the bike leg, and then finish with the liquid nutrition ahead of the run.  I have therefore been trying various items on my recent long rides.  One thing that seems to be working well is eating a Raw Energy Hammer Bar by Hammer Nutrition.  These bars contain about 200 calories and are very easy to eat on the bike.  They have good flavor and are very soft, so they are easy to ingest.

Critically, these energy bars don’t seem to upset my stomach at all.  I have been able to eat them, follow them with liquid nutrition and still run off the bike with no issues.  I still have a few weeks to go before my race at Oceanside, so I will continue to test out this new nutrition on my long rides.  So far, things are looking good.