Cycling Nutrition (continued)

I think most serious road cyclists are probably pretty careful about what they eat.  I don’t see too many 300-pounders out there on road bikes.  And Brenda & I too, try to eat well.  We basically never stop for fast food, we’re both very conscious of added sugar, we don’t really like high fat content stuff, and we don’t eat a lot of junk food.  But that’s not to say that we don’t both have our weaknesses.

Every now and then in the cafeteria at work they make from-scratch cinnamon rolls in the morning.  These and the sticky buns at Whole Foods are, I admit, two things over which I am absolutely powerless.  It’s real easy for me to pass up anything in a wrapper, that is, anything factory-made.  Twinkies might have had a hold on me when I was eight, but I’ve long since outgrown that.  But these things are a whole different story.  (Next time you’re at Whole Foods, look for their sticky buns and see if you don’t agree.)  So the question is, “What will all that sugar do to my bike riding ability?”  Well all I know is, I remember reading in Lance Armstrong’s book about how, when he was going through the chemotherapy, the only food that he could keep down was apple fritters—he said he’d eat apple fritters by the boxful.  And then he went on to win a handful of big bike races.  Say what you will about what might have empowered him to that level of athletic greatness, I think it was the apple fritters.  (I wonder if he still eats them?) 

Brenda will get on a dark chocolate kick every now and then.  And of course there are all kinds of sources out there that tout the antioxidant properties and just general goodness of dark chocolate.  (Like she really needs any encouragement in that area…)  She can very easily pass on the sticky buns and the cinnamon rolls, and she can even go for months at a time without any chocolate.  But then all of a sudden she’ll start wanting chocolate everything for awhile.  But that’s Brenda for you—you could never accuse her of being wishy-washy.  If she’s in the game, she’s all in.  This bike riding thing is a perfect example.  When I started riding, I just started riding.  It took me a couple of years before I did a century, and it was a couple more years before I set the only big bike riding goal I’ve ever set for myself.  (That was to do six centuries in one year.)  (Yes, I made it.)  But Brenda starts riding, and the very next January she’s setting this goal to do the 5,000 miles.  I wonder how much chocolate this is going to take…