Get Fit, Stay Fit, Feel Good - 2026

[two wheel tramp]

That’s not unreasonable. All the extra stress can make it hard to sleep well. A few years ago, hard rides would make my whole body hot for the entire day which would prevent me from sleeping. Also, hard efforts often impact my diet. If I end up really hungry and eat right before bed, I’ll sleep worse. And I’ll sleep worse if I don’t refuel well.

I was honestly surprised. I had clean sheets, a clean room, and took a bath. That's like a magic combo to knock me out.

Did you get enough protein for recovery?

I honestly don't know? I had 9 grams from a cup of yogurt right when i got home and another 40 grams from dinner.

The effort wasn't that huge for most - 20 miles and 1,750 feet of climbing. I was well rested and well fueled going into it.

 

[stangmx13]

How long did the ride take? What was your avg HR? How many calories did you eat during the ride?

 

[Mike95060]

The effort wasn't that huge for most - 20 miles and 1,750 feet of climbing. I was well rested and well fueled going into it.

FYI, that is a solid ride by almost any metric. I could do that at threshold and be cooked or in zone 2 and it's a good base fitness ride. My Saturday ride was 20miles and a flatter 1k of rollers. I did it as a threshold ride because I felt good and I lack structure and discipline.

Anyway, don't poo-poo your efforts. That's a great ride. Not sleeping well after a big effort is pretty common for me too.

 

[Das MotorRad]

I rode 16 miles today, surprised how quick my appetite increased. My daughter can earn taking the bicycle to school; I might be riding 8 miles a day five days a week for the next five months…

 

[two wheel tramp]

How long did the ride take? What was your avg HR? How many calories did you eat during the ride?

Two hours and three minutes. Avg BPM was 150BPM or the top of zone HR zone 3 for me.

I didn’t eat during the ride. Should I pack a snack? I didn’t intend to go so long but felt great so I did.

Editing to add these were not rollers. LOL. We're talking two sustained climbs that were reasonably steep, with some grades probably close to 10% for short periods. Apple maps said "You may need to walk your bike on this hill."

It's not the boss of me! I am still chuckling that my heart rate was higher going down than up.

 

[stangmx13]

Two hours and three minutes. Avg BPM was 150BPM or the top of zone HR zone 3 for me.

I didn’t eat during the ride. Should I pack a snack? I didn’t intend to go so long but felt great so I did.

Editing to add these were not rollers. LOL. We're talking two sustained climbs that were reasonably steep, with some grades probably close to 10% for short periods. Apple maps said "You may need to walk your bike on this hill."

It's not the boss of me! I am still chuckling that my heart rate was higher going down than up.

General consensus is that everyone should consume some calories on rides of any intensity lasting longer than 90min. Your 2hrs at moderate & moderate-high intensity is definitely hard and long enough to warrant some food. Eating is important to reduce fatigue, prevent bonk, stop binge eating when you get home, and to speed up your recovery.

The general guideline is to consume 30-90g of carbs per hour depending on the intensity, your goals, and how you ate beforehand. With sugar at 4 Cal/g, that's 120-360 Cal/hr. If you had a carb-y meal like 30-60min before, you can prob skip the first hour. If you are riding for a calorie deficit for weight loss, tend more towards 30g. If you are riding high intensity, tend more towards 90g. If you are riding for gains even at low intensity, start around 60g. Eat complex carbs on low intensity rides - real food, bars, bananas, etc. Suck down simple sugars on high intensity rides - gummy bears, candy, drink mixes.

If you had to guess, what was your calorie deficit from yesterday? Apple/Strava should have estimates for your calories burned on the ride (maybe avg them). If your deficit was too large, I definitely think that would impact your sleep. From what I've read, a 300-500 Cal deficit is reasonable.

 

[two wheel tramp]

General consensus is that everyone should consume some calories on rides of any intensity lasting longer than 90min. Your 2hrs at moderate & moderate-high intensity is definitely hard and long enough to warrant some food. Eating is important to reduce fatigue, prevent bonk, stop binge eating when you get home, and to speed up your recovery.

The general guideline is to consume 30-90g of carbs per hour depending on the intensity, your goals, and how you ate beforehand. With sugar at 4 Cal/g, that's 120-360 Cal/hr. If you had a carb-y meal like 30-60min before, you can prob skip the first hour. If you are riding for a calorie deficit for weight loss, tend more towards 30g. If you are riding high intensity, tend more towards 90g. If you are riding for gains even at low intensity, start around 60g. Eat complex carbs on low intensity rides - real food, bars, bananas, etc. Suck down simple sugars on high intensity rides - gummy bears, candy, drink mixes.

If you had to guess, what was your calorie deficit from yesterday? Apple/Strava should have estimates for your calories burned on the ride (maybe avg them). If your deficit was too large, I definitely think that would impact your sleep. From what I've read, a 300-500 Cal deficit is reasonable.

Strava and Apple agree I burned 1094 calories, plus resting energy of 2551, for a total of 3645. I would reckon I ate about 2800-3000 calories yesterday, the bulk of it after getting home from my ride, because I made dinner. Frankly, my eating is still all over the place, but getting better.

This information is super helpful. I tend to view myself as having ample reserves and thus don't pack snacks. Some gummy bears or Skittles would have honestly hit the spot so hard right before the second hill. I keep fruit around (see my tangelo thread as proof), but if a little something sweet is OK on longer rides, that will allow me to earn my sweet treats because I certainly love them, but don't buy them anymore.

Off to do some gentle rowing. I don't wanna.

Thank you again for all the info you share.

 

[Ridley]

You’ll certainly burn those sweet treats on a ride like you did. I have nothing to add since Mike and Robert covered everything. However I will say, solid ride TWT.

 

[Ridley]

My exercise has taken a dip over the last week. We bought a new house and time is something I don’t have with moving. I just keep telling myself that heavy boxes up stairs will maintain my strength until I can get my weights set up. We’ve had some really great weather and the forecast looks good for the next 10 days so I am hoping to get in a quick ride, otherwise I need to get Zwift up and running again for a pre-dawn ass whoopin.

 

[mbsv]

one other reason it's good to carry a snack on your ride even if you don't plan to eat it... bonking is not fun. and you can give it to someone else who forgot to bring a snack too!

 

[stangmx13]

I've been researching carb/glycogen energy reserves lately. It's all kinda cool.

The body stores carbs in the muscles, the liver, and the blood. There's around 500g in the muscles, 100g in the liver, and 5g in the blood (for a 70kg male). That's 2400 Cal. However, the 500g stored in the muscles is the whole body. Active muscle cells can only use the glycogen stored around them, in between cells of that muscle fiber. One (active or not) muscle cannot send glycogen to another muscle. Also, that 100g in the liver is primary used to feed the brain. During exercise, in the absence of extra glucose in the blood, the muscles will stop taking in glucose from the blood so that the brain can still be fed. So the amount of useful stores for any activity is far lower than 2400Cal.

I've yet to find a good way to estimate muscle carb storage for a more specific person. The numbers I gave above are the avg of a wide range. It's actually 300-700g in the muscles and 0-100g in the liver. Other sources say 15-40g of glycogen per kg of muscle - 15g for untrained folks, 40g for trained people that have carb loaded for a few days. That's a huge range. My legs are about 8kg of lean mass each. One study suggested that's around 6kg of muscle. So each leg could contain 90-240g of glycogen. The low end of that range is not a lot, maybe 2hrs worth of carbs at most.

So whats the takeaway? Well, all of these numbers are super-fudged napkin math. But this is likely still valid... if you want to perform, you gotta eat!

 

[Ridley]

Robert, outside of storage, when you’re consuming carbs while exercising does the body 1) send that energy source directly to your muscles or 2) partition it out to the liver, bloodstream, and muscles?

I kinda wish I had paid a little more attention in my A&P classes in college instead of focusing 100% on wildlife and ecology.

 

[stangmx13]

The answer seems to be #2. Blood glucose concentrations increase when you consume carbs during exercise. Your muscles can use this directly. And if you consume enough carbs, both the liver and muscles stores can be replenished during the exercise. There are even results showing that both stores can be spared / completely replenished during exercise at some intensities. The jury is still out on whether the stores were spared entirely or just replenished before a measurement could be made, cuz testing on humans is hard.

Here are some papers

Fundamentals of glycogen metabolism for coaches and athletes - PMC

The ability of athletes to train day after day depends in large part on adequate restoration of muscle glycogen stores, a process that requires the consumption of sufficient dietary carbohydrates and ample time. Providing effective guidance to ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpendo.00232.2016

This is cool

During training and competition, ATP production in muscle is prodigious. Even at rest, each muscle cell contains roughly 1 billion ATP molecules, all of which will be used and replaced every 2 minutes; during intense exercise, muscle ATP production can increase 1000-fold to meet the demands of intense muscle contraction.

1 Trillion ATP molecules used every 2min during intense exercise!

 

[two wheel tramp]

I slept like a baby last night. Thank goodness.

@stangmx13 I am gonna get some skittles and put them in my bike bag in case I decide to go for it again. Lesson learned.

 

[budman]

Had a good PT session when I got home.
Bike 20 - exercises 1/2 hour. Then more specific crap where you need to lie down.

Killed it off with some ibuprofen. This AM my leg feels much better than the last 5 days. Maybe the weather.

 

[Sharxfan]

This AM my leg feels much better than the last 5 days. Maybe the weather.

Welcome the the Broken Bones weather predictor club. I know about weather changes ahead of time because the knee I had ACL surgery on let's me know in advance.

 

[Climber]

Had a good PT session when I got home.
Bike 20 - exercises 1/2 hour. Then more specific crap where you need to lie down.

Killed it off with some ibuprofen. This AM my leg feels much better than the last 5 days. Maybe the weather.

Ibuprofin is an anti-inflamatory. For best results, take about 1/2 hour before activity.
Taking it after a workout will help a little, but by then you already have inflamation. It would help with additional inflamation, but not what came before aside from possibly helping to clear some up.

 

[Das MotorRad]

The kid chose to ride again this morning so we got a brisk 35F 8 mile ride to start the day… I haven’t needed coffee today it woke me up so well!

Let’s be clear I DID make more coffee, but I didn't think about it until well later than usual.

I guess bicycle in 35F is a sweet spot to activate brown fat where your body burns fat for warmth and wakes you up with the brain drugs like norepinephrine.

 

[two wheel tramp]

The kid chose to ride again this morning so we got a brisk 35F 8 mile ride to start the day… I haven’t needed coffee today it woke me up so well!

Let’s be clear I DID make more coffee, but I didn't think about it until well later than usual.

I guess bicycle in 35F is a sweet spot to activate brown fat where your body burns fat for warmth and wakes you up with the brain drugs like norepinephrine.

I pedaled at 37* the other day. My only thought was tha long cycling shorts are the best thing ever.

 

[budman]

Good call Brett. I actually did take it just as I started. My bad there. Appreciate it!

Ibuprofin is an anti-inflamatory. For best results, take about 1/2 hour before activity.
Taking it after a workout will help a little, but by then you already have inflamation. It would help with additional inflamation, but not what came before aside from possibly helping to clear some up.