My odometer from last year’s Melbourne to Warrnambool
The Melbourne to Warrnambool (or “The Warny”) is one of my favorite races in Australia and tomorrow it’s showtime! It’s a good thing that this blog also serves as my daily diary or else I might forget some of the stupid things I announce from time to time. About 6 months ago I posted the changes to The Warny and publicly announced that I’m giving it one last shot. Right then and there I registered online so I was firmly committed. What was I thinking? I’m not quite sure to be honest. The idea quickly faded and I completely forgot about it.
Yesterday, six months later, a mate of mine called me up and started asking me about how my preparation for the Warny was going. I laughed at him and told him that I wasn’t doing it. He then pointed out that my name is on the startlist. Like a flashback from a big night on the piss it all came rushing back to me. Fark!
I’ve paid my $120 and being the cheapskate I am I gotta give it a go. There’s no way I’m forfeiting that kinda cash just because I haven’t trained for this race and haven’t ridden in two weeks.
Being unprepared I’m gonna have to be extra careful with my nutrition. A race of this length and intensity will burn about 5000 calories and be over 7hrs in the saddle going full bore. There are 4 feedstations – each of which are about 60-80km apart. At 40km/hr this will equate to every 1.5-2hrs. I won’t eat much during the first 2 hours but will have a bottle of sports drink every hour. Each hour after that I’ll be drinking 1 bottle of sports drink (180 calories), a gel (90 calories), and/or some sort of solid food like fruitcake, a bar, or a jam sandwich on white bread (all about 250 calories). This will give me the 500 or so calories I need to keep topped up. Your body can only metabolize about 500 calories per hour but I’ll be burning between 700-1000 calories per hour.
Directly after the race my focus will be on recovery. Since the State Champs are starting from Warrnambool on Sunday I’ll need to replenish my calorie deficit as best I can. That means getting in 20-30 grams of protein and about 80 grams of carbs within 30 minutes of finishing. A big 750g bottle of chocolate milk is a perfect way to ingest this quickly. Then I’ll have a nice protein and carb rich dinner and will be constantly grazing throughout the evening. I’ll probably even soak my legs in the cold ocean across the street from our hotel!
There you have it. My strategy for the Warny completely hinges on nutrition, following wheels, and doing as little pedaling as humanly possible.
Three of the Rapha Condor blokes will be racing (Lappers, House, and Southam) so I’ll be looking to them for a free ride.
Good luck to the hundreds of competitors having a go tomorrow. To everyone else, ride hard and get home safe. Have a great weekend.
UPDATE:
I love it when a plan comes together. I’ve had to recruit a secret weapon…
{ 28 comments }
Yeah Yeah Wade, no preparation, gonna go bad, no form, forgot I entered……..heard it all before !!. Have a great day day out there, supposed to be a tail so should be easy even on no training……
Pretty sure I spotted someone who looked like the passenger in the Rapha Convoy video’s @ Sandown on Tuesday night.. So you’ve at least ridden once in the last 2 weeks ;)
Ah yes – my understatement. I did ride this week (but not for 2 wks before!).
CT,
Good luck. With your lack of training lately you’ll be blowing like a steam train early on!! Once you find your groove you’ll be ok though
Or perhaps the perfect tapering technique. ;)
Look at the bright side … at least you don’t have to worry you’ve over trained.
I like the fact that you have not bolted on any new fangdangle cycling computer…GPS….Meh….. just follow the wheel in front for directions
Looks like the old but trusted PolarS510.
Would be nice to hear what your Avg HR and Actuall KCal at the end of the race is (if possible).
40km/h is your sucking wheel and pedalling as little as possible speed?! I need to train more…
Your not alone!
I’m told there’s a sting in the tail this year by my organised mates who have recee’d the course – one 3.5k hill and a second 1.5k hill near camperdown that are deceptively steep and will blow the bunches apart
That sounds awesome. Perfect.
Thanks for the feeding insight. My rules are lax at best (I only just got a HRM for goodness sakes), so it’s good to get some useful info like this.
As an aside, I burnt 10,000 calories in 6.5 hours in the recent Scott 24 hour race. Granted, it was on the dirt, and probably a lot more dynamic in terms of rate of change, and I was smashing it up Stromlo, so it will be VERY interesting to see your calorie burn on the road over 7 hours.
My food is basically 1 x clif bar + 1 x gel + 1 drink bottle every hour.
I’ve started including fruit cake courtesy of Mr Naylor’s suggestions, and also considering banana+nutella mini rolls.
Anyway, it’s interesting to see how much thought you’ve put in — may I be so presumptuous as to suggest someone create a little calculation spreadsheet for this? If they don’t, I will. VERY handy. Would love to see some calculations/formula for calorific burn for people based on height, weight, level of fitness, and perhaps BMI or lean muscle mass –> ** does anyone have this sort of info.
Anyway, good luck mister, I’ll be hitting the Warnie next year (starting to look a busy schedule). The ocean sounds like a GREAT idea!
Have fun and looking fwd to seeing the wrap up.
Stay upright and fast,
Timbo
Hey Tim tell me more about these banana and nutella mini rolls. They sound good. Do you use those small dinner rolls you get from the supermarket?
Personally I get a banana, smoother it in nutella, then wrap it all up in a thin pancake. The pancake being cooked in a non stick fry pan with very little grease.
Hey Simon, I haven’t tried it yet – I am a Clif Bar + Gel man.
However Andy Naylor has been pimping Philly + Jam rolls but I put it to him that Banana+Nutella would be just as effective, a point he concurred with.
Also Fruit Cake. I used Fruit Cake in the Around the Bay and it was perfect.
The small dinner rolls could be the fresh little bangers from the supermercado but Andy is talking up the small sweet little ones, presumably the ones used for hot dogs.
I’m presuming the sugary ones.
As per my Tweet, I’ll be doing ‘the Warney’ this weekend…an entire day of appearing in terrible hair regrowth ads, taking diet pills and sending tawdry SMS’s!
Let’s see who has more fun.
Post of the Year.
South West wind forecast. Headwind/crosswind all the way. :) Oh well at least you get feeding stations. One warni back in the early 90s they did not allow anything. Madness! Thank goodness that has changed.
A little off topic, but this is so Aussie, you must be typing with a strine accent!: ” Like a flashback from a big night on the piss it all came rushing back to me. Fark! ”
Have a great ride, sounds like you have tapered perfectly ;-)
On the “bright side” – it’s “only” 265km this year ;) However, it’s a pity it’s lost it’s status as the longest single stage event in the world…
I’m doing it for the first time next year, I am hoping it stretches back to 300km of carnage.
dont forget some fresh fruit in your recovery nutrition. no point hitting the protein if you’re not loading up on some anti oxidants.
I am impressed that recovery for the next days race is part of the plan. I dont think I’d be able to walk for a week after doing the Warny.
Good Luck – look forward to seeing a race report CT style!
Clarky from Becoz had an off yesterday (Jake from Rush told me it was a muppet stack) about 1/2 way in, so dusted himself off, rode (Han) Solo for the rest of the way then backed up with a fourth in the SKCC crits (B grade) today. Awesome.
Man, with that “weapon” you should have little problems… The bike, I mean!
Wishing you a great ride!!!
A.
Wade,
I’m doing the feeds and mechanical for a mate and will be taking plenty of photos and video. Hopefully I get some good stuff that I can forward to you next week.
Hoping for a cat n mouse then power sprint finish like last year.
Ride smart
regards
Mick
300 km in 7 hours? wow. That’s not slow.
Best of luck. Sounds Epic.
I need a team who are going to give me Lightweights and JawBones… I’d be looking for some different tyres though :-P
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