nutrition

Everyone prepares for an important ride differently and it’s truly up to the individual to know what’s best for them. That being said, I also believe that there are a few general rules that are beneficial to all riders.

In my experience, it is the sleep two nights before the ride that affects you the most. There have been many times I slept horrible the night before a race and still performed great but if I sleep bad two nights before it’s not good. I also read that 64 degrees is the optimal sleep temperature.

The day before, go out and do some short hard efforts to open up your legs. Don’t fatigue your legs, just get them ready. Stay rested.

You eat your pre-race dinner the night before and have the perfect breakfast. Then spend the rest of the day with your feet up and preparing you gear. Race time is at 3:30, the main show of the day and everyone is there. So at 2:00 you eat whatever it is that will fuel your tank but not weigh you down for the race. Next you pack your bag and do a final check of your equipment and off to the race you go. When you get there you find out the race has been delayed an hour. Now what? All this careful preparation and your detailed pre-race ritual has been thrown a loop. Today was no big deal because it was a low-priority CRIT and I only live a 5-minute ride from the venue. I was still worried about coming down from my carefully timed caffeine buzz and I needed to eat more food. What would you do in this situation?