Nutrition for Riding!

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Written by Nutritionist Mim Smith from Nourish-Meant Nutrition, Mindset & Sports Coaching

So you’re about to enter your first event…

Or maybe you’ve raced a few times and just haven’t placed where you’d hoped?

Getting your race nutrition sorted can be the difference between setting a PB and walking away feeling like you could have done more.

The number 1 rule of nutrition and endurance events is CARBOHYDRATES are fuel. Humans use carbohydrates as a primary fuel source, our brains can’t function without it. As for our bodies – it’s the easiest fuel to burn. Its important to get this right long before race day but many done – as many as 3 in 4 females in sport under fuel which can lead to serious health consequences over time.

Ensuring you have fuelled correctly helps your body by:

  • Decreasing inflammation after exercise, assisting in recovery and training adaptations.
  • Intense training sessions supress your immune system. However, putting the correct fuels into your body helps maintain your immune system so you’re less likely to catch that passing cold, COVID or find yourself sprouting a coldsore.
  • Decreasing your chances of an injury that sets back your training or stops you from competing.
  • Improves recovery after training by refuelling your spent energy stores.
  • Helps you train harder in each and every session so you see more results for the same effort.

In a depleted post training state you will find you:

  • Experience more fatigue
  • Have more pain after training sessions
  • Have less stamina in subsequent training sessions
  • Miss more training due to injury or illness
  • Lose motivation

My top 3 tips before race day are:

  1. Make sure your carbohydrate intake is sufficient at training
  2. Your recovery meals should contain a mix of lean proteins and carbohydrates to replace what you have used.
  3. Don’t try anything new on race day – always trial it on a race like training session first.

I’ll be running a free webinar on Tuesday 9th November at 10am AEDT and Thursday 11th November at 7pm AEDT where I go into more detail about fuelling your training. To register visit: https://mailchi.mp/872156cefa0f/pre-training-fuelling-masterclass

A huge THANK YOU to Mim from Nourishment for here awesome input – be sure to check out her offer in the Rocky Trail Rewards programme too!