I usually will not ride on any empty stomach. I will eat maybe 30-45 minutes before my workout. I always slam a protein shake within 10-15 minutes of getting off the bike but I am curious if anyone takes any nutrition during workouts over 1 hour. I am currently doing the FTP builder and getting into workouts that are as long as one and a half hours. Do you guys fuel mid ride or just wait till the end?
Just did a 3 hour zwift ride yesterday. Had a small energy bar at 1.5 hours and another at 2.25 hours. I find any ride over 2 hours needs something to keep the tank topped up
For 60-90 minutes I don’t bother eating during the workout. I’ve usually had lunch earlier before.
If I’m doing early morning ride on Zwift I don’t like eating much at all. Just an espresso coffee is enough and 1 hour is my limit anyway because of morning time limits.
When I’ve done big rides of 3500m elevation gain, for those I will eat a bit, nothing heavy - just a clif bar. In any case, I don’t use gels except as a last resort - they don’t agree with me.
As others have said, I typically will not eat anything during a workout of 90 minutes, or less (presuming I am otherwise adequately fueled).
One thing I would add, based on the information you provided, would be that eating anything substantial within 30-45 minutes of your workout (especially if it’s a hard one) might actually hamper your performance. This is because your body will start releasing insulin into your blood, to bring your blood glucose back to baseline, which means that your body might be in ‘energy storage’ mode by the time you get on the bike, when you want it to be in ‘energy production’ mode .
If you’re eating a full meal, you might shoot to be done with it 3 hours before getting on the bike, so that there is time for the insulin to return to baseline. The closer you get to ride time the lighter the meal should be, and probably more liquid than solid. Depending on the length of warmup, you can also try just having something (not too heavy) as soon as you start riding, as the muscle contractions will stimulate the same cellular response as the insulin, thus reducing the amount of insulin released into the bloodstream.
First, define long
Or just rephrase the question as how long of a workout do you go before you eat something.