What a pro cyclist eats during The Women’s Tour queen stage
WORDS: REBECCA BLAND/LIZZIE HOLDEN
IMAGES: HONOR ELLIOTT
Professional cyclists have to be on top of many things. Their training, their sleep, their travel plans… among all these, one of the most complex variables is their nutrition. Everybody is different and what works for one person may not work for another, but it’s vital these athletes fuel themselves correctly so that they are prepared for a tough day on the bike. And, for GC riders, another one the day after that.
For a big stage race like The Women’s Tour, nutrition is something that is looked at closely so that the riders can perform day after day. With a multi-day event where you ride hard for six days in a row, getting enough fuel is important so they have enough energy through to the end of the race.
Lizzie Holden, our GC rider who finished 21st overall in the WorldTour event gave us a breakdown of her race day nutrition for stage five, the second hilliest of The Women’s Tour and the only summit finish.
Black Mountain Stage
112km / ~ 2000m elevation / 3hrs.15min
Breakfast (3hrs pre race)
Depending on the length of the stage/intensity my breakfast is usually the same. It normally consists of the following.
- A big bowl of porridge (around 80g oats) with whatever toppings are on offer. Banana, honey and yoghurt is the usual combination and usually easy to source. (We also have a breakfast box from the team which saves us when we’re in hotels that don’t have that much on offer for breakfast)
- Two pieces of toast (occasionally crumpets in the UK). My favourite toppings are peanut butter and jam!
Then around one hour before the stage I will usually have a rice cake from our amazing soigneurs and sip on an Isotonic SANAS drink. The best rice cakes from Caro (one of our soigneurs) are the Bounty chocolate ones.
During the race
For during this stage I assumed it would be around three hours, so aimed for 80-90g of carbohydrate per hour, especially knowing that fuelling would be important at the start with the hardest part coming at the end.
Food takes time to be converted into energy, and it’s often too difficult to eat when the race picks up, so by fueling earlier in the stage, Lizzie would have more energy reserves to rely on later on in the day.
Here’s what I ate during the race:
One rice cake (30g carbs)
Two gels (60g carbs)
One caffeine gel (30g carbs)
Two SANAS sweets (50g carbs)
Then during the race I ended up drinking four SANAS Isomix bottles too as it was a hot day. This brought my total carb intake to 290g roughly working out at around 90g/hour. So a very good fuelling day!
Post-race
Directly after the race I have my SANAS Carbomix recovery shake, usually during my warm down.
Then during the transfer I will eat a proper meal. We are very lucky to have post-race food made for us by the soigneurs. This will usually be a carbohydrate source with other tasty things to make it easy to eat! So for example, a wrap with rice or chicken or hummus in, or pasta or rice with pesto and mozzarella.
Transfers were pretty long so I’d also tend to bring extra snacks with me. This could be a bread roll with peanut butter & jam, bananas, pre made porridge or even leftover rice cakes from the race.
Dinner
Most dinners were the same each stage at the race, but usually pretty good. It tended to be a big plate of pasta with some form of tomato sauce, then chicken. Also always some bread on the side.
I’m also someone who can never go to bed without something sweet, so I’ll always have a bowl of cereal with yoghurt after dinner or even another slice of bread with something sweet on.
Pre-bed
It’s not over yet…
Again, we’re very lucky with the sponsors we have on the team, so before bed each night we have a casein shake from SANAS (called Super Protein 95) which helps with slow-release protein overnight.
Then sleep and do it all again the next day!
To read more about how our athletes fuel, don’t miss this story about how we approached our classics campaign with the help of SANAS.