Field note · September 3, 2023 · 2023 · September, week 1 · 2 min read · by Jay
Food that survived a brick
Every long ride and every brick is an audition, and the stuff that comes home still in the pocket is off the list.
Every race-nutrition article on the internet seems to end with a link to buy something, and this one doesn't, because we don't sell anything and we're not going to recommend a brand we haven't raced on. What we can tell you is how the list gets made, because the list is the only part of this we're sure about. Since the rule here is that we only name what we've raced on, the list as it stood was GU gels, salted caramel, from the end of June 2022 through the 2022 marathon, and Skratch Labs energy chews alongside them from the summer of 2023 through the 2023 marathon. That's what was in our pockets, and we're only telling you so you can see what the list looked like, since it was never meant as a recommendation.
The rule is that nothing goes in a race pocket that hasn't already been in a training pocket on a hot day for at least three hours. That's the whole method, and it works because race nutrition usually fails in the heat, when the bar has turned into a brick in a jersey pocket and your stomach refuses it at mile 70, whatever the numbers on the label said. You find that out on a Saturday, or you find it out in the lava, and we'd usually rather find it out on a Saturday.
So every long ride and every brick is an audition. Whatever's in the pockets at the start gets graded at the end on two questions, did it get eaten and did it stay eaten. The stuff that comes home still in the pocket didn't get eaten, which means it didn't work, which means it's off the list, and the stuff that got eaten and caused a problem is off the list too. The stuff that got eaten and caused nothing is on the list, and by the end of a block that list is short and proven, and that's the one that goes to the race.
Humidity does things to the list that the packaging doesn't mention. Chocolate is a liquid here by 7 a.m., anything with a texture that depends on being cool becomes something else, and a gel that was fine on a cool morning is a different substance after two hours in a jersey pocket in August. The heat changes the food, and the only way to know how is to carry it in the heat and find out. Salt matters more here than the packaging lets on too, because sweat here is heavy and salty and a long day without replacing it ends badly. We usually handle that with real food and with whatever's in the bottles that week, and we're not going to tell you what to buy, only to test it in the heat first.
The longest audition of 2023 was the Dick Evans, 112 miles around Oahu in August. Everything on the list for the full distance had to survive that day first, and some of it did, and the stuff that didn't isn't on the list anymore.