The Silver State 508: Food

I'm breaking this race report up into a few posts, with a handful of smaller posts about specific things (such as nutrition), and one main one for the story. So here's the one about food.

Following what I saw did and did not work well on HooDoo, I had 2 new requirements for food: it can't turn into crumbs, and it can't melt in the heat. So, no chocolate chip cookies. I made an exception for some chocolate covered candies that I put in plastic sandwich bags in each drop bag, figuring that there was a chance they'd be kept cool, and I'd never be carrying them on me.

I had to fill out an application to race the 508 unsupported, and this included a food plan. I gave rough calorie estimates (minimum 150 cal/hr, up to 300 - I know that sounds on the low side, but I'm small), and examples of what I'd be eating (Shot Bloks, Clif bars...) I haven't really optimized any of this at all, and am still working with what seems to be good enough. I get small improvements after each long race/ride, after seeing what did or did not work there. So this was going to be a bit better than HooDoo, but likely a lot of room for improvement.

I had 4 drop bags. The first 3 I'd pass by on the way out and the way back, with the 4th being at the turn around point. I didn't record how many calories I went through last time and wanted to for this time, so wrote down everything I packed:
1 bag power berries, distributed throughout drop bags (1080 Cal total)

Carrying at the start:
3 energy chews - Shot Bloks or Probar Bolt Energy Chews (200 Cal each)
1 TJ's Force Primeval bar (260 Cal each)

Fallon
4 energy chews
3 TJ's Force bars
2 handfuls pretzels (I'm guessing about 150 Cal each)
1 Clif bar (250 Cal)

Middlegate
3 TJ's Force bars
1 Clif bar
4 energy chews
1 handful pretzels

Austin
4 energy chews
1 Clif bar
2 TJ's Force bars

Eureka
2 TJ's Force bars
1 handful pretzels
1 energy chews
2 mini Clif bars (100 Cal each)

This totals about 7600 Cal. I also got some food along the way: one of the time stations had a lot of Fun Size M&Ms (I ate 2 on the way out and 4 on the way back the next day, at about 75-90 Cal each - the ones with peanuts have more Cal). When I got to Eureka to turn around, I took a long break and got some chips and bean dip and a bottled Starbucks frappuccino from a gas station (total 1225 Cal), and a small cup of hot chocolate (150 Cal?). Then, at Fallon, on the way back, I got an ice cream cone (350 Cal) and a soda (140 Cal). For a total of about: 9950.

But I didn't eat quite all of that. After I got back, I went through what was left uneaten in my drop bags:
5 1/2 force bars
2 handfuls pretzels
1/4 cup power berries
1 Clif bar
6 1/2 energy chews
1 mini Clif bar

This is about 3550 left over. So that means I ate about 6400 Cal. I'm not exactly sure how much I intended or expected to eat, but this seems like it was more than I expected, but less than I put in my plan for the application to race.

According to Strava, I burned about 11,000 Cal during this race. However, my power meter stopped working about 40 mi before the end of the race, so that number is likely at least a few hundred calories too low.

Something that I figured out - which I also observed on RAW but wasn't able to identify at the time - is that some Shot Bloks are pretty acidic (in particular, the margarita and the citrus ones that I was carrying), and that if I eat a lot of them in a short period of time, it starts to irritate my throat and tongue. On RAW, I thought it was the amount of sugar that was bothering me, but I figured out that if I eat ones that are more just sugar without the acid (e.g., strawberry flavor), it's fine. So, I wouldn't recommend against the acidic ones, just maybe eat other ones in between.