I Ran Completely Out of Gas

[Rodney OndaRock]

do you think having a Red Bull would have helped?
physiologically as well as a psych placebo?

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

A couple of weekends ago I led a Sierra Club hike. I got a bimodal distribution of hiking abilities. A few really strong hikers who wanted a big adventure and a few brand new hikers who I wasn't sure could make it up the first hill. I stayed back with them and let the stronger hikers go on ahead and create their own adventure out of the hike. The thing is, the day was so hot and somewhat humid that I really didn't think I could keep up with the stronger folks that day. Sometimes it's just that way. Too hot, you're just not up for it, you're probably going to bonk if you try, who knows why, probably no amount of electrolytes or doing anything is going to change things. It happens. No shame in that.

[John Donewar]

I thought that all of you who contributed your advice and your experiences deserved some acknowledgements and an update on my hiking fitness and my recent training hikes.

Dale, as you and others suggested on this thread, I bonked!

Mary D. on my training hike this past Saturday there were electrolytes on board. I have yet to try the frozen juice tip but I will give it a try. I filled up my fuel tank the night before on this trip and I only had one piece of hard candy this time.

Bob, I like the canned juices and the cashier at the grocery dug into her coin purse and used a coupon to save me some cash. ;-)

Craig, I'll never go out running on EMPTY again. I ate well the night before and had a good breakfast in the morning this weekend. DOH! :-)

Joe, the weather was cooler and I started at dawn.

Ryan, I can relate to being burned out at mid-day. In my case when I bonked my SAR was my angel in the Park ATV.

Piper, my state park has a wonderful "water playground" that I take advantage of routinely on my training hikes. Yes, I had not eaten enough the night before. It is a fact that on some days even after doing everything conceivably "just right" sometimes the "bear" wins.

Jeremy, my cereal/granola bars have been replaced with multiple (potassium included) mini Clif bars.

Greg G. I now eat my Clif Bars equally spaced throughout my training hike and chase them down with "thinly mixed" Gatorade in addition to some full strength Gatorade along with plain H2O.

Greg M. I read the article you provided the link to and it is comforting to know that at least I didn't put myself into insulin overload. I was definitely working hard enough to be breathing hard. I am very happy that it didn't result in a complete "emptying of the tank". ;-b

Rodney, if I would have a had a cold Red Bull at hand I'd have given it a try.

UPDATE!

;-)” height=”733″ src=”https://dpcr19kltm61a.cloudfront.net/backpackinglight/user_uploads/1316385352_49191.jpg” width=”550″ />

The picture is from last week. I did about 6.5 to 7 miles concentrating on feeling good and doing it right. Lazarus, my hiking partner was along for the training hike.

This weekend I hit the park at dawn Saturday morning. The weather was much cooler and I got in 10 miles in 3 hours and 35 minutes. As I was getting ready to leave, Lazarus showed up and I tagged along with him for another 5 miles finishing up around mid-day. I felt good and strong through all 15 miles.

Thanks to all of you for your input and help. I may be all wet but now I can enjoy my hiking again. ;-) LOL

Lazarus and I are doing a two week, 110 mile section hike of the AT nine days from now.

Thanks again,

Party On,

Newton

[Dave Marcus]

Hi, everyone. First post!

The link to the article about how much sugar we can absorb brought back memories of a seminar I attended last year. At it, a nutritionist, specializing in endurance athletes (I used to compete in Ironmans) discussed in-race nutrition and absorption rates as well as ways to bypass our natural limitations.

First, he gave some examples of people he had worked with; a 42-year-old athlete who broke 10 hours in a Ironman while consuming around 100 calories per hour stuck in my mind. Knowing that I burn between 800 and 1000 calories per hour of strenuous activity, I wondered how anyone could possibly accomplish such a feat. Thus, we began discussing the two-pronged approach to training the human body to go farther, faster, on less externally supplied nutrition.

Prong one involved adjusting diet to reduce insulin spikes. One must do two things: reduce insulin spikes through consumption of low glycemic foods and avoidance of high glycemic foods and consumption of protein and fat with carbs. So, a typical dinner may include legumes or whole grain for carbs, a form of protein with a good balance of fats, and a large helping of vegetables. The goal of this alteration is to teach the body to burn its rich supply of internal fuel rather than relying on external sources.

The second prong involves physical training. As some have already touched upon in the thread, when you exert yourself at an "out-of-breath" level without replenishing fuel, you create the potential for a bonk. The reason for that is that the body burns a higher ratio of carbs to fat at those levels of exertion than at lower levels. If you continue at a high level of exertion for an extended period, you run out of sugar and bonk. If, however, you remain at a lower level of exertion and burn mostly fat calories, you can go much longer.

Why? Consider a typical, healthy male: 180lbs, 15% body fat. That man may have, at most, 2000 calories of carbs stored in his body, mostly in the liver. That supply of carbs runs out after two hours or so. The same man will have 27 lbs of fat stored in his body. At around 3500 calories per pound, he's storing 95,000 calories of fat. That resource will far outlast almost anyone's ability to exert strenuous effort.

The body may be trained to rely more on fat than carbs at higher exertion levels. To do this, you have to raise your aerobic threshold. The AT, for our purposes, can be described as the point at which your body switches fuel sources from mainly fat to mainly carbs. If your AT is low, it's easy to exceed it and burn through your carb source, and our bodies are not equipped to both exert at that level and absorb more fuel through the digestive tract at the same time. So, we can focus training on raising the AT.

In the backpacking context, that training would consist of loading up a normal pack weight and going out for a hike. Sounds normal, right? But, instead of going out for hours at a time to increase endurance, you do interval training. You find a hill that takes about 5 minutes to climb at an extreme level of exertion and you repeat it, over and over, with a rest in between. You do this once a week and take a day off after for recovery.

This activity raises your AT. Within a month, you'll discover that a hike that used to leave you breathless will feel easier. You'll need less fuel while walking because your body will be using internal fuel. And, you'll never have to worry about the nasty results of consuming too many carbs during exertion. As a final benefit, when you do get breathless, you'll recover much more quickly.

These two simple changes in my own life have dropped 30 pounds of fat off of my body over the last 9 months and increased my AT immensely. With a simple heart rate monitor to ensure I don't exceed my AT, I can go for an eight hour bike ride carrying only water and electrolytes.

Give it a shot… You'll never bonk again.

[Joe Clement]

Interesting view by Dave. I've spent the last 4-6 weeks trying to keep my heart rate down on the bike (or at least below what I think the AT is, hard to figure for me). I seemed to lose more weight too. Did a 75 mile ride in the Davis Mountains of Texas last weekend, with a lot of climbing, and it wasn't nearly as big a deal as I thought it would be. I did make sure I ate at least 200 calories an hour though. I do wish I had a better handle on what my AT actually was; seems to be several ways to find it.

[Kristin Fiebelkorn]

While I'm pretty out of shape now (series of injuries, life becoming complex, blah, blah, blah), I used to do Half Ironmans, and trained for an Ironman (got the flu 2 weeks before, couldn't compete). One of the most important things I learned when I was getting started with it was that, unlike other activities, this was one where you HAD to eat WHILE RUNNING (or biking or whatever). This is harder than it seems for some folks (like me), especially with serious exertion (major brick/hard training days or competition day). This applies to really hard hiking, too, I think. (At least it seems to apply as I'm working at whipping myself back into shape with long weekend day hikes.)

While there are good general principles of nutrition to follow (like what's been discussed here), I learned that you have to learn to listen to your body and figure out what works for you, and what sorts of things YOU can eat (no nausea/aversion, no digestive events sending you running for a privy) and will want to eat (because you may not feel like eating when you should). And then you test those foods you want to use in training to figure this out (e.g., what can I eat during a strenuous 9 mile run without throwing up). You're definitely on the right path working out the nutrition tweaks on these training hikes like you are. The worst thing in the world would be to feel nauseated/sick/be running to dig a cathole every hour during your big section hike ("race day" equivalent).

High sugar for me was only good near the end part of a race (the last hour or so), to get me there – if I started in on the Gu earlier than that (occasionally I would), I was then dependent on it like an IV drip (keep intake regular so you don't bonk) and it really messed up my GI system. I used several different bars – I happened to settle on Clif Bars, but that was my tummy – I couldn't cope with others very well. But the very best of all was little salty Rold Gold pretzels. PB&J sandwiches worked really well for me, too, but, of course, were a touch messy in a bike/run (but I bet they'd be great on a hike). Some people use gummi bears (I tried, I can't), or a given type of sandwich cookie, or something. Oddly enough, I seem to have settled on Tabasco flavored mini Slim Jims and apples for my day hikes in very hot weather.

All of that is a really long way of saying, it's good to follow good nutritional principles, but it's also important to test what your metabolism and digestion will tolerate before the big hike (esp. if it will be strenuous, or if it will test your own fitness limits, whatever they may be). Just my 2 cents…

[Dave Marcus]

Joe –

A very rough AT estimate is 75% max heart rate (MHR). There are plenty of MHR formulas out there that may or may not be accurate like 220 – age and others. AT also changes with altitude, so someone with an AT of 145 bpm at sea level may see his AT drop to 125 at 10,000'.

Kristin –

I definitely agree. I can't chew things when I'm on a hard ride, so I try to keep my nutrition liquid. My newest mix is 1/2 whey isolate protein powder and 1/2 rice syrup solids with electrolytes, all dissolved in water. Easy to digest and absorb and, as a bonus, I don't have to deal with sticky wrappers in my pockets. On hikes, solid foods are an option, so, like you, I've been trying all sorts of bars. I settled on LaraBars. The key lime flavor is sublime. Despite the recent buyout by General Mills, the bars are still made from real food and are intrinsically well balanced between carbs, protein and fat.

When I first began distance training, I didn't even consider that my body could react differently to different carb gels or electrolyte drinks. Since then, I've discovered that I'm gluten intolerant and that has exposed me to a wide world of nutritional info I would not otherwise have encountered. I approach every food thinking about how my body will react to it. Not a big deal when you have a toilet available in the next room, but in the backcountry, the wrong food can become a huge hazard.

[Joe Clement]

Hate to hear that about Larabars.

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

"In the backpacking context, that training would consist of loading up a normal pack weight and going out for a hike. Sounds normal, right? But, instead of going out for hours at a time to increase endurance, you do interval training. You find a hill that takes about 5 minutes to climb at an extreme level of exertion and you repeat it, over and over, with a rest in between. You do this once a week and take a day off after for recovery. "

Boring! Instead, put on your pack and choose a trail with a lot of hills and a great campsite at the end.

Backpacking isn't an Iron Man competition. It's fun. It's beauty. It's getting out and away from all the stresses of modern life. You can get into backpacking shape by actually backpacking. Any training you might do would consist of day hiking, which is also fun, and walking in the neighborhood, which can also be fun sometimes, or running which is less fun but can keep your aerobic capacity and bone density up.

[Nick Gatel]

Piper, I agree!

On another note, this has happened to me twice this year. Only the problem was a lack of sleep. Several days with 4 hours or less of sleep prior to the hike.

[John Donewar]

Newton is back and alive and well from a 100 mile section hike of the AT starting in Tennessee and ending in Virginia.

I thank all of you who offered your advice, experience and observations. Eating well along with "metered use" of Gatorade powdered drink mix and "nibbling" on Clif Bars during the day helped me through my section hike with fuel left in the tank.

There will be a trip report forthcoming after I organize my thoughts and sort through the many pictures taken during this trip.

Thanks again,

Party On,

Newton

[Clint Wayman]

Hey Newton!
Glad to hear of your successful AT trip, and I hope you enjoyed our East Tennessee weather!

I can't wait to read your TR!

Best,
Clint

[John Donewar]

Hi Clint,

Yes, we enjoyed the weather immensely.

Hang in there, the trip report is about 85% complete and will be posted as soon as I can insert all the appropriate pictures.

Party On,

Newton

[Jake D]

When i hike or go on a bike ride I always keep a GU packet in my saddlebag/pack pocket. They are mostly maltodextrin which is a sugar but a bit more complex than glucose so it burns a bit slower. It would only do much good for an hour or so but that might have been enough to not feel so bad at the end of your hike.

like others said you didn't eat nearly enough. When I ride 50mi or more i try to eat 100cals once an hour. I supplement that with gatorade in my water bottles which i try to drink 1 per hour

seems like you learned that your bar and mints didn't quite cut it so bringing a PB sandwich, fig newtons (70 cal per square!), clif bar, odwalla bar.

[James holden]

just bring some gummy bears or yr favorite candy to eat on the hike

sure it aint the healthiest, but IMO … youre more likely to eat it if it taste good … and oh so gummay ;)

[Jake D]

Really? 5 hours of solid effort on a few calories of basic sugar? lol

on an easy-ish 5 mi day hike i ate 2 granola bars and a pbj sandwich and 1L of water

here's a pic of 1 day of a tour de france rider. carbs, protein, sugar in good ratios.

[James holden]

i routinely do runs up the chief with a pocket full of gummy bears

4-10 hours depending on the route … anywhere from 12-20+ pitches

that and gatorade

[spelt with a t]

Haribo are the best…gummibären, yum.

[HkNewman]

I'd go with a combo of simple sugars and complex carbs in normal weather (like the granola bar suggestion above), though I'm partial to a chocolate brownie sometimes..

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