Day-Before Fuelling

[Bonzo]

Question: what are you eating/drinking the day before a large/long/difficult hike?

Last Sunday I did an eleven-mile training hike with about 2400′ of elevation gain, with 47 pounds in the pack; ambient temps were about 90° and the humidity was pretty high…and I was definitely on the strugglebus the entire time.  It took me almost four hours to do that hike, not including a few breaks here and there; I felt like I’d passed beyond some kind of exertion threshold, even though the hike in question was only a 2.5% increase in weight and ascent from my hike the week before.  Distance was about 40% increased from the previous week, but none of the extra mileage was that difficult…s0 I’ve belatedly realized that I simply might not be adequately fueling myself the day before and the morning of, even given the heat and humidity.

I know that I need to be a bit better about hydration in hot weather (thirst hits me late and hard, it seems), but what else might help me out?  Is it as simple as carb-loading, prior to?  Or do I need to be doing something else entirely?  Nutrition is one of my weakest areas of understanding because I’ve not yet pushed hard enough for it to be a factor…but I might be there, now.

All suggestions and thoughts are welcome.

[dirtbag]

Love to carb load and definitely the day before a long hike, for me, is a refeed day!  I count calories ( within ) and also track my macros daily ( weekly ) so I pretty much know what i need and dont need. Been doing this for several years now so I have a good idea in general for myself personally.  But the day before is a great day to refeed and have my big cheat meals.. I also try to drink some Gatorade or other extra electrolytes.

During my long hikes I use Nunn tabs and I even pack my pre-workout powders.. they help me quite a lot between the 11 and 21 miles…

[W I S N E R !]

Sounds to me like you’re training well above your aerobic threshold. So yes, my guess is you need to eat a lot more, but you can also train to avoid this and get to a point where tons of calories and “loading” the day before are largely unnecessary for a training day hike.

I’ve become a fan of liquid calories (DIY Hammer Perpetuem) for hard/long days, allowing you to establish a “drip system” when you’ve exceeded aerobic threshold and are burning more carbs. Liquid calories are also very available and will quickly pull you out of a deficit. ~100 calories per hour (though not necessarily on the hour) generally does it for me during ultrarunning/cycling events. I’ve never purchased electrolyte supplements, I use a DIY mix with sea salt if it’s going to be over 80.

I would highly recommend Training for the Uphill Athlete by Steve House, Scott Johnston, and Kilian Jornet. Not so much on day to day diet, but a lot on energy delivery systems during endurance exercise and why you need to slow down and mind your aerobic threshold when training. Most people instinctively do the opposite.

[dirtbag]

Remember.. your mind will give up before your body does..  if that makes any sense..  think.. “The little engine that could”..

[Atif Khan]

Two books that educated me on the subject more than any other are “Deep Nutrition” by Dr. Catherine Shanahan and “The Big Book of Health and Fitness” by Dr. Phil Maffetone. Both are classics and full of science and timeless, ancestral wisdom.

Day-before refuelling is a bit like cramming for an exam. Temporary expedients like sugar, caffeine, or processed electrolytes do not provide the deep, cellular nutrition our bodies need. The science (and history) in Shanahan’s book explains why virtually all of our knowledge about carbs and fat has been incorrect since Ancel Keyes in the 1950s. It is more than going low-carb or primal, which are good but, alone, insufficient: it is about adequately adding nutrient density to your overall long-term diet, not just the foods you eat right before or during the hike.

If both books could be distilled into a few words, it would be this:

1. Aim for maximum nutrient density. Eat fewer than 100 grams of whole carbohydrates daily, and few, if any, refined carbohydrates. Fast once or twice weekly. Drink broth a few times a week. After a month or so your body will begin to burn fat as its primary energy source rather than carbohydrates. The body stores over 100,000 calories of energy in the form of fat and only about 1,000 as carbohydrates. When your body becomes accustomed to fat burning, you have a larger, more stable reserve of energy at hand. Especially true for walkers who are mostly in the fat burning end of the aerobic spectrum.

2. Eat a full plate of steamed or lightly cooked vegetables daily. Aim for 10 to 15 servings a day (“servings,” not pieces; servings are relatively small).

3. Sleep early, rise early, and nap briefly.

4. Prepare and eat traditionally: cook meat on the bone; eat fermented foods daily; sprout grains.

5. Once a week eat liver or another organ meat. Traditional hunters often left the meat for the animals and went straight for the organs.

[Bonzo]

I knew this was the right place to post my question…

Dirtbag – I can promise you that my mind wasn’t giving up; I’ve gotten good at giving myself an honest assessment of when I’m able to push and keep going, and when I need to pull it back and/or stop.  This last time, I was in bad shape…and it’s hit me so pointedly because I’ve not hit this kind of exhaustion-wall, before.

Wisner and Atif – great suggestions on the books; I’ve ordered all of them.  I think I’m definitely pushing past some kind of limit, aerobic or otherwise…and I think I can definitely find ways to increase my nutrient density and overall diet quality.

Also, Wisner: what kind of specific suggestions and/or recipes do you have for liquid calories, DIY-style?

[Roger Caffin]

Bonzo
Could you have just a trace of Long Covid? It will have that effect.
Said with authority.

Cheers’

[Dan]

I understand that sometimes it is desirable to push your limits, I used to train for and run marathons and ultras, so I get that. And perhaps you are training for a race of some sort, in which case please just ignore the rest of this post.

But in the context of self-supported hiking, and especially multi-day backpacking, it’s usually more effective to stay below your various threshold exertion levels, rest occasionally and eat good balanced real foods. You will make better use of the calories you are carrying and recover better from day to day. You can still cover a lot of ground between sunrise and sunset. That way, there won’t be a need to ingest calories like a Tour de France rider who is supported by a team of helpers, and who refuels and rehydrates with IVs each evening.

[Steve S]

Bodies adjust to hot weather in part by decreasing the sodium in sweat; but, as I remember the research, the potassium content of sweat does not change much. Low potassium makes muscles sad.

[Bonzo]

Roger – I guess it’s possible, but not very likely.  Up until that specific hike I’ve been doing fine, but those extra few ounces and a couple of flat miles absolutely wasted me.

Dan – I’m getting myself in shape for some bunny-slope mountaineering.  I’ve been at it for about four months, now, and although I’m improving I’m still nowhere close to where I need to be…so I’m pushing to get as fit as I can be in the few weeks I have left.

Steve – solid point.  I may have been low on potassium, but I don’t have a good way of tracking that because I haven’t been terribly diligent about logging my foods, lately.  I need to change that…and I have an app for it, but with everything else going on, data entry at mealtimes has been low on the priority list.

[Dan]

It’s really hard to diagnose you without more data about your training and physiological markers. I don’t know your training schedule, but based on your description (fatigued from the beginning of the workout), it sounds like you might be over-trained, i.e. not fully recovered. Or you could have an iron/ferritin deficiency. You might want to track your resting heart rate each morning to confirm that you are recovering sufficiently from your daily workouts. You can also get a blood test for iron/ferritin levels. These are just a couple of the most likely things that can happen when an endurance athlete pushes hard to increase their fitness in a short period of time. If you are getting close to your event, make sure you are well recovered and start on some iron supplements (with fruit juice and not with meals). Can’t hurt.

[DWR D]

“Or do I need to be doing something else entirely?”

Yea… hike in cooler weather with lighter pack.

Personally, if the fore cast is 90F, I hike very early in the  morning and done before it gets that hot…

90 degrees is ‘in the shade’… if you were in the sun it was considerably hotter than that… your body expends a lot of energy trying to keep it’s temp down to 98.6…

[W I S N E R !]

Rereading the key details:

__________

47#

11 miles

2400′

just under 4 hours = nearly 3mph pace

a 2.5% increase in weight and elevation and 40% increase in distance from “my hike the week before” (singular?)

90 degrees!

_________________

Based on the stats, I think the hike you describe would absolutely crush a lot of people without a significant base going into it. Especially with nearly 50#, which could be even more strenuous than it sounds, relatively speaking, because I don’t know your height/weight/how much you lift/how often you do it.

You had me thinking about food because you asked, but at second glance it sounds highly likely you’re  diving headfirst into crazy weight and mileage without a transition or base period. This is the sort of effort that most sane training plans wouldn’t have you doing without many, many weeks leading up to it. (Reference something like the book I mention or a typical mountain running training plan). A 40% mileage increase (!!!)…the extra being “easy” terrain is sort of moot with 50# on your back. That’s a big jump.

What are your weekly stats heading into this? For how many months? And how often do you hike in 90 degrees? I live in SoCA, this is common, but it can destroy people who aren’t used to it.

Talking to a relative stranger without a lot of details here, so perhaps the base is there and this hike was a fluke…but my hunch right now is that this is not a nutrition issue, but a training one.

[Bonzo]

So, to clarify, for those that need the details:

I’ve been training for about four months, now, for a little bit of bunny-slope mountaineering in the fall…or, in about six weeks, to be precise.  Lost some weight to start with, then started working on strength and endurance training.  Most weeks, I do one light six to ten mile hike with sub-1000′ ascent, and every week I do one “real” hike where I have the mountain pack loaded with progressively increasing weight, and I do a progressively longer hike with more and more climbing as time goes on; 2-2.5% increases in weight and ascent are normal, each week…and I haven’t had a problem with that, so far.  I also do a lot of walking, daily – some with a pack and some without – and I shoot for about sixty to seventy miles of walking per week.  I absolutely suck at running, but I try to get six to ten miles in on the trail every week, broken up into a couple of different segments.  I have two rest days per week where I either do yoga and stretching, or just go full-potato and vegetate for an evening.  I try to eat healthily, but I know I need to improve…and my sleep isn’t that great, so that could use work as well.

Resting heart rate this morning was 56 when I woke up, and my low point overnight was 52…and that’s not atypical.  The 40% mileage increase was stiff, but it honestly wasn’t that bad…but when I hit the hard sections of that particular trail (which I’ve done before) I started to run dry…so that’s why I was thinking it could be nutritional.

[Atif Khan]

Check your fasting blood sugar level. That is often a smoking gun for sudden weakness. Try to keep it below 100 mg/dl. I remember on one hike, in a moment of weakness, I downed 300 ml of sugary soda (I normally avoid sugar). I must’ve gone prediabetic that afternoon because for the rest of the day I could barely move after having felt strong in the morning. Gatorade and other so-called “energy” drinks contain tons of sugar.

[Bonzo]

Huh… didn’t know that could be a thing.  I’ve never known my blood sugar to be off, but I guess I can get something to check it with, just to make sure.  Thanks for the tip!

[Jacob]

Even though the 40% distance increase was flat, were you sweating during that ‘extra’ section? You could have sweated a lot more than the perceived increase in effort let on…

I felt like I’d passed beyond some kind of exertion threshold, even though the hike in question was only a 2.5% increase in weight and ascent from my hike the week before

and it’s hit me so pointedly because I’ve not hit this kind of exhaustion-wall, before

For some reason these statements make me think me think its electrolytes.

Most food/drinks, even ‘sports’ ones, don’t have a balance of all 5 electrolytes. So if you’re not planning your diet to include more electrolytes than last time and you are sweating more than last time, I think it is more likely you ran low on an electrolyte vs carbs/fats/protein.

Moreover, most people don’t consider salty foods healthy, so its possible by trying to ‘eat healthy’ you’re getting less electrolytes while also trying to sweat more during your training. Most ‘salty’ foods have sodium and chloride but lack potassium, calcium, and magnesium. Dark colored fruits and veggies often have potassium, but not always. Calcium and Magnesium are more random and thus harder to get in a whole food diet. How hard or soft your drinking water is could be effecting you, some water sources vary throughout the year. Spinach is a good choice. Multi-vitamins often have all of these in abundance. If you’ve been sweating more and more over the past 4 months and not taking in extra electrolytes in anyway, then you might be experiencing a larger and larger ‘deficit’ building up from your training.

My eagle scout friend recommended SaltStick brand salt pills to me. One pill is supposed to be about what is lost sweating for one hour. Granted I sweat a lot and leave white stains on my clothes and pack, but I think these pills have helped me push myself more than anything else nutritionally.

[Bonzo]

Jacob – Your mention of sweating got me started thinking: how much am I actually sweating?  So, I tested it.  Yesterday I went on an easy four-mile run in the morning in 80-ish° weather: I lost 3.9 pounds in the 50 minutes that I was running (told you I suck at it).  Today, I did basically the same hike that almost did me in last week, albeit I threw in an additional 250′ of ascent and an extra half-mile; even after consuming five liters of water and a bunch of treats and snacks, I was still 2.2 pounds under my starting weight.  Judging from the sweat that was literally running off of me, I’m losing WAY more water than I realized I was, even though I knew my needs were higher than average.  I’ll say this, though; today went much better than last week.  I slowed my pace to 2.1 mph, took a few minutes to rest every hour, and made sure that I was getting some form of nutrition at every break.  It ended up taking me over six hours to do the 11.5-ish miles, with 5.5 hours of actually moving…but I’m in way better shape than I was last time.  Pack weight was 48 lbs, by the way, and the total climb was 2550′.

[Bonzo]

Just a quick update:

Overall, I’m doing better.  I made changes to my diet along the lines that were suggested, and altered my hydration habits as well.  I’ve tried to get better sleep, but with my current work/moving stress, that’s been only marginally successful.  The biggest factor so far, however, has been overall rest: I’ve taken it easy this week and I feel somewhat recovered…so I think I’ve just been pushing myself too hard, and overtraining.

Also, thanks again to all of those who made suggestions; I’m picking my way through the books that I ordered, and they’re helping.  I doubt that I’ll actually be ready for this trip in September, but I’m going to do my best, nonetheless.

[Author]

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