Here’s the basic formula to determine your sweat rate:

Step 1: Weigh yourself before you ride. For example, let’s say you weigh 155 pounds before you start exercising. (Just like I do, if I’m at my race weight…)

Step 2: Exercise for an hour in the weather conditions and at the same intensity you expect to face in an upcoming race or long ride.

Step 3: After your workout, remove your dripping wet shoes, shorts, jersey, etc. Dry yourself off and weigh yourself again. Let’s say you weigh 151 pounds after your workout.

Step 4: To calculate your sweat rate per hour of exercise, subtract your ending exercise weight of 151 pounds from your beginning weight of 155 pounds. The difference of 4 pounds represents your fluid loss during exercise.

Since you should drink 16 ounces of fluid for every pound of fluid you sweat out during exercise, multiply the number of pounds lost by 16. In this example, you should drink 64 ounces of fluid to counteract the symptoms of dehydration and return your body weight to normal.

Step 5: If you drank any fluid during your 60 minutes of exercise, you’ll need to add that number to the total amount of fluid lost during exercise that you calculated in Step 4.

There you go. Those five simple steps will tell you how much fluid you need to consume. But remember, you can’t truly reproduce a race in a training ride. And weather conditions are always uncertain.

Once you know your personal sweat rate per hour, you can take fluid breaks so that every 15 minutes you consume 10 to 12 ounces of fluid.

By the end of your 60-minute ride, you won’t be so dehydrated, your performance won’t slow as dramatically, your body temperature won’t be as high, and you won’t have to drink as much fluid the rest of the day.

Energy in a tube? What?!

Enter Zipfizz!

My basic description of Zipfizz would be some energy powder in a tube that you mix with water for a nice energy boost. I don’t think you even have to mix it! Or you could also consider it an expensive pixie stick!

(When I first saw the FRS energy powder packets, I thought of them like pixie sticks, too. I guess you’re never too old for this kind of stuff!)

From what I’ve seen, it reminds me of EmergenC. I liked Emer-gen-C, so I’ll probably try this Zipfizz stuff sometime.

For more info:

http://www.zipfizz.com/

Some forum discussion: http://www.thefitnessforums.com/viewtopic.php?topic=198

Want even more info? Do a search on youtube.com for zipfizz – you’ll find some of their marketing videos!

It’s that time, time to buy a jar of maltodextrin powder. Gotta get some soon…

And thanks to Froogle, I can figure out where to buy it.

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This is an amazing article right here, one of the best I’ve read! It’s an interview and commentary on Floyd Landis that came out before the Tour. Any aspiring professional should read it and re-read it.

http://outside.away.com/…/tour-de-france-2006-floyd-landis-1.html

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As the annual Shannock Valley mountain bike race drew closer, I was getting happier and happier that I had decided to enter. I had just had a good race (Tour de Susquehanna) and was surprised what kind of shape I was in from the six weeks of training I had done this year. At the beginning of May I didn’t think I’d be racing at all!

That excitement began to fade, though, as I awoke to pouring rain and thunderstorms the morning of the race. I really didn’t know what would happen, considering that the course had never had more than a small puddle in my past experience. But at the worst, I knew they?d still have my free t-shirt!

I hit some more storms on the way to the race, but once I got there, the skies cleared and the weather looked just fine. The course was going to be fun though – some places were a bit swampy!

I was able to get dressed and start warming up more than an hour before the start, which was great, because I hadn’t been off-road all summer! I was also enjoying my sleeveless jersey, which I had packed assuming the customary 95 degree heat, but it worked great in the rain too!

Anyway, I was in pretty good shape, motivated, and had a good bike. See, in past years, there was always something about my bike that wasn’t right. But this year everything was in great condition, plus I had tubeless tires and the fork had a lockout – very nice for the many dirt road climbs!

As the clock neared 11:00, I got to the start/finish nice and early to claim a front row spot. I had never started up front and always had to pass lots of people on the first paved climb, so I figured I better get up front from the start this year.

We had a nice start and everything went well leading up to the steep climb. I was always towards the front of the group, and within 10 seconds of climbing Shane Gouldthread and I were neck and neck.

I was content letting him lead the way and that he did. He led himself up the trail and created a little gap between us, exactly what I didn’t want to happen! There were a few guys close behind me so I tried to pick up the pace a little and stay away, maybe getting up front in the process.

Well I stayed away for a while, until I finished a downhill section and found Shane looking at two trail markers pointing in different directions… We looked around, checked some singletrack, but eventually started up a dirt road along with five or six others who had joined us.

Unfortunately Shane was at the front of this group and I was at the back, allowing Shane to slowly pull away. At the next singletrack section, I wanted to pass some riders, but my bike was feeling a little off. It was getting harder to pedal and I suspected a flat tire, but didn’t know how that would have happened.

The culprit turned out to be a jammed front disc. This is the only mechanical I can recall from any time I raced there – so much for the bike helping me out!

I pulled the lever a few times but it didn’t help, so I reluctantly pulled off the trail and began to inspect everything. There were no visible problems other than the fact that the wheel wouldn’t budge, so I just pulled the lever, pulled the cable, took the wheel off, whatever I could do. Finally, after at least 10 racers had passed me, the wheel spun freely! I don’t know how I fixed it, but it worked, so I took off!

Luckily the pit stop gave me some rest, because I had some serious gaps to close! I took off about as fast as I could and reeled in racer after racer. Once we hit a double-track climb, I passed a bunch more and figured I was getting closer to the front. Hitting another open section, I was surprised to see a group of four or five riders up ahead!

Still feeling the adrenalin rush, I attacked and passed each of those guys. There were still a few racers ahead of me, so I made a move when the trail opened up. I was setting up for a left turn, just ready to catch the Mt Nittany Wheelworks guy in front of me, and that’s when I saw a right turn arrow out of the corner of my eye!

I immediately swung right and headed up the hill through some pines, fortunately staying on the right trail. I turned up the pace again to make sure these guys couldn’t stay with me, and luckily it worked. After that attack I was on my own, no one else in sight. Which was fine because I started to crack on a long false flat leading to a short, steep climb…

But once I made it to the last big hill, I knew I was home free. I got a rush of energy and big-ringed it up the rest of the hills and rocketed down to the finish.

It was really funny on the final descent, because I was cruising down it and made a left turn at just the right spot, and almost thought I made a wrong turn. Then it hit me that I had made a mental note to “stay left on the last downhill” during my warmup. Thing is, at the next opening, I made a right! I got back on the trail though and made it back to the pavement and then the finish line.

I was puzzled because before I saw Shane, I saw another racer by the name of Alex Cox. You mean I took third? Yes I did. But I’ll be back…

It didn’t matter, though, once the door prizes started. After four years of standing and watching, I won a water bottle this year! I’m always running out of water bottles, so this was a pleasant surprise – thanks Trailz End!

And I’ll leave it at that, two pages is enough for a 55 minute race!

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For more information on the race, visit: SVC Festival MTB Race Page