Hot Tires in the City: Tanglewood Bike Training Ride and Heat Exhaustion, Dehydration or Rest Stop Calories

I am no expert except at yakkin and at feeling pain from going out too fast (more later maybe), but here are my thoughts apart from any experts or anyone else's comments. I have found what hurts me the least and sometimes helps, so here's what I think....most of it said before...

• My belief is that most weight loss diets do NOT go astray immediately before, during or after we've done 3 hours of strenuous exercise. I think they mostly go wrong when we cheat ingredients or timing or portions quite apart from exercise, closer to midday or bedtime, even. Also I think when we don't exercise as diligently as we eat. I believe weight gain due around events is either irrelevant or helpful to overall weight loss, and that...
• If you don't fuel the engine before and during multihour exercise you'll bonk, period. And if you don't fuel the engine during and after multihour exercise, gains will not be as great and recovery will be slower. Having said all that, if you don't feel kind of bad after a three-hour tour, it was not that much of a workout, maybe? Car no work so good no gas. And I consider electrolytes, carb calories and water to be the gas, but gas that takes a half hour to four hours to get from the filler cap to the engine. (I'm not an expert, and don't even play one on TV.) 
• If I eat fat before or during and event, I just want to sleep in a ditch. I usually do not partake of much of the food at typical rest stops, because most are convenience foods packaged with inclusion of fats by design. This is why the food at Carolina Century rest stops includes some different items along with the traditional snacky food. It is hard to get sweet and salty snacks without fat. 
• I would not add fat to oats for myself, but would add dried cranberries that will absorb some water and bring that water in along with lots of carbs to go into my muscles. One difference for me on Saturday was I had the oatmeal but not the cranberries, so I ate less carbs, less happily, and I think the water that comes with it is important to making cells (not the cell phones) work (I know nothing, just think it). 
• If I eat hamburgers for lunch (cheap ones with small bits of burger and more bun/burger ratio than expensive ones), or something with similar doses of fat, I know I need to eat a gel/goo before I leave the house or at least when I get to the park, then every 45 minutes to an hour when I antiipate going for another 45 minutes to an hour. 
• If not going to eat right after, I think a goo and/or some skaterade is good if I can make myself do it, to aid recovery. I believe protein is important afterward, within an hour or two, and ideally, avoiding fat would be a good idea ten too (but don't have proof and often don't avoid fat, ha). This is one reason so many are fans of low-fat chocolate milk near the end of or after a multihour event.
• My disdain for fat (mostly before and during events, as I love pizza and meximerican and almonds and much more fatty stuff) means I have to carry food I either love or believe in. Examples: goo packs (chilled ones feel good in my back left Roadskater.net jersey pocket for a few minutes...the middle one is for camera batteries and sugar candy, the right one for the camera). 
• If I had only one item I could carry, goo/gels would be it (goo x hours x 4/3). I can carry enough in those rear pockets to fuel a 100-miler if I have to, as long as I can get water on the way; 
• If I can carry other stuff I take less goo, and the other stuff is usually atomic fireballs and fruity jawbreakerss (slow sugar drip that gives a boost of flavor to balance saltiness in my waterpack mix); for long jaunts some gobstoppers (quicker sugar drip) and good'n'plenty (soft, quick, mix of flavors, good when everything else seems awful). These are not high tech racer foods, but they beat 90% of what I find at most charity ride rest stops, except for the fresh watermelon, honeydew, kiwi and canteloupe (water, sugar) that Val & Elaine & Mike and others so often have. 
• Of course I carry my waterpack (about 48 ounces I think) with some jacked up skaterade and a bit of Morton's lite salt (2x or 3x strong at the start, adding water when I find it). 
• We also sometimes carry frozen grippy bottles of water (the 24 oz. gatorade brand bottle that fits fingers so well with the orange twist top) and attach one or two bottle holders to the belt of my waterpacks for that.  Carrying the ice in our hands helps with cooling....harder to do on a bike! I've heard that putting something cool under your armpits helps greatly with cooling.
• For long days of self-support, you end up carrying more weight, unless you know you can go into a store or two along the way. 

So I guess I'm saying more water with electrolytes, more carbs, less fat before and during; more water, more carbs, more protein after, with a NO DIET ZONE a few hours before, during, and a few hours after multihour exercise. Then if you want to be strict outside that, great. Otherwise you may lose weight by being in the hospital, or may lose muscle instead of fat.  

The last point is that these were pretty extreme conditions for most of us. Not television show extreme, but a third of the route was city with the heat of asphalt, concrete, buildings and cars, plus humid, plus later in the day was likely code orange breathing conditions. 

We felt like we didn't get what we needed at the last rest stop, understandably enough with our slow time, but that meant I had decided I needed a store stop to cool the core, get cold electrolyte drinks and coke, top off water for pouring on our heads, and get better rest than can be had even under a tent in breeze on such a hot day. We still did 37 miles and that is what we have to do to be ready for the Tour to Tanglewood, and to know what we still need to do to be ready.