1st race questions!

trasver

Hi all

So myself and my wife our doing our first race on Sunday (110km, Cape Argus in South Africa along with 35,000 other people!).

We're not out to win it or anything so finishing it (1st priority) in a relatively decent time (2nd priority!) is all we're looking for.

Two questions:

- Any suggestions for ideal food to eat the night before/morning of?

- Even though we've been doing long training rides for the past few months (3/4/5 hours) I've recently started feeling a good bit of pain from the saddle again. Rather than the "not being used to saddle" aches I got when we started cycling it's now a rather unpleasant irritation of the inner thigh (very high up!) which I'm guessing is from the lost weight now exposing different parts of my anatomy to the saddle?! Any suggestions of ways to avoid such irritation on a long race? I asked in a cycle shop yesterday and they told me that other than wearing cycle shorts (which I do!) there's nothing else I can do :-(

Thanks for any tips!

Captain Havoc

Do you use chamois cream?

Lumen

Buy some chamois cream. Apply liberally to your nether regions.

Also, I feel compelled to point out that it's a sportive, not a race.

trasver

Ah ha, that looks like the stuff I need! Thanks guys!

Well there you go it's a sportive not a race, you learn something new every day! Either way hopefully we'll survive!

100Suns

Conventional wisdom says load up on carbohydrates (pasta, oats, potatoes) for a day or so beforehand, with a good helping of protein with each meal. Hydrate well the day before. Bring some foods with a low glycemic load such as bananas. Have a gel 10 minutes before you start and around every 90 mins thereafter. Drink c750 ml per hour of a sports drink with electrolytes.

Good luck.