Energy gels

chester3455

Hi, all
I have a 9km time trial this saturday.Im wondering would taking a caffine gel about 20 mins before the start help or are gels just for long distances.

Also any suggestions on what else would help before the tt e.g. red bull coffee etc. would be greatly appreciated
Thanks.

Hungrycol

For 9km I wouldn't bother with any of that. Just make sure you're warmed up well and pace yourself during the event. Warm down and stretch after and have a drink, water or sports drink.

Darkglasses

Agree, I've done one time-trial like that (a team triathlon event) and I don't think any of that stuff would have helped.

Brian?

I have no answer for the OP, but would like to ask another question:

How does one warm up for a short time trial like that? Bring a turbo trainer?

12 sprocket

chester3455 wrote: »

Hi, all
I have a 9km time trial this saturday.Im wondering would taking a caffine gel about 20 mins before the start help or are gels just for long distances.

Also any suggestions on what else would help before the tt e.g. red bull coffee etc. would be greatly appreciated
Thanks.

Caffeine is proven to be a stimulant so the answer is that it possibly would help. however the distance is so small that improvements from the caffeine would be very small... But what would really make the difference is correct training and being prepared to suffer as well as suitable equipment.

Caffeine is a fairly potent stimulant and probably not treated with enough respect by a lot of people.. There can be side effects from too much caffeine

Rew

Regardless of any potential gain I wouldn't do it unless you had been using them in training. You might find your seeing the gel again 4 km in....

colm_gti

For a 9km TT I'd just eat a decent meal an hour or two beforehand, and have a coffee sometime in between that and starting, and maybe a banana at the start line, you won't burn all your glycogen in the 12-13 minutes it'll take you to do a 9km TT, unless you're already severely depleted at the start line...

Craig06

Just remember caffeine takes 30-40 mins to feel the effects in the body.

Lumen

colm_gti wrote: »

For a 9km TT I'd just eat a decent meal an hour or two beforehand

I'd do it on an empty stomach. 9km is vomit-hard.

colm_gti

Lumen wrote: »

I'd do it on an empty stomach. 9km is vomit-hard.

9km sprint :P

Pawlie

If your race is at say 11:00 am,just make sure you get 100 grams of good carbs into your system between 9 & 10 am,preferably eat a good energy bar from kinetica or squeezy and get an 500ml energy drink from the same into you too during the same hour,this compo with give you what you require.

You should be in very good shape energy wise then.

Hope yea do well.

andy69

[Quote=Brian?;83758 have no answer for the OP, but would like to ask another question:

How does one warm up for a short time trial like that? Bring a turbo trainer?[/Quote]

I used this for my first TT after 12yrs away from racing as I'd forgotten what way to go about it, basically the message seems to be... Shorter the race, longer the warm up ;-)
http://coach.dancoy.com/archive/tt_warmup.html

Lumen

The biggest risk with warming up on the road is missing your starting slot. :pac:

lennymc

Id be eating normal food and doing a good 30-40 minute warm up on a turbo, quite close to the start, after synching my time with the starters time, aiming to get to the start 3 minutes before my slot, then not go out too hard, get into some sort of rhytm and really push it towards the end. You shouldnt need gels or drinks for a 9ktt if you allready eat properly. Good breakie 3 hrs before, banana about an hour before, coffee about an hour before. My tuppence, ymmv etc.

chester3455

Thanks for the replys guys
Im feeling more confident now that i will have prepared properly on the day