What do you eat before, during and after a competition?

Wat eet je voor, tijdens en na een wedstrijd?

What do you eat before, during and after a competition?

July 08 2021, by Luke Verburg, 2 min reading time

The match does not start when the starting signal is given, but much earlier. What should you eat and drink? Good preparation is half the job!

The match does not start when the starting signal is given, but much earlier. What should I eat and drink? You don't want to have to think about this anymore during the match. Good preparation is half the job!

What do you eat before, during and after a competition? Luke Verburg is happy to give you advice and talk about his winning National Championships on the VAM mountain.

Before the competition, make a plan about what you will eat during the competition. In this case it concerned the National Cycling Championships on the VAM mountain. 124.1 kilometers have to be covered. The start is at 3:00 PM.

Competition preparation.
The first thing to think about is "how long will the match last?" Based on the average speed of the same race I rode in 2020, I arrived at +/- 3 hours. It is a tough course with 2 steep climbs. There are 17 laps of 7.3 kilometers. On top of the ^2nd climb is the care area where you can get new water bottles. I decided to only ride the bike with one water bottle, because it didn't take long before you passed the food area again. Saves another 0.5 kg on those steep climbs!

Match day.
The day of the competition I eat what I always eat before a competition. A banana and white bread with Nutella for breakfast. 3.5 hours before the start I still eat dry pasta (120gr) at my leisure. Everything I drink before the match is the Isotonic Sportsdrink from 226ers. 2 hours before the match I eat half a gingerbread. After this I really start with sports nutrition.

We are 1 hour before the game. I eat another 226ers Race Day Bar. I do exactly the same fifteen minutes before the start. During the race I try to maintain the following: at least 1 bottle of Isotonic Sports Drink per hour, a High Energy Gel every half hour and a Race Day Bar every hour. For the final I use the High Energy Gel 'Cherry' to get a caffeine boost.

Something can always happen in a match. If there is an opportunity to eat something, you should definitely take it! During a match, also try to sense where you might have time to eat something. This is of course not ideal on a steep climb, but on a straight descent you can quickly eat something without losing time!

Good luck!

Greetings, Luke