Long Ride with Nutrition Practice: 90-Minute Endurance Session

Session Overview

This 90-minute endurance ride doubles as a nutrition rehearsal. You will practise your race-day fuelling strategy in a realistic training environment, building both aerobic capacity and the fuelling habits that will serve you on race day.

What You’ll Need

• Road or tri bike, or turbo trainer
• Energy gels, bars, or chews (enough for 60-90g carbs per hour)
• Two 750ml water bottles
• Heart rate monitor or power meter (optional but useful)
• Cycling computer or watch with lap function

Warm-Up (15 minutes)

Begin with 15 minutes of easy riding at zone 1-2 (RPE 3-4/10). Gradually build cadence to 90rpm and let your legs loosen naturally. Take your first small amount of nutrition at the 10-minute mark — this simulates fuelling from the start of the bike segment in a race.

Main Set

The main ride is 60 minutes at a steady aerobic effort — zone 2 to low zone 3 (RPE 5-6/10). This is a conversational pace where you could speak in sentences. The key focus is practising nutrition intake every 20-25 minutes.

• Minutes 15-35: steady zone 2 effort, take gel or bar at minute 20
• Minutes 35-55: continue steady effort, take gel or bar at minute 40-45
• Minutes 55-75: maintain effort, take nutrition at minute 60-65
• Throughout: sip water regularly — roughly 500-750ml per hour

Cool-Down (15 minutes)

Reduce effort to zone 1 for the final 15 minutes. Use this time to note how your stomach handled each nutrition product. Any discomfort? Too sweet? Difficult to open while riding? Make a note — race day is not the time to discover a product does not agree with you.

Coaching Notes

• Practise opening gels with one hand while maintaining control of the bike
• Aim for at least 60g of carbohydrate per hour for rides over 75 minutes
• If your stomach feels off, reduce the amount per intake and increase frequency slightly
• Use this session to finalise your race-day nutrition kit — gels, bars, or a mix of both