CycleOps Powered athlete Rocky Reifenstuhl knows a thing or two about long distance racing. He has competed in the Alaska Iditarod Trail 350-mile Mountain Bike Race 23 times. In his nearly 30 years of bike racing, he has completed multi-day mountain bike stage races, 200 mile time trials, and marathon runs. In the interview below, Rocky reveals his secrets to motivation, pacing, and nutrition.

Why did you get into long distance racing?

I always loved immersion in the great outdoors; the wilder and the longer, the better. Long distance racing in the wilderness heightened the euphoria, the challenge, the beauty, and the sensory rewards. That’s why I moved to Alaska more than 30 years ago. Multi-hundred mile, summer and winter events here in Alaska have taught me lessons impossible to learn in any other forum.

What is it about the sport that keeps you coming back for more?

Dominantly the endorphins, but also the challenges, the mystery, the humility, and the wilderness’ deafening silence, are what keep me coming back year after year. I guess I like the technical aspect of biking versus running. I also like the tactics of the wheeled-chess game.

How do you stay focused on long training rides?

Focus is a function of motivation, and I maintain motivation by recognizing my luck at living and training in such a fine (if wacky) place and remembering that a bad day in the saddle is better than the best day in the office! Suffering on long, cold rides makes racing that much easier. My PowerTap and my Joule are my constant companions. Neither of these taskmasters ever flatter or lie to me; they just reiterate what I give to them. Damn, they never add one watt in my favor! Riding very long and remote loops forces me to keep the pressure on so that I make it back home before I run out of time, light, food, or warmth.

Psychologically, I remind myself for the need for steady speed, so I generally track watts and Peak Power values for say, 20 minute and 60 minutes values. I keep these wattages in mind and that keeps up my long-haul speed, effort and wattages. Sometimes I listen to music, NPR, or a riding buddy.

Pacing is a function of distance, of course. But pacing is critical for events of every distance, whether 5 km or 500 km. I believe in what I coach; when I tell people that for every second or two you go above your sustainable pace at the beginning of a race, you will pay back at the end of your event by four to six times. So, yes, good pacing is like money in the bank: if you burn it now, it won’t be there later when you REALLY need it. In my 350 mile Iditarod Trail bike race, I try to adhere to: ‘If you can’t keep it up for 5 minutes, don’t do it for even 5 seconds’.

What are some key workouts you do?

Workouts are geared toward my important multi-hour races: 350-mile Iditarod Trail in February, White Mountains 100 Wilderness Race in March, 5-Stage Mountain Bike Race in June, Tour of Fairbanks 5-Stage Road Race in June, Fireweed 200 Time Trial in July, and Equinox Marathon Trail Race in September. So, workouts that produce the best results are numerous local time trial races and mountain bike races leading up to my key events. Other workouts are some miles-long hill climbs that I can easily peg my wattage around my AT level. Hill climbs seem like a natural: select a relatively big gear, wind-up to AT wattage and stay there for 30-45 minutes, or get to the top, or fall over sideways.

My workouts have changed a lot over the years. Twenty and 25 years ago I was doing short intervals, sprints and short high-AT workouts, but more recently I have extended my racing season from February through September. That’s a lot to ask after nearly 30 years of racing State Championship, Road- Mountain- and Cyclocross Nationals, plus 23 years of Iditarod Trail wins… and losses!

I bought the first Polar heart rate monitor. It had a wire from the chest strap to the heart watch! With the CycleOps PowerTap and Joule, workout monitoring is an order of magnitude more accurate, meaningful, archiveable. All of this makes workouts more fun too. That, in itself, is invaluable.

What is your nutrition strategy?

Well, my nutrition strategy is, in the simplest sense: ‘If it goes down, stays down, and doesn’t talk back, it’s good nutrition’. During races lasting 12 hours or so, nutrition is partly about digestion, because if your food is not digested, it certainly won’t provide any nutritional value. How many calories, and what percentage of fat, protein, simple- and complex carbohydrates, can be very much trial and error.

In 1998 Dr. Sam Case published his multi-year, nutritional, physiological, and psychological study of hundreds of Iditarod Trail racers. Nutritionally he found that Iditasport races burned an average of 73 calories per mile versus 18 calories per mile for Ironman Hawaii, and 14 calories per mile for the Sydney to Melbourne marathon. Clearly, pulling a sled or riding a heavily gear-laden bike through snow, in cold weather requires calories.

Another medical study (Druzgal and Marc, 1997) of Iditasport athletes showed that caloric intake was roughly 11 percent protein, 24 percent fat, and 66 percent carbohydrates. When my brother and I won the 350 mile Iditasport foot race in 6 days, 10 hours, our diet was similar: 10 percent protein, 35 percent fat (lots of chocolate and nuts!), and 55 percent carbohydrates. Another interesting finding from the doctors studying the athletes was that psychologically, Iditasport racers have the same profile as airplane stunt pilots and rodeo riders (basic whack-jobs!).

So what the heck do I eat for these long events? Well, I like to use GU Chomps for an easy 200 calories; I save GU gels for when I need a fast, easily digestible 100 calories. For any long events, Raw Revolution bars make quality fat calories and organic ingredients seem like a wonderful indulgence; they have 280 calories (55 percent nut oils, and 12 percent protein). The remainder of my calories is a wide variety of foods: chocolate, crackers, bacon, nuts, and pealed baby potatoes with olive oil, salt and spices, sticky-rice mixed with scrambled eggs and olive oil, and whatever I can find at checkpoints. I drink water, water with NUUN- a calorie-free electrolyte tablet, and water with calories (GU Brew, which I mix up at a checkpoint or in the rare flowing stream).

How did you figure out what works for you in terms of nutrition?

Off the bike, I eat Copper River Red Salmon throughout the year. We catch the salmon by towing a B.O. B. trailer in to the Copper River to catch over 100 pounds each year. We grow a couple of hundred pounds of garden vegetables each year. And generally we eat good… expensive organic food.

On several-hour bike rides I just keep it simple by eating GU Chomps and Raw Revolution organic live food bars. Stream water is good to drink most places.

As far as how I figured out what worked for me, it really does come down to what I said before about ‘going down and staying down’. For long races variety is absolutely key. You will get sick of some food, and will not tolerate others, so carrying a wide variety is critical to success. Feeding your body in endurance bike events becomes a chore after many hours… or days. Carry variety so you can enjoy it, you’ve earned it!

Rocky Reifenstuhl has been a CycleOps Powered athlete using PowerTap to help him excel for the last 5 years. Learn more about Rocky on his athlete bio at cycleops.com: http://www.cycleops.com/athletes/mountain-bike/rocky-reifenstuhl.html.