Nutrition and Hydration For Endurance Sports
In the search for a competitive edge athletes often look to the practices of top athletes, or the latest theory from a popular guru. By chance, this approach will sometimes lead to a true performance improvement. But usually, time and money is wasted on product or fad that ultimately proves to make no difference or even hurt performance. An alternate approach is to look at evidence from research studies where ideas were more effectively tested. The evidence based approach will always seem a little behind what a top-pro might have been doing. It often takes 2 or more years from an idea to make it through the process of research design, testing, analysis, and publication. But in those same 2 years, many other top pros where using practices that are now abandoned.
The purpose of this guide is to help athletes and coaches develop nutrition and hydration strategies based on quality evidence.
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Best Product (that I found out about in) 2009
The Genuine Innovations Tubeless Tire Repair Kit came out some time before 2009. So technically they don’t belong in a 2009 best of. But it wasn’t until a recent ride that these little gems came to my attention. And they are good enough to justify making a little exception here.
The concept is the same as plugs for car tires. The kit includes several “ropes” that are coated in some orange stuff, and an insertion tool. All you do is load a rope on the tool, find the hole, push in the plug, pool out the tool, and that’s about it.
The idea may not be a new one. In fact, anyone who has ever found a thorn in their tire in the middle of a ride and resisted the temptation to pull it out, has already used a “plug.”
Instead, the genius is how well it works to compliment the puncture protection of latex sealants. By fixing the tire from the outside, plugs are much faster and less messy than throwing in a tube or trying to patch a tire. Your back up is no longer a thorn vulnerable tube. And because you are not breaking the seal at the bead, you don’t need to worry about tires that are difficult to re-seat.
Sure, major sidewall cuts are still going to be a tire booting suck the fun out of riding experience.
For the remaining 99% of the time, flats are now relegated to a very minor inconvenience. Not bad for less than 10 bucks.
