#FoodFriday: 40 whole grain slices of bread with cheese, 65 bananas or 5.5 kilos spaghetti

Last Sunday, the Classic Milano- Sanremo took place. Team LottoNL-Jumbo rider Maarten Tjallingii was, like the year before, in the breakaway. His 11 fellow breakaways and him weren’t caught by the peloton until kilometer 265. How much energy does it take to spend a day in the breakaway?

“Maarten used up approximately 7.700 kilocalories during his seven hours on the bike,” says Mathieu Heijboer, who collects and analyzes all data of the riders during races. 

But what exactly does that number mean? Nutritional expert Marcel Hesseling explains: “Over 7.000 kilocalories is an extensive number. That means that he used up over a kilogram of body fat during Milano- Sanremo. I suspect that he probably used up even more energy, because the number does not include his basal metabolic rate. If you add them all up, Maarten used up over 9.000 kilocalories. That’s four times the daily use of an average person!”

This is what Maarten should have eaten to fill up all his usage: 40 whole grain slices of bread with cheese, 65 bananas or 5.5 kilos of spaghetti. “Did I really use up that much energy?” Tjallingii wonders out loud. “That’s a lot! It’s completely unrealistic, of course, to try and eat those amounts while cycling. That’s why I stick with the easier foods. For example, during the race I only ate two bananas. Next to that, I got six gels, two power bars and 6 sandwiches. That was the right amount for me, because during the race I felt fit. We were unlucky to get caught, because I felt like I was riding a stable race. The day afterwards I did feel it in my legs though! On the whole, I recover quickly.”