What is Bonking?

[winjim]

As it is with most things in life, someone hears something and thinks it applies to them.

Feeling a bit tired? Need a bit of a sit down? Not "quite with it"?

That's not bonking.

This is:



This post should become a sticky.

It's also a good demonstration of the drive and determination which separates winning athletes from the rest of us.

But somebody please just give that woman a Mars bar!

 

[lutonloony]

I'm 6'4" ( if I stand straight, ignoring my knackered knees and back). I weigh 85kg (13.5 stone ish) according to the BMI index I am near obese. So not sure n board weight is too relevant . However the first day my commute went from 7 to 15 miles I thought I was going to die. Spent ages looking for all my change in the vain hope I could buy a mars bar. First 7 miles 30 mins last 8 miles 1 hr, that's the bonk. You just feel foooked, if you've been there you k ow it.

Now 50 miles n prob

If you are done it's the bonk, no matter what you've done and what's left

 

[jarlrmai]

You need to eat after 30-35 miles, I see it with people who come with the club for the 1st time often they've never pushed it for 35 miles and they start to feel really bad I always carry a spare gel for them

 

[Kajjal]

Bonking is brutal , I have only had it couple of times but your body is a wobbling wreck. I did a 50 mile off road ride today and it was really tough going at the end but just tired not a wobbling wreck.

 

[doog]

Wheres Robert or whatever if name was...extremely clued up on this subject..always said 40 miles without food (on the ride ) was doable and I've found he was spot on. My normal road bike ride is 40 after peanut butter on toast and a fruit smoothie. Any further take something with you.

I've bonked once..on tour....luckily I recognised it, stopped , refuelled but the day was written off and its not something I'd like to repeat.

 

[srw]

1. A general feeling of tiredness 2. legs feeling sort of lactated as if I'd just done a climb but I haven't and they won't recover after a few minutes as they would from a climb 3. The numbness in my rear and to some degree hands and feet that I get from road buzz anyway becomes an order of magnitude worse at about this distance.

Yeah, I'd say that's bonking. Not hugely seriously so, and easily sortable by eating something sugary. Or by eating breakfast before you go out.

I simply don't understand why people don't eat breakfast. As far as I can tell there's a small amount of evidence that if you do a short exercise session without then you might lose weight more quickly. But for ordinary living I understand that there is a huge amount of evidence that skipping breakfast is unhelpful for weight loss.

 

[Starchivore]

Bonking can be a problem because if you have no fuel, your body may burn some of your muscle to fuel itself (fat too, but you can burn fat and carbohydrate fuel at the same time when you have fuelled up properly)

 

[EnPassant]

You are simply not that used to long rides, and exercise over 90 mins you should be fueling. Do it properly and it won't affect your weight loss, because you are burning the fuel as you exercise. Fueling properly also allows you to get the most training benefit from your exercise.

Have you any metrics for your forty milers? And frequency?

Well as I mentioned in the long bit that I expect nobody to read as it bored me enough whilst writing it... I started the year with 5 to 10 and now regularly do 20 and sometimes 30 (say once a week 30, and a weekly total of 50 on a really short week and 100 on a better one).
My first 40+ (discounting a couple in 2014 that were one offs) was with a local club about a month ago (thanks @Donger), yesterday I did 44 and it was the part over about 35 where I was, ahem, 'struggling' a bit, hence this thread. But that is clearly relative. My version of struggling is 'I'm not really enjoying this' versus that vid.

So in short? er, twice in recent history. . Which isn't really enough for a sample set. Will do more.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Has never happened to me, and I like to keep pushing my distance limits.

I just get gradually more and more tired, until I'm very tired, and then more tired until I'm very very tired, and so on. No dramatic falling off a cliff or hitting a wall. Just a gradual descent into knackeredness.

When I was a runner I never hit a wall either. Same again, just a gradual petering out of strength.

This might be just differences in physiology or the fact that I do relatively low intensity long efforts or it may be because I eat while riding, I don't know.

 

[Saluki]

When a man and a woman love each other very much.........

 

[vickster]

I think the lactating is a result of the bonking not the other way round

 

[Kajjal]

Has never happened to me, and I like to keep pushing my distance limits.

I just get gradually more and more tired, until I'm very tired, and then more tired until I'm very very tired, and so on. No dramatic falling off a cliff or hitting a wall. Just a gradual descent into knackeredness.

When I was a runner I never hit a wall either. Same again, just a gradual petering out of strength.

This might be just differences in physiology or the fact that I do relatively low intensity long efforts or it may be because I eat while riding, I don't know.

It does vary from person to person but you will hit eventually if you push your body hard enough in the right circumstances. It is brutal but from what you say you are being too sensible

 

[EnPassant]

Yeah, I'd say that's bonking. Not hugely seriously so, and easily sortable by eating something sugary. Or by eating breakfast before you go out.

I simply don't understand why people don't eat breakfast. As far as I can tell there's a small amount of evidence that if you do a short exercise session without then you might lose weight more quickly. But for ordinary living I understand that there is a huge amount of evidence that skipping breakfast is unhelpful for weight loss.

I can't answer for others, but I just never wake up hungry, I know in theory its the way to go, but I managed to be overweight despite this (yeah ok some of that was beer and curries @ midnight and I was never obese).
The thing is, eating breakfast doesn't seem to prevent me eating as much later on. I always seem to be hungry in the afternoon and evenings, never in the morning.
If I believed in the morning person/night person thing, which I'm still unsure about as any kind of clinical assessment, I'm no morning person in any shape or form.
All my life I've struggled to get up, and struggled to go to sleep, the eating just echoes this. I've tried to force it the other way, but some part of me (and I don't know if it's physical or mental) just won't have it, even if I try to eat that way and then match the rest of the lifestyle to the eating.

 

[gbb]

I've only bonked twice and I can't say I prepare that we'll although I do eat well in general.
When I was fit and putting in the miles, a fast 30 or 40 would nearly always be done without any special fuelling, just a couple toast and tea for breakfast, maybe a banana and away. Longer rides, 50, 60 and occasionally more would include a cafe stop for breakfast.
But both times I've booked have been on modest distance rides and when it happens, it happens quite fast and quite completely...a tiredness quickly grows within a couple of miles and then within minutes, all you want to do is get off the bike and sit or lay at the side of the road, it's overwhelming. At that point I've just pedalled at maybe 5mph, virtually coasting, to get home, there really is nothing to give.
On both occasions, I don't remember thinking "you deserved that' because of poor preparation or eating...it just happened despite what seemed like a normal day.

 

[Tin Pot]

Yeah you got me @Tin Pot .
In my defence I didn't really know, I've seen it mentioned but despite a search no complete explanation.
Once I ask and due to the good people hereabouts within seconds I am much clearer about it.
I'm clearly a wimp. mtfu will sort it.

No, I'm not criticising you - I had the same question a couple of years ago. It's just a frequent question we don't have a sticky for.

I also "wasted" a year gaining weight because I didn't understand metabolism or nutrition.

When you wake up you have depleted the readily available sources in your muscles. If you don't eat, you don't replenish them. As you start to exercise your body tries to metabolise fats and proteins to make the shortfall, problem is that it can't metabolise as fast as your burning it. No problem if it's a thirty minute run or an hour easy ride. But 90 mins into a hilly ride and you've got no glycogen and your muscles are running on empty, your body is rightly saying "stop have break, have a kitkat", your mind is wrongly saying "but I'll get fat!".

If you're a hippie, take a banana or God help us some fig-based weirdness, if you're training for TDF get yourself gels and epo*. Eat a mouthful of something every 20-30mins if you're putting in a decent session over 90 mins. You won't believe the difference it makes if you've never done it.

And don't drink like you're in the fecking Sahara** either.

*Joking. Sort of.
** Unless you are. Surrey doesn't count.