Hello, Iceman Riders! It’s early Spring and your motivation to get back on the bike is creeping back up, and somewhere in the back of your mind, Iceman is already living rent-free.
Good. It should be.
Because here’s what I know after years of racing and working with athletes: the riders who show up in Kalkaska in November and have a great day — not just a finished day, but a genuinely strong, well-executed day — didn’t figure out their nutrition in October. They started right now. In April. When the trails are still soft and the idea of racing 30 miles through the Michigan woods in November feels equal parts exciting and insane.
So that’s what this series is. Eleven posts, all the way through race week, covering everything: fueling, hydration, recovery, and specific strategies for women, men, masters athletes, and kids. Because Iceman isn’t just a 30-mile race — it’s a Sno-Cone quarter-mile on a balance bike, it’s a 9-mile Slush Cup, it’s a junior racing the full course, it’s 5,400 people across 77 age divisions all showing up to the same start line in Kalkaska.
There’s a post in this series for every single one of you.
But today? We start here. With the question I get asked every single spring:
“I’ve basically been in hibernation for three months. How do I get my nutrition back on track for riding season?”
What Winter Actually Does to Your Body
Let’s be honest about winter. Unless you’re a skier, a cross-country skier, or someone with serious indoor training discipline, most of us come out of winter having lost some aerobic fitness, carrying a little extra body fat, and eating in a pattern that was built for low-output days — more comfort food, more irregular timing, fewer real training nutrition demands.
That’s not a moral failing. That’s just biology and seasonality. But it does mean your body needs a recalibration period before you can expect it to perform well.
Here’s what specifically changes over a winter training reduction:
- Mitochondrial density decreases — your muscles become slightly less efficient at burning fuel, especially fat
- Glycogen storage capacity can decrease slightly without regular high-intensity stimulus
- Gut tolerance for on-bike nutrition often drops — if you haven’t been taking gels or chews for three months, your GI tract needs to relearn
- Plasma volume decreases with reduced aerobic work — this affects how efficiently your blood delivers oxygen and nutrients
- Insulin sensitivity can shift depending on activity levels and carbohydrate intake patterns over winter
None of this is catastrophic. All of it is fixable. But it does mean the nutrition approach that will serve you well in April is different from what you’ll be doing in September.
The Early Season Nutrition Mindset Shift
The mistake most athletes make in early spring is one of two things. Either they’re still in winter mode — not fueling their rides adequately because they don’t feel like they’ve “earned it” yet. Or they flip the switch too hard in the other direction and immediately try to train and eat like it’s race season, which is a recipe for fatigue, injury, and burnout by July.
Early season is a bridge. The goal isn’t peak performance. The goal is rebuilding the infrastructure your body needs to perform at peak later.
Think of it like this: November Iceman performance is built on the aerobic base you develop in May and June, which is built on the nutritional foundation you lay right now, in April. You can’t skip the foundation and expect the building to hold.
So what does that mean practically? It means three things:
- Fuel your rides adequately — not for performance, but for adaptation
- Start rebuilding healthy eating patterns and timing — consistency beats perfection
- Be patient with your body — it will respond, but it takes four to six weeks of consistent stimulus to see meaningful change
What Early Season Fueling Actually Looks Like
Let me walk you through what I actually focus on in these early weeks. I’ll split this into on-bike and off-bike nutrition, because they’re different conversations.
On the Bike
Early season rides are usually shorter and lower intensity — maybe 60 to 90 minutes, maybe a couple of hours on weekends. Here’s how I approach fueling based on ride duration:
- Under 60 minutes at low intensity: water is probably enough. Your liver glycogen can handle this. Don’t force feed.
- 60–90 minutes: start with a small carbohydrate source — 20 to 30 grams going in, water on board. A banana before you leave the house, a gel at the 45-minute mark if you’re pushing it.
- 90 minutes to 2 hours: now you’re in fueling territory. 40 to 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour, begin using whatever on-bike nutrition you plan to use at Iceman so you start training your gut now.
- Over 2 hours: treat it like a race simulation. 60+ grams of carbs per hour, sodium in your bottle, practice your entire race-day fueling protocol.
Off the Bike
This is where I see the biggest gaps in spring. Riders start riding again but forget to update their eating to match the new demands. A few things I focus on coming out of winter:
- Protein at every meal: 1.6 to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. Early season is when you’re rebuilding — muscle protein synthesis matters.
- Carbohydrates timed around your rides: eat them before and after training, not just randomly throughout the day. This is carbohydrate periodization in its simplest form.
- Don’t fear calories: under-fueling in early season is one of the most common mistakes I see. You’re asking your body to adapt and rebuild. It needs fuel to do that.
- Micronutrients: vitamin D is almost universally low after winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Get a blood panel if you haven’t recently. Iron, magnesium, and omega-3s are also on my early-season checklist.
- Rebuild your hydration habit: you probably drank less in winter. Start drinking to a target — not just to thirst. Half your body weight in ounces is a reasonable daily baseline.
A Note on Gut Training — Start Now, Thank Yourself in November
I want to spend a minute on something that might be the most underappreciated part of endurance nutrition: your gut is trainable. And if you don’t train it, it will fail you on race day.
When you haven’t been taking in carbohydrates during exercise for months, your gut’s capacity to absorb them decreases. The transporters that move glucose and fructose across your intestinal wall — SGLT1 and GLUT5 — are less numerous and less active when you don’t use them regularly. So when you show up to Iceman having never practiced fueling at race intensity, and you take a gel at mile 10 because you’re bonking, your gut will reject it. It will bloat. It will cramp. And you will have a very long 20 miles left.
The fix is simple but it requires starting early: use your actual race nutrition on your training rides. Whatever you plan to take at Iceman — gels, chews, waffles, real food — practice it now. Introduce it gradually. Work up to the amounts you’ll need during a 2.5 to 4 hour race effort. By October, fueling at full race intensity should feel completely normal to your body.
This is one of the highest-return investments you can make between now and November. Start today.
A Quick Note for Every Type of Iceman Rider
Before I close out I want to say a quick word to the different riders reading this, because this series is for all of you.
- If you’re a woman: July’s post is specifically for you — how your hormones affect fueling is one of the most important and most under-discussed topics in endurance nutrition. Don’t skip it.
- If you’re a masters athlete: your recovery needs are higher, your protein needs are higher, and your margin for nutritional error is smaller. We cover this in depth for both women and men.
- If you’re a pro or Cat 1 racer: I see you. The later posts go into race-day fueling at a level of specificity that matters when the difference between your target time and your actual time is 10 minutes.
- If you’re a parent bringing kids to Iceman: September’s post is your bible. Fueling kids for cold-weather racing — from the Sno-Cone quarter-mile to the full Junior race — is its own science and it’s completely covered.
The Bottom Line
Iceman is seven months away. That sounds like a long time until it’s November and you’re trying to figure out carb loading the week of the race.
Do the work now. Lay the foundation now. Show up in Kalkaska in November knowing that your nutrition was dialed in from April, not from a panicked Google search in October.
Next month, we’re going deep on building your nutritional base — carbohydrate periodization, protein targets, and how to train your body to burn fuel efficiently for the long miles ahead.
Follow along, share this with your riding crew, and if you have questions, drop them in the comments. I read all of them.
I’ll see you out there.
Gina Render is a certified Performance Nutrition Coach that works with a variety of athletes and active individuals both locally and remotely to help them meet their goals. As a wife, mom of two teens avid mountain biker, and strength athlete, she understands the demands that come with balancing life and sport. From sport-specific fueling to general nutrition, she’s your partner and advocate to empower you to Adventure More. Contact her at gina@adventure-more.com.