TdA Stage 45. Eating Competition.

105km. Nanyuki to River Camp.

Nice ride. Nice camp.

This isn't like any sort of bicycle race that I've ever heard of. Sometimes it feels like I am here as part of an eating competition (or what I imagine an eating competition would be like).

We jam as much food as possible into our bodies before sunrise. Then we use our bicycles, to help our bodies make space for more food, often stopping halfway for 'lunch', which is a bit more like second breakfast since it is usually mid-morning.

We eat again at camp, often alternating solid food with pop to wash things down. Those of us who had the foresight to buy snacks on our rest day have a strategic advantage in this round.

Then it is nap time; gotta let the body digest before the next round.

Dinner is the best and most elaborate meal of the day on riding days. I eat most of my dinners from my one litre MSR dish. My 'trough'. Fully loaded (heaping), this thing can hold more than a kilo and a half of food.

If dinner comprises about 30-40% of my consumption for the day, that would suggest that I'm throwing back like 4 kilograms of food each day that I ride (possibly more on my days off and my hands and mouth are unobstructed). That's before considering calorie loaded beverages.

Over the course of these four months, that would take me close to half a tonne of food. A lot of the guys here seem to be eating multiples of what I put back. I realize that it is a mildly inappropriate observation in the context of a ride that is taking us through starvation prone areas, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find another group of this number (and weight) that can eat like us.