Belgium 2006, entry 8

It's fairly common knowledge that nutrition plays a large role in a cyclist's performance. What I eat and drink several days before a race can have an effect on how I feel during the race. I like, personally, to eat pasta or rice 2-3 nights leading up to race day and on the night before I like to eat a well seasoned kip fillet (chicken breast) or kippenworst (chicken sausage) with my pasta and sauce. And don't worry mom, I always eat my vegetables. On the morning of race day I've come up with the perfect breakfast. Race day breakfast is obviously an important meal but isn't quite as important as what I eat the 2 nights before. Whatever you eat will burn in a 4 hour race. I actually can't take full credit for this discovery because I first saw Robert make this special breakfast: muesli packed pancakes! The number one rule to these pancakes is that you can't use any measuring equipment. They'll turn out a little different every time but will still be some of the heaviest most calorie packed pancakes you'll ever try.

This is the recipe:

1-5 eggs

A good amount of vanilla soy milk

A couple fist fulls of whole wheat flour

Baking soda, whatever you feel like or how ever much you can find

A dash or three of salt

0-5 tablespoons of sugar

Muesli, lots of it (if you can't find bag-o-cheap-Delhaize-muesli just mix oats, rasins, cornflakes, dried banana chips, sunflower seeds, and hazelnuts. Mmm)

Serves 1-8, yes that's right, you never know.

Note: Using a non-stick pan is almost mandatory because of the size and weight of these bad boys. Ideally they should have a 7 inch diameter and a 1 inch width. Top with whatever you have in the fridge: yogurt, jam, fruit, peanut butter, or honey.

These pancakes really did the trick for my last race! This past Sunday I raced Ruisbroek- Puurs, a UCI race close to Antwerp. Ron and I, from the Cycling Center did it with the USA National Team. The race was 160km... 3 big loops and then 8x8km local laps. The course was very flat with hundreds (no joke) of turns. Wind would have played a bigger factor but there weren't enough long crosswind sections to shred up the peloton. Just when the 175 man peloton would be single file on the rivet, there would be a turn. I raced smart and a little conservative in the 3 big loops, only shooting a few bullets to go on the attack with larger moves. I did expend a nice chunk of energy when I crossed a gap to 20 guys all by myself. Although when they saw the stars and stripes they seemed to sit up and of course the peloton caught us a few km later. We were racing without radios so it was difficult to know what was going on unless I was in the first 30 positions. Going into the local laps, I knew there was a break up the rode but wasn't sure how many and what the gap was. Ron and I raced very hard in those final laps. I felt very good in the last hour (pancakes??) so I was trying my hardest to get up the road. With one lap to go I was in a 3 man break (racing for around 25th at that point) but was brought back with 4 or 5km to go. I managed to finish in the middle of the peloton, about 50th for the day. I was happy with my race even though it wasn't a great result. I raced hard and I raced smart, plus I felt amazing towards the end which is a great sign. I was actually having fun suffering over the 500 meter cobbled section in the 8 local laps! The legs are feeling good and my fitness is there so I'm really looking forward to the next races. I know one thing's for sure, I'll be eating muesli pancakes for breakfast on the morning of the race.