For those not into distance events, “Perpeteum” is a powder you can mix up with a little water and, in theory, it can serve as your only fuel for long-distance events. In essence, you can get your 250-300 calories per hour from the water you drink. It’s quite convenient, even though it can be a strange feeling not to take in any solid fuel.

I’ve used the stuff for a number of long-distance rides, including double centuries, and it works quite well. It’s basically a carb-based fuel so you can sustain aerobic outputs for long periods of time, but unlike junk like Gatorade, it includes a little fat and protein. Fat is important fuel for long-distance efforts that involve time spent in the sub-aerobic zone. Protein is essential to endurance events unless you like cannibalizing your own muscle tissue.

So what could be more paleo than slurping a sugary cocktail for hours on end while performing chronic cardio? That’s a joke, folks.

But it does raise the question: Can the Paleo diet and fitness principles be reconciled with moderate to high amounts of high-octane aerobic exercise?

Well, not 100%. But for those of us who can’t give up longer rides, there are a few principles we can follow:

(1) Even for substantial amounts of cardio, athletes really don’t need the insane amounts of carbs that many eat. Buckets of pasta just aren’t necessary to train for and do well in something like a double century bike ride. This can be a conceptual hurdle for athletes accustomed to constantly porking out on carbs, but try cutting back and see how you do.

(2) For moderate training rides, I find that sticking to the normal paleo diet and adding a banana or two works just fine. You don’t need to add gels or other sports products.

(3) On the day before a big event, eating a sizable portion of potatoes or sweet potatoes seems to work wonders. If you are eating low-carb much of the time, your body absorbs glycogen at a faster rate when it experiences a potato bomb. You will gain weight since your body stores water with each gram of glycogen, but this goes away after the big event if you go back to a paleo diet. You can read more about this in the Paleo Diet for Athletes.

(4) On the day of a big event, all bets are off. My thinking is that if you are doing aerobic activity for 10 hours, you can eat a steady diet of sugar because you are burning it all off. Thus, you don’t have to worry about insulin spikes, weight gain, and all the other insidious effects of a high-carb diet. If I’m riding a century, Perpetuem is on the menu for that day. But if I am riding at an event where I can choose things like bananas and potatoes at rest stops, I’ll take them over Perpetuem and gels.

(5) Right after a big event, try to take in some carbs and protein within 30 minutes of finishing. You have a short window in which your body is especially receptive to replenishing its glycogen stores. Eat a baked potato in this window and you’ll feel a lot less depleted the next day.

(6) Let experience be your guide. If you are on the Paleo diet, doing a lot of training, and finding yourself feeling lethargic and depleted all the time, add some potatoes/sweet potatoes and a little more fruit into your diet. You’ll find the balance required for the level of training your are doing. But get over the habit of thinking that you need to suck down a few gels every time you do a 1-2 hour workout.