The most common question I get from both beginner and veteran marathoners alike is: “What should I eat during the week and the morning of the Marathon race?” It’s a great question and a very important part of success on race day. Since I covered how to practice your marathon nutrition strategy in training in one of my previous posts, this week I will cover an ideal nutrition plan starting 5 days out from the race so you can start planning your pre-race nutrition strategy now.

Marathon Rule #1: Never try anything new on . . . → Read More: Pre-Marathon Nutrition]]>

The most common question I get from both beginner and veteran marathoners alike is: “What should I eat during the week and the morning of the Marathon race?” It’s a great question and a very important part of success on race day. Since I covered how to practice your marathon nutrition strategy in training in one of my previous posts, this week I will cover an ideal nutrition plan starting 5 days out from the race so you can start planning your pre-race nutrition strategy now.

Marathon Rule #1: Never try anything new on Race Day

In addition to clothing, pacing, and training, this rule also applies to your nutrition strategy in the five days leading up to the race. You should not experiment with any new foods or venture too far from your normal diet. It’s easy to get nervous in the last few days of your taper and be persuaded by a new product a friend recommends or something you see at the race expo. However, if you haven’t tried it before, especially at marathon pace or during a long run, don’t be tempted.

It’s also important that you experiment with the types, quantity, and timing of the food you eat before you run. Some runners have very weak stomachs and need up to three hours to digest food before they can run comfortably. Other runners can eat within an hour of a hard run with no adverse side effects. It is important to figure out which type of runner you are during training and to take this information into account when you plan for the race morning.

Experiment with your pre-race meal before race day. Your last two long runs or difficult marathon paced workouts should be similar to race simulations. Try wearing the clothes you think you’ll wear on race day, the shoes, socks, and everything you can think of. Eat the same pre-race meal you’re planning for the night before the race and when you wake up in the morning, eat the same breakfast you plan on having. This will give you time to change things up before race day if you find it doesn’t work for you.

5 days from the race

Begin to increase your total carbohydrate intake by adding in more pastas and starches (low glycemic index foods) to your diet throughout the week. The old idea of depleting your carbohydrate stores the week before the race and binging on carbohydrates the last few days in an attempt to trick your body into overcompensating and storing more fuel is outdated. Ensuring that you consume a higher percentage of your total daily calories as carbohydrates is sufficient.

Remember, you’re not running as much as you have been, so eating too much more than you normally do will make you feel bloated and lethargic. At this point in the nutrition cycle, relax and don’t go overboard.

48 Hours before the race

Your last big meal should be two nights before the race. It will give your body ample time to digest anything you eat so you won’t feel bloated on the morning of the race. I’ve seen too many people gorge on pasta the night before the race only to reach the starting line the next day stuffed and lethargic. Have you ever tried to run the morning after Thanksgiving? If you have, you know the bloated feeling I’m talking about, and if you
haven’t, I don’t recommend scheduling a tough workout.

24 hours and before

Eat normal balanced meals like you would normally do on any training day. Make sure you drink plenty of liquids all day long, especially electrolyte fluids such as Gatorade or use electrolyte tabs such as Nuun. It helps if you carry a water bottle along with you throughout the day to remind yourself to drink.

Your main meals should still be in the form of low glycemic to medium glycemic index foods. Ideally, you won’t be too active on the day before the race, so you may feel full quickly. That is fine, you shouldn’t try to stuff yourself.

18 hours before the race

Start eating small meals every 2-3 hours, but after lunch, cut out red meat, fried foods, dairy products, fats, nuts, and roughage. You should only be consuming light, digestible foods like energy bars, bread, and small sandwiches. Keep drinking water and electrolyte beverages and avoid salty foods.

4 hours and less

You should be up early enough before the race to eat a small breakfast with plenty of time to start digestion before the gun goes off. If you need 3 hours to eat a small meal before running, then you need to get up at least three hours before the race to get in a light breakfast. You’ll want to drink mostly water (unless you know temperatures at the race are going to be warm), with some electrolyte fluid. Don’t try to get all your fluids down by chugging your water bottle. Drink small, regular sized amounts. Room temperature water is absorbed quicker than warm or cold water. I estimate that you’ll need 6 oz. every hour or 8 oz. every hour on hot days.

Lots of runners will take a GU or energy gel right before the gun goes off. I only recommend this if you have a weak stomach and you haven’t eaten in 3 hours. If you’re able to stomach more solid foods 60-90 minutes before the race, this is preferable. Basically, energy gels are mostly simple sugars and you’ll be consuming another 2 or 3 gels before the race is over. Even for the biggest sweet tooth this is a lot of sugar.

I hope this article was a practical and informative nutrition plan you can implement for race day. In the last article of the series, I will cover the nutrition plan during the actual race, so stay tuned!

Success in endurance activity is a result of a multitude of genetic and physiological factors. While many of these factors are out of our control, one major player in the success of the endurance athlete is fluid and nutrient intake in and around training and competition. This article describes a few strategies for eating and drinking for a big race.

Fuel Utilization

During endurance activity the body uses muscle glycogen, blood glucose, muscle triglycerides, and free fatty acids from adipose tissue to provide the ATP to fuel performance. The relative ratio of these substrates utilized is dependent on exercise intensity and exercise duration . . . → Read More: Nutrition For Endurance Running]]> Success in endurance activity is a result of a multitude of genetic and physiological factors. While many of these factors are out of our control, one major player in the success of the endurance athlete is fluid and nutrient intake in and around training and competition. This article describes a few strategies for eating and drinking for a big race.

Fuel Utilization

During endurance activity the body uses muscle glycogen, blood glucose, muscle triglycerides, and free fatty acids from adipose tissue to provide the ATP to fuel performance. The relative ratio of these substrates utilized is dependent on exercise intensity and exercise duration as well as availability of each substrate. As exercise intensity increases during an endurance bout, more carbohydrates are used. However, since carbohydrates are limited in supply, as the exercise continues (and the body’s carbohydrate stores diminish) more stored fats are used. Unfortunately the metabolism of fat is less metabolically efficient; therefore when carbohydrates become limited, exercise intensity must diminish. Since the body typically contains enough stored fat to fuel several marathons, the focus of eating for endurance activity should be on the carbohydrate content of the diet.

Before The Event

Eating a relatively calorie dense meal 2-4 hours before a race or several smaller meals between 2-5 hours before a race is absolutely essential for topping off muscle glycogen levels as well providing blood glucose for the intense activity ahead. By eating this meal, the activity will be fueled by the nutrients provided during the meal and will therefore be able to exercise for quite some time before the body is forced to use stored energy. This can end up delaying fatigue and improving performance. On the other hand, if you fail to eat or eat far too long before a race, your body will have used up all the nutrients from the last meal and even have dipped into stored energy well before you ever step foot on the racecourse. This can lead to premature fatigue and poor race performance.

While it is important not to wait too long between meals before an event, it is equally important not to eat too close to the event. Eating this big meal within 1.5-0.5 hours before a race can lead to one of two problems. The first is gastrointestinal distress. You will simply feel too full or even sick as a result of eating too close to the event. The second is something known as “rebound hypoglycemia”. Immediately after eating carbohydrates the hormone insulin is released. Insulin’s function is to clear the blood of the ingested carbohydrates and to deliver them to storage sites such as the muscle, the liver, and the adipose tissue. Therefore eating causes hyperglycemia and in response to this, insulin comes along to cause hypoglycemia. Since insulin is the storage hormone, it opposes nutrient mobilization, locking those carbohydrates in the cells for as long as it is hanging around the body.

Now, when eating well before a race, the body is able to clear the blood of carbohydrates, store the nutrients, and get rid of insulin well before it is time to compete. However, if you eat too soon before the race, insulin will still be clearing the blood so that when you start to race, the body will have very few blood carbohydrates (this causes a lethargic feeling) and it will have a hard time mobilizing the stored fuel (this causes early fatigue). Therefore, by eating a big meal 2-4 hours before the race or eating several smaller meals between 2-5 hours before the race, you will be able to fuel the body’s energy needs without causing premature fatigue and hypoglycemia. If you couple this eating strategy with a sound carbohydrate loading strategy, you can be sure that you will enter your race full of high octane carbohydrate fuel.

Here is an example of what the pre-race meal should contain:

Adequate water (1 liter)
4-5 grams of carbohydrate (300 grams for a 70 kilograms individual)
A small amount of protein (20-40 grams)
A small amount of fat (10-20 grams)
While this may seem like a lot of calories, keep in mind that you don’t need to eat it all at one sitting. Spreading this meal out over the course of 2 or 3 hours may make it more palatable for you.

2 whole eggs
3 slices of whole wheat bread
2 cups of fresh orange juice
2 bananas
3 cups of raisin bran
1 cup of low-fat milk
During The Event

Although eating as directed above will allow you to top off glycogen stores coming into the event, you are not in the clear yet. You still have to contend with two potential enemies: 1) dehydration and 2) rapid glycogen utilization and depletion. Let’s start with the glycogen situation.

While it is very important to start a race with muscle glycogen stores topped off, it is also important to note that the body tends to use carbohydrates much more quickly when there are more available. Unfortunately, even if you are topped off, muscle glycogen depletion can still occur. In order to prevent this from happening you should be consuming sports drinks or gels during your entire race. Since the body can only use about 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour during exercise, one to two servings of a drink like Gatorade or Powerade (or 1-2 servings of sports gels) per hour should do the trick for carbohydrate supplementation.

While the above recommendations take only carbohydrate needs into account, we should now consider fluid needs. During hot and humid days, the body can lose up to 2-3 liters of water per hour. This water loss corresponds to an unacceptable 4-6 pounds of weight loss per hour. This loss of water is detrimental to performance as a weight loss as small as 1-2% of body mass (1.5-3.0 pounds for a 150 pounds runner) can lead to impaired blood volume, stroke volume, cardiac output and oxygen consumption. Therefore it is very important to keep fluid intake quite high during exercise. To this end, you should focus on consuming 2 liters of water per hour to prevent dehydration.

Here are a few examples of how to hydrate and feed the body during competition:

Drink 2 liters of water per hour while consuming 2 servings of a Powergel-type product; or
Dilute 2 servings of a powdered Gatorade or Powerade-like product in 2 liters of water
After The Event

Once you have crossed the finish line, the nutrient battle is not over; you have one more responsibility to your body. Endurance exercise, much like strength exercise, causes depletion and damage of skeletal muscle. Therefore after such exercise, it is important to begin repletion and repair immediately after the race. To summarize these recommendations, however, since the post exercise period is the optimal time to replenish and repair damaged muscles, this is the time to consume easily digestible liquid carbohydrates and protein. Your post exercise strategy should contain:

0.8g/kg carbohydrate (56 grams carbohydrate for a 70 kilograms runner)
0.4g/kg protein (28 grams protein for a 70 kilograms runner)
Some examples of what to drink/eat during this time are as follows:

A specifically formulated recovery drink such as Biotest Surge: 305 calories, 25 grams protein, 50 grams carbohydrate, 0.5 grams fat
A homemade recovery drink containing 1 serving whey protein and 2 servings Gatorade: 369 calories, 25 grams protein, 66 grams carbohydrate, 0.5 grams fat
Then, every two hours after this for the remainder of the day, be sure to consume a meal containing protein and carbohydrate.

Why Carbohydrate Load?

Intense endurance exercise performance is often fueled by a combination of stored carbohydrate (glycogen in the liver and the muscle) and stored fat (triglycerides in the muscle and adipose tissue). While fat burning can contribute significantly to an endurance athlete’s fuel needs, there are a few reasons why it is not the best source of energy during intense activity. First, the rate of fat metabolism is slow compared to the rate of carbohydrate metabolism. Therefore, during intense exercise, when the body demands the quick provision of energy, fat metabolism cannot provide energy quickly enough and the body must slow down. Secondly, metabolizing fat is more oxygen costly than metabolizing carbohydrate; making fat metabolism more inefficient than carbohydrate metabolism.

So, it should be clear that without adequate carbohydrates in the body, the endurance athlete will suffer at the hands of the infamous “bonk”. You see, since body’s carbohydrate stores are limited (a 70 kilograms individual may store about 400 total grams of carbohydrate), endurance events lasting greater than 90 minutes may deplete muscle glycogen to low levels, leading to early fatigue (and thus being passed by someone’s grandmother). Since the carbohydrates in the body are consumed preferentially to fats, are used rapidly during intense exercise it is clear that any attempt to increase the body’s carbohydrate stores during longer duration events may help with performance. One such attempt to try to boost the body’s glycogen stores is the pre-race carbohydrate loading scheme. By following a carbohydrate loading protocol as such, carbohydrate stores can increase significantly (in some cases, muscle glycogen has doubled) and this may provide greater fuel for the latter portions of the race. So, if you are about to compete in long duration endurance events, you owe it to yourself to give carbohydrate loading a chance.

How Do I Carbohydrate Load?

Over the years there have been several carbohydrate loading schemes proposed. Original schemes were based on the fact that following a 3-day, ridiculously low carbohydrate diet (less than 50 grams) causes an increase in muscle glycogen storing enzymes. Therefore, starting 6 days from your event, “depleting” muscle glycogen with this 3-day low carb diet (exercising intensely on all three days as well), you can set your body up for a “rebound” of carbohydrate storage during the three days immediately prior to the event. For those next three days, you simply rest, eat a very high carb diet (10 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight), and watch your muscles swell up with energy. One problem, though, with these original schemes is that they were very difficult to follow for athletes accustomed to regularly eating carbohydrates. In addition, the three days of carbohydrate depletion led to such low energy levels during these three training days that performance suffered on these days. Although performance would ultimately “rebound” along with the glycogen stores, this phenomenon wreaked havoc on the athlete, causing psychological distress. Think about it. The last three practices before race day were their worst performances! So other schemes were devised.

Here is a more modern scheme for carbohydrate loading that is nearly as effective as the one discussed above, but much more manageable:

Day 6 – Training Day – Low carbohydrate diet (<200g carbohydrate)
Day 5 – Training Day – Low carbohydrate diet (<200g carbohydrate)
Day 4 – Training Day – Low carbohydrate diet (<200g carbohydrate) Day 3 – Recovery Day – High carbohydrate diet (>10g/kg carbohydrate)
Day 2 – Recovery Day – High carbohydrate diet (>10g/kg carbohydrate)
Day 1 – Recovery Day – High carbohydrate diet (>10g/kg carbohydrate)
Event Day

There are a million energy bars available at gas staions, grocery stores, and running stores. Some are low carb, some are high-carb, some are kosher, you get the picture.  But the truth is, these are just glorified candy bars.  That’s not all bad, but don’t believe the hype that these bars offer more nutritional value or provide more energy than a banana, an orange, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.