Fuelling the long run

I am always delighted to find out that people are reading my blog.  I find that the writing of it gives me extra motivation to train, as well as figure out what to change for optimum performance.

One of my friends and a reader of this blog is currently training for his first marathon, and asked me to put up a post about fuelling for his long runs.  Little did he know, I have recently completed a course in Sports Nutrition, and am happy to provide personalised advice.  If you're interested in this, you can contact me at angela.isherwood.health@gmail.com 

So, marathon training.

I like to think of marathon training as having 3 sides of a triangle, all of which are equally important.  These are:

1) actually putting in the training, the hard miles

2) recovery and injury prevention- this includes strength and stretching work as well as massages, ice baths, compression clothing etc

3) nutrition- what you are eating and drinking

If you are training for a marathon, you are likely to be running significantly more than you ever have done, and for your first one, your body will feel it.  The nutrition side of things can really help feed into your recovery, allowing your muscles to rebuild stronger, and ensuring you get a wide variety of micronutrients to help protect your immune system.  Intense marathon training can cause your immune system to become depleted, so anything that can help counter this effect is worth doing.

The athlete's diet.  

For marathon training, by far the most important macronutrient is carbohydrates.  Whilst general health guidelines recommend your macronutrients take the following proportions:

Carbohydrate: 50-60% Fat: 25-30% (no more that 35%) and Protein: 10-15%

A marathon runner should look to ensure their proportion of their diet formed from carbohydrate is at least 60% or 5-7grams of carbs per kg of body weight per day, and that their proportion of diet from fat is on the low end of that range- no more than 25%.

Where should the carbs come from?  Starchy carbs- potatoes, rice, pasta will probably end up making up the bulk of your diet, but you should also ensure you get a full rainbow of fruits and vegetables- as well as providing carbohydrate, this is where you get your micronutrients which will have various other beneficial effects such as protecting your immune system, preventing joint inflammation, preventing muscle soreness etc.  if your typical diet is meat and 2 veg, where meat makes up the main feature of all your meals, you may want to adjust this.  Whereas the protein is important, the fat content in meat can really mess with your optimal nutrition balance, as well as leaving you fuller, which may prevent you from consuming enough carbohydrates to fuel your training.

Fuelling on the long run.

Typically most runners will do their long run at the weekend, which makes it an ideal scenario to prepare for their race.  Especially in your first marathon, I would use some of the long runs to practice a race fuelling strategy.  This involves the pre-race carbo load, fuelling during the race, and post-race recovery.

During the pre-race carbo load, for a marathon I would spend at least 2 days prior to the race, possibly 3, aiming to top up the glycogen stores in my muscles- I would be in my taper, so a much reduced training load, and I would ensure that upto 85% of my food intake was carbohydrate.  In the day before, I might also look to reduce fibre to avoid any tummy problems during the race, so this might mean a day of pasta, jacket potatoes, bagels with jam/honey etc.  generally this high GI, high sugar diet is not recommended, but prior to a marathon, you want to ensure your body has as much energy stored as possible.  I would consume this in 6 small meals, as well as sipping on squash and water throughout the day.  For training, you may want to modify this to just the day before your long run, and perhaps only practise it for 1 in 3 long runs, so you can start to understand the effect it has on you.

During the run/race, we use our nutrition strategy to prevent the onset of 'the wall' this is where glycogen stores become completely depleted and the body starts to metabolise fat for energy- this is a much slower process and results in slower running.  My personal strategy consists of a combination of the following.  I mix up a 500ml drinks bottle of SiS go energy drink, and put in a teaspoon of chia seeds, I carry SiS Go electrolyte gels, including 1 with caffeine.  I used to use lucozade gels, but they are very sweet and sickly and you have to drink loads of water with them, whereas the SiS gels, although bigger to carry, do not require you to consume water in order to be able to digest them.  Once I have started the run, I will consume my energy drink and/or water to thirst, and I will take an energy gel every 45 minutes.  Typically if you are well trained and going at the right pace, you wouldn't feel as if you need energy at 45 minutes in, but the fact is, there is virtually no way you can replace all the energy you are using by running, so you are implementing a strategy to try and prevent 'empty' on the carb stores.  I'm a female of 60kg and this works for me.  If you weigh significantly more, or significantly less, or have more or less running experience, you may wish to adjust frequency of energy intake accordingly.  The caffeine gel is the one I take when I've run approximately 2 thirds to 3 quarters of my run or race, and this is to give me a bit of extra energy when it's potentially really hurting, but the end is still far away.  There are many other products in the market.  Some people use jelly babies and squash.  If you are going to make up your own squash, rather than buy a commercial sports product, it may be worth adding a pinch of salt to the drink to help you replace electrolytes and prevent dangerously low electrolyte levels in your blood.  This is especially important if you sweat a lot.

After the run/race- this is really really important for recovery and if you do nothing else I've suggested, do this.  Consume a snack that is approx 4/5 carb, 1/5 protein.  Examples include, 500ml chocolate milk, 2 slices toast with peanut butter and 250ml fruit juice.  Whatever works for you.  And rehydrate! This will help clear the waste products in your muscles.  The snack ideally is consumed within 30 minutes of finishing, which is why the liquid versions may be more palatable.  And have a proper meal perhaps 2 hours later, once you've bathed, stretched etc.