What to Eat Before an Early Morning Run (When You Only Have 15 Minutes)

Do you skip breakfast before your morning runs because you don't have enough time to digest? Or maybe you assume your only options are waking up an hour earlier or running completely fasted.

In this episode, sports dietitian Natalie Rizzo breaks down a simple middle-ground approach that can help you feel more energized during those early miles. even when you only have 15 minutes before heading out the door.

You'll learn:

• Why runners often feel sluggish during early morning workouts
• What happens to your glycogen stores overnight
• Why simple carbohydrates work better than high-fiber foods right before a run
• The best quick-digesting snacks to eat 15–30 minutes before running
• How much carbohydrate you actually need
• Hydration tips for early morning runners

Tune in to discover why even a small amount of fuel can make a big difference in your performance, recovery, and consistency as a runner.

Apply to work with Natalie for 1-on-1 nutrition coaching! 

Have questions or want to request a show topic? DM us @greenletes

Check out Natalie's book 📕: Planted Performance

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Greenleads Podcast. Today we're talking about one of the biggest nutrition challenges runners face. What to eat before an early morning run when you barely have enough time to get dressed, let alone digest your food. Maybe you've got a 6 a.m. track workout, or maybe your alarm went off a little too late and you're trying to squeeze in a run before work. Either way, you want to fuel your body, but you're not sure if you should. So you may think you have two options. Option one, wake up an hour before your run to make sure that you have enough time to digest so your stomach feels good. Or option two, run completely fasted. But here's the good news: you don't need a full breakfast and you don't need to run on empty. There is a middle round, even if you only have 15 minutes before heading out the door. A very small amount of quick digesting carbohydrates can give your body the energy it needs to perform without causing stomach issues. So today I'm going to explain why this works, what foods are best, and exactly what I recommend for those early morning runs that will leave you feeling fueled but not overly full. So why is morning running fueling so hard for so many people? Have you ever started a morning workout and felt like your legs were made of concrete? Maybe your peace feels harder than it should. Maybe you feel selfish during your intervals, or maybe you're wondering if your fitness disappeared overnight. The answer probably isn't your fitness, it's generally your fueling, especially with those early morning miles. When you wake up, you've likely gone eight to ten hours without eating, and maybe even longer. During that time, your body is still using energy to keep your heart pumping and your brain working, and all the systems within your body need calories to continue to function. So one of the biggest changes that happens overnight is that your liver glycogen or the stored carbs in your body become depleted. So think of your liver glycogen as your body's backup energy reserve that helps maintain your blood sugar levels or helps keep you energy. By morning, those stores are lower than they were the night before. That's one reason why many runners feel flat, sluggish, or low energy first thing in the morning. It's happening to me. I go out for a 6 a.m. run the first mile or two, I'm feeling a little fatigued, and your body isn't necessarily out of fuel completely, but it's also not operating with a full tank. So you absolutely need to take in some fuel. A small carbohydrate snack can before you run can help bridge that gap. Now, you may be thinking, okay, I need time to digest, or else I'm gonna feel terrible, my stomach's gonna be sloshing during that run. A common complaint I hear is I can't eat before I run because I don't have enough time to digest. And honestly, understandable. Nobody wants side stitches, stomach cramps, or that uncomfortable sloshy feeling during the workout. And you don't want to be running to the bathroom because you ate something too close and you're feeling nauseous or down about cramps. But there is a middle ground between eating too much too close to the rung and not eating at all. If your breakfast is generally something like eggs, oatmeal with nuts, maybe avocado toast, or even toast with nut butter and some fruit, you probably need more digestive time than 15 minutes before a run to let that settle in your stomach. But that's not what we're talking about here. When you only have about 15 minutes, the goal for what you have before a run should be different. You're not trying to eat the healthiest breakfast possible. You're trying to get quick energy into your system with minimal digestive work, maybe something that's super simple carbs, a decent amount of sugar that gives you a basically a fuel boost in your system without making your stomach work too hard. So here's why simple carbs work best for this. For this short window, simple carbohydrates are your friends. And that simple carbohydrates means things like white bread, maybe sourdough bread, rice cakes, applesauce, bananas, maple syrup, graham crackers, granola bars, waffles, things that you may not think of as super healthy. Obviously, fiber is fantastic for your overall health. It's great for your gut health and blood sugar control and satiety. But right before it runs, too much sugar can sorry, too much fiber can slow digestion and increase the chances of GI discomfort. The same thing goes for fat. Fat slows something called gastric emptying, meaning how long it takes for the food to come out of your stomach. So the food sits in your stomach for a long period of time and it can cause GI in the future starting to run. So you want to avoid the things that have a lot of fiber or a lot of fat if you're eating 15, 20, 30 minutes before a run. That's why I like something we call kind of a low residue approach for early morning fueling, basically meaning low residue with low fiber. Keep the fiber low, keep the fat low, and keep the portions small. Focus on carbohydrates that your body can absorb quickly. The things I touched on before, waffles, grabpeckers. So, yeah, let's get into what you should actually eat. Let's get practical. If you only have about 15 minutes before running, you're gonna aim for 15 to 30 grams of carbohydrates. Now, you may not know exactly what that is, but some easy examples, like half a banana, maybe one rice cake with a drizzle of maple syrup on it, white toast with a little bit of jam. Personally, I really like kids' granola bars, things like Z-bar, which is a cliff bar, but it's made for kids, so it's smaller, or maybe a handful of pretzels, graham crackers, even cod tart works if you're really doing something where you have to get it in quickly, but you don't have a lot of time. If you also maybe only have something like one gram cafe or a handful of pretzels, fill your water bottle with some sports drink so that you can have that during the run to give you a little extra fuel that maybe weren't able to get in before. These are all quick, easy, portable, and fast to digest, meaning that your system can take that fuel up quickly. So maybe you're not getting it in the first mile of your run, but in the second mile, you will start to feel that energy boost coming from those quick digestion carbs. The goal isn't perfection. The goal is getting you some fuel into your body before the workout starts. Now let's also not forget about fluids, because food isn't the only thing that matters here. Many runners wake up slightly dehydrated. After all, you've gone the whole night without drinking anything. Or maybe you woke up once or twice to have a glass of water. But before heading out, you definitely want some fluid in your system because going into a run dehydrated is already putting you at a deficit. So if you can drink a full glass of water, eight to 16 ounces, great. If you feel like you drink that and your stomach feels a little wonky, maybe it is just having a few sips of some water. And if you can tolerate some caffeine, that will also give you an extra boost. But these are things that you need before a run to make you feel like you are going to have enough energy to get you through. You, if you cannot take in enough fluid before a run, again, bring hydration vest with you, bring a handheld water bottle, fill it with sports drink, fill it with water, that will get you to have some fluid so that you're not super dehydrated during this early boarding run. And that really can choose to how you feel as well. So what if you think you can't eat before running? A lot of runners tell me, I just can't tolerate any food. And sometimes that's true, but often it's just a skill that you haven't practiced yet. Your gut is something that you're able to train. Just like your muscles, you can train your gut to tolerate food. So the way to do this is to start very, very small. Maybe it's just one or two bites of food before a run. Maybe it's a few sips of water, then you gradually work your way up. Keep track of how much you're able to tolerate. Do it for a week, then a week later, try to add in an extra bite. Maybe it's starting with something simple like half a slice of toast or half a waffle, half a granola bar. Maybe it's two bites of it, then it becomes half. Then it becomes the whole thing. You can teach your gut to take in more food during this so that you can then over time take in more food in the 15 to 30 minutes leading up to a run. So do all of that, do it during your training, and you will eventually get to a place where your gut is trained as well as your muscles. And remember, these do not need to be Instagram-worthy breakfasts. These are just things that are gonna fuel you for that run, and you can come back after the run and have the healthy breakfast that you want to have to make you feel satisfied for your day. And as a matter of fact, having that healthy breakfast after the run is a great way to recover. So maybe when you want to have the fiber-filled foods, especially on a plant-based diet, things like oatmeal, smoothies, all of that, you want to save for after the run. So to recap, let's go back through where we started and where we ended up now. If you are waking up 15, 20, 30 minutes before your run and you're feeling like you cannot take in any food, I guarantee you that any issues you are having right now, whether it's GI distress or feeling like their legs are super sluggish, or you just feel terrible during those early morning runs, you just can't seem to get the pace right. Adding in even the smallest bit of fuel can help. It can help your performance overall, and it can help you feel better later in the day. So although it may sound like you can't tolerate anything, start with something incredibly small. A few bites of granola bark, half a graham cracker, a few bites of just a simple bread. One trick that I like to give people is eat something that sounds appealing to you. If you love hot tarts, go for that. You love waffles, you love bread and bagels, go for those. Start there. Don't try to force yourself to eat a banana or something that really doesn't sound good to you at 5:30 in the morning. Start small, train your gut during your training. Start with the smallest amount that you can train, do it for a week, add a little more overtime. See how this makes you feel, see how you feel throughout your training and how you progress in terms of your physical training. You'd be surprised how the smallest amount, 15 to 30 grams of carbs, really does make a difference in your overall training over a period of time. And then add in the fiber foods later, after the run, as a recovery tool. Even if it's a long run and you feel like you can't take in much, have a little bit then and two hours later have the full meal. That's what's going to help you get through these early morning runs and stay consistent with them. Because remember, we're not trying to do things for one run, we're trying to do them consistently over time, because that's how we build a fueling framework, which I do have a podcast and a video about. So make sure you go listen to that one because the fueling framework is really goes into the pre-workout fuel, the during workout fuel, and the after workout fuel is a system that you can repeat over and over again. So thanks so much for listening today. If you liked this video or podcast, please give it a thumbs up, give it a reading, subscribe, let me know how you're feeling and other questions that you have. You can always DM me at Green Leads or leave a comment under the video. I'm here to help. And let me know what your fuel of choice is.