#6: From Pasta Parties to Protein: A Comprehensive Guide to Running Nutrition

Ever wondered how to fuel your body before that early morning run when you're racing against time? Get ready to unravel the science behind carbohydrates and their role in powering great and speedy running. Fret not about post-run hunger pangs, as we discuss the importance of hydration and nutritious food, spilling the beans on healthy snack options that can give you that quick energy boost you need. 

Carbohydrates and running have long been subjects of debate among fitness enthusiasts. We break down the difference between fast-acting and slow-burning carbs, debunking myths about pasta parties as an effective carb-loading strategy. We give you the lowdown on fueling during runs, discussing the right quantity of carbs you need, and how to weave them into your regular running routine.

As we wind up, we equip you with the knowledge on how to balance your fat and protein intake with increased carbohydrate consumption. We shed light on planning your carb intake for a race and suggest different snack options for the day before the race. And remember, practice makes perfect. Get into the habit of training your body on your fueling strategy rather than waiting till race day. Whether you're into shorter runs or longer races, we recommend fueling strategies that suit different distances and discuss why psychological boosts, like taking a gel, can be as beneficial as physiological ones.

Thanks for being part of our running community. Keep clocking those miles, keep pushing your limits, and above all, keep finding joy in the run. See you on the next episode of Maximum Mileage Running Podcast!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hi, everybody, hope you're all well. So today's weekly hot seat is all about fueling. I am going to start off with some questions that have been asked up ahead. So first of all is from Michelle HUD, who's my sister. Michelle asks about fueling for morning runs when you are limited for time. Now I'll go over this in a little bit more detail shortly, but one thing I always say to people is don't run without having eaten something. Now on the subject of morning runs when you're limited for time, because that usually is the time where somebody goes out for a run and they haven't eaten.

Speaker 1: 0:53

And you hear about things like fasted cardio in the gym world. I mean, just because you can, it doesn't mean you should. I'm not a big fan of fasted cardio at all because what we need to be doing when we are setting out for a run is having our blood sugars raised a little bit. We can find that if we haven't done that ahead of our run, we can get lightheaded, faint and even cause cardiac issues. I did a session with England football team cardiologist a few years back and he was talking about some of the cardiology issues cardiac issues that can crop up if the blood sugar hasn't been spiked before undertaking exercise. So particularly if you are going out for an interval session or speed work something where your heart rate is going to be quite high If it doesn't have that insulin spike, that sugar spike in the blood, it can cause you real issues. So great question With anything and again I'm going to go over this in detail throughout the presentation but it really is all about what works for you.

Speaker 1: 2:07

Now this is where conventional wisdom goes out the window a little bit, because you might think well, porridge, bagels, all that kind of stuff, that is all really good stuff. But me personally, if I'm getting up really really early and I need to get out of the door, I'll have a gel, I'll have a sweetie. Like I love Haribo, that's a great thing to have just a couple of Haribos before I go out. A little bit of chocolate, something that has got fast acting carbohydrates, sugars, in it. That's going to get straight into your bloodstream and cause your sugars to just be raised so you can get out and do your run safely. Having something like a bagel porridge, it just takes quite a long time for the body to break down. That's a slow carbohydrate. Again, we're going to go on this in a little bit more detail, but I would definitely be thinking about something really quick, really easy Half a banana. If you want something healthy, half a banana is perfect, or even a whole banana, but definitely something that's going to get into your bloodstream nice and quickly. Thank you, michelle, for that question. I hope that helps.

Speaker 1: 3:21

Next question is from Nathan. Actually, nathan asked a really good question about what I would eat if I was feeling hungry after a long run. Now there's a couple of. In fact, there's three things I would be looking at here. Number one would be how has my fueling gone on the run itself? If I haven't been fueling enough and we're going to go through this in the presentation, because that's what it's all about long run fueling, long race fueling If I haven't been fueling enough, then that is going to cause hunger afterwards.

Speaker 1: 4:05

You've got to think that when we are exercising, we are always breaking down carbohydrates. No matter how easy you run to use fat and oxygen as a fuel source, there is always going to be an element of carbohydrates. You need to be fueling your runs. So whilst you're on the run, if you aren't fueling enough, that's going to lead you to feel hungry. The second thing I would look at is how hydrated are you? If you are generally eating quite well and eating enough to support your day-to-day life and the running and the training that you're doing, then you shouldn't really feel too hungry. A lot of the time, what our body is sending us signals for is not more food, it's water. It's actually wanting to be hydrated. So that's the second thing I would look at.

Speaker 1: 5:03

And then the third thing I would do is I would then, as long as I've been feeling well and I'm well hydrated, if I then still feel hungry, then I would eat food. I would definitely be thinking right, I've done all the right things, I need to eat something, and I wouldn't be part of Nate's question was would you recommend any recovery shakes or protein shakes or anything like that? My answer to that is no. The only real sort of necessary situations for things like protein shakes are if you are looking to build muscle and you are needing an extra lift when it comes to protein intake. So I would definitely not be prioritizing a protein shake over something real. And just because you've been on a long run and you've been 2000 calories, I wouldn't be reaching for the KFC or the McDonald's. Get some really good nutritious food in you, because you will feel better, you'll utilize the nutrients better than eating some crap from a fast food restaurant. So those are the three things I'd be thinking about is how am I feeling on the run? If I haven't fueled well on the run, then yeah, I'm probably needing food to recover from that. If I'm then hydrated well, should be fine. And then the third thing I'd be thinking is right, the first two are in place and they're good. I'm gonna need to eat something nutritious afterwards, all right, so hopefully that answers your question. I did speak to James Scott about this, actually, and he was saying he notices where he's been a bit lazy with his nutrition on the run, his fueling on the run. That's when he tends to get back from the run and go I'm really hungry, like exorbitantly hungry. So something to bear in mind there. All right, cool.

Speaker 1: 7:09

So without further ado, the ultimate a brief guide to long run and slash long race fueling, because we're gonna talk about that in the session. So you may have all heard, particularly in marathon running, a term called the wall, the dreaded wall. That is something that usually comes about, not through a lack of training, which a lot of less knowledgeable amateur runners will attribute to them oh well, I only ran 20 miles in training and I will never give anybody a marathon during their training for a marathon. It's very rare that I give my ultra runners that kind of distance. So it's not down to the amount of miles that you do, which is often what people think. It's actually down to fueling. If you are fueling well throughout your race, you shouldn't hit the wall. That should not be something that's that actually happens. So let's get into it, because we're gonna talk about that marathon piece in a little while.

Speaker 1: 8:27

Ultra running is basically an eating and drinking competition, and that was a lady called Anne Transon, really well known in the ultra running world. Great quote once coined by her and star of the famed book Born to Run by Christopher McDougal. And she isn't wrong. Really, a poor fueling strategy can completely destroy your race. So you've got to get this right. It isn't just about going out and running. It isn't about the strength work, all about the strength work.

Speaker 1: 8:59

Fueling is hugely important, and it isn't just about fueling for your race day either. You have to be practicing it during training too. So that's what you'll see. On training peaks, I make comments around taking gels at certain points because you've got to be practicing it. So having a good, solid overall nutrition plan in general is usually important. There's no good smashing back crap food daily only to rely on race day strategies alone. Okay, so, firstly, a little bit of science important science nonetheless, and whether you're into the science stuff like me or not, you really need to know this. So just stay with me.

Speaker 1: 9:46

We are going to focus solely on carbs here, stored in the muscles as glycogen. That's the fuel that we use to fuel our exercise, fuel our running. I'm not a fan of keto. I tried it once. It's disgusting eating that much fat for a start, and certainly I actually got slower. So when you hear about people who say they're fat adapted or they're a keto runner, they won't be a fast runner. It is physically impossible for the body to run fast above those thresholds those lactate thresholds that I talk about without burning a significant amount of carbs. So anybody who says they're a fat adapted in inverted commas runner or a keto runner there's no science really to support it. So, yeah, ignore that.

Speaker 1: 10:46

We normally so let's talk about carbs, because that's the key thing that we're going to dial in on here. Carbohydrates are our fuel for good, faster running and long running as well. Generally, we normally burn off around one carb, one gram of carbohydrates per kilo of body weight per hour. Slightly less for women, slightly more for men, but you are generally all of us burning around that one gram of carbs per hour per kilogram of body weight per hour. So if you are a 75 kilogram runner, that is around the mark of 75 grams-ish per hour of running.

Speaker 1: 11:35

What does that look like? Because you'll be quite surprised at how much that is. You'll hear runners talking about. Or, when I do my marathon, I'll just have a couple of jelly babies. A couple of jelly babies is about 10 grams of carbohydrate for an entire race. It's just simply not enough. So what does that look like in terms of food? Well, it's around. Oh and, by the way, this is for anything over around 90 minutes. I'll talk about this in a bit more detail. But generally, if you've done your carbohydrate loading practice, which we'll talk about in a moment you should have around enough to run at a fairly decent intensity for about 90 minutes without needing any extra food. But we'll come on to that in a bit. So for a 75 kg person, that's three bananas per hour of running. Okay, three talk gels, which most of you will know, I'm sponsored by talk and I'm a big fan of them. Yeah, that's sort of around the three talk gels marked you probably get the picture three bananas per hour. So if you were running a marathon and let's say you were going to finish in around four hours, that's 12 bananas. Now that's not realistic, unless you're a monkey.

Speaker 1: 13:11

So we need to think about our strategy in a different way. We also need to consider the types of carbs. There are fast carbs. Those act very quickly. They get into your system pretty much straight away. The things that we're talking about here are dried fruits like apricots and dates. Dates are an excellent source, but they might make you need to poop Things with high sugar content in them. Sweets like Haribos, jelly babies, are a really good fast carb source. You just need a few of them. And then we've got slow carbs. So things like pasta. They are slower to digest and slower to release those carbohydrates. They take much longer for the body to break down. So things like pasta, bread, potatoes, rice, all of that kind of stuff. And there's a picture there of my favorite fast-nexting carb is an Oreo, but I wouldn't rate for those, and I'll come onto that a bit.

Speaker 1: 14:16

So let's talk about carb loading. So, in a nutshell, the stories of pasta parties are pretty much nonsense. You're eating a boatload of pasta. I mean, look at the plate that you can see on your screen here. You're eating a boatload of pasta the day or night before a big race. It just outrageous, just plain stupid. You're going to blow yourself. You're eating a large amount of carbs on the previous day. You know. This pasta party then, like before the London marathon here, about people doing it does not fill up your glycogen source. It simply isn't enough. You literally to get the enough carbohydrate to a carbo load just eating things like pasta. You need a lot of it, okay, so we'll come on to that in a bit as well. Instead, we'll go back instead.

Speaker 1: 15:16

What you should be, what you should be doing, is gradually over the course of the week prior to your big day. So I generally tend to start carb loading around Tuesday, wednesday. If I am racing on Saturday, sunday, which is usually the case, right, of course, you should add in some rice, some pasta, potatoes, etc. So that kind of stuff, to each meal in that week. And I would just note that if you are also not if, but when you are increasing your carbohydrate intake, you should reduce, probably, your fat intake to compensate for the amount of calories. Otherwise you just end up putting a load of weight on over the course of the week. So just hang a bit, hang back a little bit on the fat and protein intake and then add a little bit of extra rice, add a little bit of extra pasta to each meal, but don't go crazy.

Speaker 1: 16:10

Okay, and this is where conventional wisdom kind of goes out the window. Think about fast acting carbs. That's. That's where our muscles will retain more of the glycogen it gets to get into our body, and it's much easier to eat 100 grams of carbohydrates let's say, a handful of Haribo than it is to get through pasta. You are needing to eat a lot of pasta to get 100 grams of carbohydrates. 100 grams of pasta does not equal 100 grams of carbohydrate. The pasta is made up of a lot of other things, including the water that you boil it in. So, yeah, this is where conventional wisdom goes out the window a little bit.

Speaker 1: 17:01

So top up your carbohydrates in the days before the race with things that are not going to bloat you, and this means sweets, chocolate. They showed you a picture of Oreos. I'll eat a couple of packets of Oreos on the day before the race. Energy drinks that kind of stuff is all fair game in the days immediately before your big event. Now this might surprise you a little bit as well.

Speaker 1: 17:29

Some science papers cite that we should be aiming for around 8 to 12 grams of carbohydrates per kilo of body weight per day in the days prior to a race. So if you weigh 75 kilograms and you're let's call it around 10 grams of carbohydrate per kilo of body weight in the days before the race, you're talking around 700, 750 grams of carbohydrates to effectively car load. That is a lot of carbohydrates, like a lot. So really have a think about what works for you to get that level of carbohydrates in. So follow this and come race day, your glycogen stores which last about 90 minutes, as I previously mentioned at that sort of marathon effort will be nicely saturated, so we can run up to about 90 minutes without needing any extra carbohydrates. So just to know that we start needing and this is where your, your fueling, is critical. So what should we do for runs that are longer than 90 minutes and when should we take carbs during your race or long run. So, as in previous slides, we've established, you need around one gram of carbohydrates per kilo of body weight to get you through each hour.

Speaker 1: 19:18

So let's continue to work on a 75 kilogram person, and in that case it's actually going to be me, and this you can see on your screen here. This is actually a spreadsheet that I've created myself, so this is something I've touched on. I'll touch on again and again and again that this is based on me. We are all so individual we need to be trying different things, like what works for me is going to be very different to you, so I'll come on to that in a bit more. So let's forget about intensity here, but let's go with some, with time spent running as the measure.

Speaker 1: 19:59

And let's say, my projected runtime is five hours, which for me, for a 50 mile run, is entirely possible, or 35, 40 miles, it depends. For some of you, that's going to be entirely correct for your marathon. So therefore, I'm going to need five times 75 grams over the course of that five hours, which is 375 grams of carbs for the whole run. I like to break it down by hour and ensure that my carb intake is spread out nice and evenly, rather than having a massive load of carbs at the top of the hour, for example. I'll break it down into pieces like this, and in my pre-race preparations I'll use a spreadsheet to work it out. I know that's a bit geeky, but that's what works for me and some of the runners that I work with.

Speaker 1: 21:05

James, we've done it for you with your Endure 24. Nathan, we did a version of it with you for your backyard, and you should do this for any distance race over 90 minutes, so you may want to write it down. You may want to write down your fueling plan and have it on you during the run, and that just takes the thinking out of it as well. You'd want to be on the run thinking, right, what shall I have next? Have it written down. If you're wearing a vest or you've got it in your pocket, you can whip out and go right, what am I having next? And have that thing. So it just spreads things out nicely for you. All right, so it's up to you to work that out, but I'm here to help you if you need to.

Speaker 1: 21:50

So yeah, using me as an example, as you can see, purely from a taste perspective, I like to mix things up in terms of sweet and savory. Too many gels at the start of a race and I get that kind of furry mouth feel. So something like a bagel with peanut butter and jam will work for me, and I find it also stays off hunger a little bit as well. You know it's nothing worse than being hungry in a race. So I always ensure that my slow release carbs in this case the bagel are early on. The reason for that is because there's a couple of reasons. Actually, the carbs from that will take longer to break down. Those slower carbs take longer for our bodies to break down and use as energy and get into the bloodstream as glycogen, whereas gels will kick in pretty much straight away, and the energy drink that I use on here as well. So that 500 ml with energy and electrolyte that will also get in fast as well. The other reason is that I tend to find it a little bit more difficult to be eating the more a race goes on, so you might want to consider, if you are eating any solid stuff, to be having a little bit earlier on. Having said that, I will always caveat it with whatever works for you, okay. So yeah, for me, 500 ml of fluid per hour is what works for my sweat rate. I won't go into that today, but it is well worth working out how much you sweat. Precision hydration are the masters of this, and if you jump on their website, they do a free sweat test and they give you some tips around that. I can also talk to you about it as well. So, yeah, for me, 500 ml of fluid per hour works for my sweat rate.

Speaker 1: 23:57

With 40 grams worth of carbs, a energy drink, usually around two scoops or something like torque. There's things like tailwind and mountain fuel and stuff like that out there as well. I like a little bit of chocolate with sea salt. That's fair game with me. It's quite handy because it's got a little bit of that pinch of sea salt in it and it just tastes nice towards the end of a race as well. Losing too much salt can cause things like cramps and muscle spasms and can totally end your race. So that's something to consider as well, and you may also notice that I start my fueling from around 20 minutes into the race.

Speaker 1: 24:43

It is really important to start eating from the start of the race. Don't wait. You start burning carbohydrates pretty much almost immediately, as soon as your heart rate goes up into that heavier effort. So you need to start replacing them straight away. Don't wait until 90 minutes the 90 minutes that I was talking about. We have enough carbs. A lot of people do that. They go oh well, I've got enough for 90 minutes. I'll start fueling at 90 minutes. By that time it's too late. Even after about half an hour, you're starting to dabble in dangerous territory there. So, yeah, get your fueling in nice and early, okay. So what should you eat Now?

Speaker 1: 25:34

This is a bit of one of those unanswerable questions. There isn't really a prescribed menu for you to choose from here, as in previous slides, I have given you the previous slide what works for me. But I know some people who can't stomach something like a bagel. I know people who can't take gels as it gives them the shits. I know people who will do an entire 100-mile ultra 24 hours just eating bars of chocolate. I know people who swear by things like pork pies or vegan sausage rolls or whatever it might be. There are people in fact Izzy, who I coach has things like baby food.

Speaker 1: 26:22

So you get the idea here that what works for one person might not work for someone else and it's really, really important for you to work out what works for you. I can give you all the recommendations in the world, and I'm happy to do that on a call, individually with you, but it really is up to you to get out there on those training runs, especially for those of you who are starting to ramp up into things like the London Marathon. You've got Marcus and Sakina who are doing an ultra at the end of September October we're starting to get to the business end now, where your long runs are happening. You need to be practicing your fueling and testing what works for you. Do not leave it to race day. That's one of the worst things you can do. So, yeah, your training runs are that ideal opportunity to test stuff out and also to test out your eating and drinking strategy itself.

Speaker 1: 27:20

So should you be having something every 20 minutes, 25 minutes, half an hour, depending on how heavy you weigh, getting used to eating what and when, get used to the mouthfeel of things? Trust me, something like a bagel that I'll have. I know that eating a bagel whilst pushing out my marathon pace is a choking hazard. So, or at any pace really, you know when you're chewing on something and running it is a choking hazard. So I'll always have it with a swig of drink, and it's those kind of things that you need to practice and find out on race day or on your training runs before you hit race day, and you don't think of this stuff unless you practice it. If you turned up on race day with a bagel and had it for the first time and, god forbid, it didn't cause you any stomach issues, but you might be chewing on it, and if you haven't got something to drink, you might end up choking. It's little things like that that you need to be thinking about. So the answer to this question what should you eat? That's really up to you to find out.

Speaker 1: 28:32

Just follow the grams of carb per kilogram of body weight rule, as we've already talked about, and enjoy learning how and what to eat whilst you're on the run. It can be a fun and sometimes exhilarating experience, especially when you have to dart behind a bush for a nature poo, but it also can be quite tricky as well. James, who I coach, will attest to this. He spent the best part of the last year trying to get his strategy nailed down. He now has it, which is great, but you need to be practicing yours as well. Okay, so what about runs under 90 minutes? So, as we've already talked about, you store up to roughly 90 minutes worth of glycogen, assuming that you've done your carb loading correctly. So in reality, you should not be needing any additional carbs, and if you do, it should be fast carbs.

Speaker 1: 29:42

Having something like a bagel or flapjack or something like that in a race for around 90 minutes Probably isn't going to do a lot for you, because it takes too long for the body to break down. You need that. You know those gels, those jelly babies, those Haribos, that kind of thing to get into your bloodstream pronto. So on the screen, I've got some examples of what I do. So for a 5K race, okay, I realize I'm relatively quick, but really, if that's a race, I might take a gel 15 minutes before and it depends. Like if it's like a park run, where it's earlier in the morning, then yeah, I'll take one. If it's a 5K race like I did pretty much a 5K race last night I've been eating all day it's absolutely no point in taking anything before that. Just no point because I've already got black as you're.

Speaker 1: 30:40

In my system, 10k races pretty much the same as 5K, if it's. If it's early in the morning, I'll take a gel, and even actually if it's sort of later in the day with the 10K, I'll probably still take a gel anyway. And then half marathons. So this is where I start dabbling around the 90 minute mark. I will take a gel before and then I often take a gel with around four miles left. Do I need to take that physiologically? Probably not because I'm running under that 90 minute mark. For me, I think it's purely a psychological boost, which isn't a bad thing. Any little kind of win that we can get is a good thing. So yeah, I probably don't need to take that, but I do anyway, just to provide me with a little bit of extra. And then to cap things off for me when I run a marathon so I run just under three hours I can do that on 100% gels. I've actually done one ultra Breckin' Tocca six hours. I did that 100% gels mostly because it was raining so much my sausage roll got soaking wet. But yeah, I will.

Speaker 1: 32:10

I will pretty much only eat gels during a marathon. I'll have three an hour. You know, keep that glycogen going because I'm running at a pretty tough pace. I certainly wouldn't be eating something, something solid on a marathon just because I'm just running too fast. There isn't readily water available. I don't use a hydration pack. I won't eat something solid, but for some of you you might want to eat something solid because you are in that sort of four, five, six hour range of completing a marathon. So again, it all comes down to you. As long as you follow that rule of one gram per kilogram of body weight per hour, then you're not going to hit the wall and you're going to run a really, really good race. I hope that helps you all. Thank you very much for watching and listening. I will speak to you soon. Cheers.