Runners spend a lot of time thinking about what kit they’re going to wear on race day, what shoes might help them go a little faster and whether that one 5k they missed six months ago is going to have a detrimental affect on their performance. If only everyone gave as much attention to putting enough of the right fuel into their body pre and during their race - because this is something that can really have a big impact on how your race goes.
I’m generalising, of course, some runners are very diligent in their nutrition planning but a lot of runners still aren’t fuelling well enough. I know because, until recently, I was one of those runners. I thought I was doing carb loading right and having enough on-course fuel, until I started taking better advice and saw the improvements for myself.
Last year I ran a pretty big PB in a half marathon. This was mainly down to training but my fuelling also played a part. Traditionally I’d take a gel around half way in a half marathon, or maybe two maximum during a race of this distance. But last year, after listening to dietitians like Tom Hollis and Charlie Watson, I upped this.
I took an energy chew about 30 minutes before the race started the fuelled with a gel or chew three times during the race. The result was that I still had plenty of energy for those last few miles. The race was still hard, but I didn’t feel the same sort of fatigue. This race really spurred me on to rethink my marathon fuelling this year and, even though the weather was against me, my last marathon went really well fuel wise and I felt strong throughout. I did a very methodical carb load in the three days before and then took six gels out on the course (one every half hour).
How to fuel your next race
Any race distance needs you to be fuelled well if you want to perform well, but the longer the race the more fuel you’ll be using. The important periods are the day(s) before, the morning of your race and during the race. So we’ll look at all of those.
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