Diet and preparing to run an upcoming event

As mentioned in the previous post, your diet is crucial for ensuring you have enough fuel to complete a racing event. But also your clothing and footwear is important to avoid chafing and blisters.

Here's what I do...

Food:

During the rest period 3 - 4 days before the event, any time you get hungry eat something, this will help you fuel up and get you through the event.  Basically what I do is graze.

Avoid heavy red meats like a steak the night before a race as your body takes a long time to digest red meat.  You'll enjoy your juicy steak all the more after the race.

The morning I ran the marathon I ate a lot of food as we were up at 5am to travel to Staten Island and the race wasn't until 9am so it was quite a while.  If there's going to be a long time lapse between breakfast and the start of the race you need to be well fed.  On the otherhand, if the race is local and the time lapse will be short you may have to get up early to make sure you have enough time to digest your food. Some people get up early, eat their breakfast and go back to bed for a while.

Personally I like to eat a small bowl of porridge, orange juice followed by a 1 egg scrambled on brown bread or piece of toast.

If you're doing a 1/2 or full marathon you might want to consider investing in a bum bag to store some food supplies during the race. No harm to have a few jelly shots, a light nutrigrain fruit bar you're used to eating to keep you going. Gels are a great source of easily digestible carbs but the key here is to trial them out during training and not the day of the race.

Ever lick your lips on a long run and taste salt? During the race your body loses salt through your sweat and that's your body salt coming out in your sweat on your upper lip. What many runners do is take a tiny and I mean a tiny lick of salt on the saddle of their hand before the race or take salt on their breakfast. Alternatively put an electrolyte into your water.

Invest in a water belt, this saves you carrying a bottle in your hand. Even if there are water stations its no harm to have your own water/isotonic drink mixture with you as the station may be some distance away just when you need to  quench your thirst.

I recommend you do NOT eat anything new the day of a race as it could upset your tummy or worse, the need for the toilet!

Lots of events have fruit, bars and drinks at the end of a race, but don't bank on it if its a smaller event as they may not have the budget. So make sure and have a post run food pack at the drop point.

Book recommendation: Nancy Clark's Food Guide for Marathoners, Meyer & Meyer Sport.

Clothing & Runners:

Wear your training runners, don't wear new ones. They should be like slippers, not tight. If you're doing a 1/2 or full marathon its advisable to put vaseline on to the heel and top front of the toes and make sure your toe-nails are clipped short or you just might lose one.

Wear running clothes that you have worn lots of times and not new clothes as they may itch or scratch the body. If you're wearing a sleeveless top put some chaffing gel on your inner arm to avoid chafing.

Put plenty of sun cream on to avoid burning even on overcast days and I find a baseball cap (white or light in colour) is a great way of protecting your head from the heat of the sun. It's also handy on overcast glary days even if you're wearing shades and is great at keeping the rain off your face.