Ask a Dietitian

There are several great ½ marathons happening across the country throughout the year.  If you plan to take on the challenge of running 13 miles (21 km), an important part of your training needs to be your nutrition.  Fueling up the day before, the morning of, during the run and recovery after are all essential components of your sport nutrition game plan.  If you plan to do the Seawheeze lululemon ½ marathon you will find some sport nutrition products in your race pack and throughout the event. The day before: Focus on your hydration and regular meals and snacks.  Aim for at least 2 -2.5 litres of water throughout the day and aim to eat every 3 hours.  Meals and snacks should contain carbohydrates from foods such as fruit, vegetables, milk, yogurt, grain products and legumes.  All meals and some snacks should also include a source of protein from foods such as meat, fish, poultry, protein powder, tofu, nuts, eggs, dairy and beans.  There is no need to carbo load as was once recommended.  Instead, in the 2-3 days leading up to the run, start to taper your exercise and maintain the carbohydrate content of your diet stable.  The meal the night before should contain a good source of carbohydrates but you don’t need 3 cups of pasta.  Stay balanced, include some pasta with tomato sauce, salad and grilled chicken or fish.  You may also want to have a bedtime snack, this will top up the glycogen stores before you go to bed.  Have cereal and milk, toast with peanut butter, fruit salad and yogurt or a turkey sandwich. The day of the race: Aim to wake up at least 2-3 hours before the start of the race.  Have a well-balanced breakfast including some whole grains, fruit and protein.   Ideally this will be a breakfast that you have tested before race day to make sure you tolerate it well.  My favorite is oatmeal with raisins, walnuts and milk. 20 minutes before the start of the race: At this point you will already be at the venue and perhaps standing around at the start line warming up.  It may have been 2-3 hours since breakfast so you will need a little top up of energy.  Plan ahead so have something on hand.  Try the Vega Energizer drink mix which contains 16g of carbohydrates, some fast carbs and some lower GI carbs to provide instant energy and some a little later on.  As a bare minimum have a few sips of water.   During: For the first 45 minutes all you need is water if you have followed the above recommendations.  Aim to consume ¼-1/2c water every 10-15 minutes.  After 45 minutes, then you can start replacing your carbohydrates with an energy gel such as Vega Endurance gels.  These provide you with 20g of carbohydrate to fuel your run.  Aim for 0.7g of carbs/kg body wt/hr.  For a 75kg man this would be 52.5g of carbs/hr after the first 45 minutes.  Try a combination of gels and sports drinks.  If you like food, try raisins, bananas, arrowroot cookies or dilute apple juice.  Keep up your hydration throughout.  If you sweat a lot and if it’s quite hot out, you may want to replace your electrolytes with an electrolyte supplement such as the Vega hydrator after 90 minutes in the heat. Recovery: After the race it’s a good idea to rehydrate with 2 cups of water right away and then recover with a carbohydrate and protein source within the hour.  Chocolate milk is a popular one but won’t be quite enough for after a ½ marathon.  Vega has a recovery accelerator with 17g of carbs and 4 g of protein/scoop so you would want to have a couple scoops.  Ideally for recovery you want at least 50-100g of carbs if you pushed yourself to your max, combined with some protein for muscle and tissue repair.  Try a bagel with peanut butter or sliced turkey, fruit and Greek yogurt smoothie or a chicken wrap.  Have a banana, orange or tomato juice for extra potassium. Finally, don’t forget to stretch!!!  And ice the sore spots.

The Lululemon Seawheeze is August 10th, 2013.