Nutrition is vitally important in every sport. The right nutrition provides a host of benefits from enhanced workout performance to reduced injury risk. Nutrition errors, on the other hand, can hold you back by compromising post-workout recovery, for example, or causing your muscles to fatigue prematurely.
Some nutrition guidelines apply to all athletes. Every athlete is human, after all, and each human being shares the same basic nutrition needs. But runners have their own special nutrition requirements. For example, hydration and energy consumption during training and competition are more important to runners than to most other athletes, because they sweat more and burn more calories than many other types of athletes. At the same time, fueling on the run is more challenging than fueling in most other sports, because most runners don’t want to slow down or stop to drink (at least during races) and because the stomach jostling involved in running makes it hard to tolerate a high stomach volume. So runners require innovative approaches to fueling their bodies. Running also results in a tremendous amount of muscle tissue damage compared to other sports. The right nutrition practices will reduce the amount of running-related muscle damage you experience and will accelerate the muscle repair process. Similar practices may also benefit athletes in other sports, but for runners the cost of not using them is far greater.
Body weight is another special concern for runners. A low body weight is more beneficial in running than in many other sports, as every ounce adds to the load your muscles have to lift and push forward with each stride. Yet runners must be very careful how they seek to achieve their best “race weight.” Severe calorie restriction (dieting) is likely to shed some pounds, but it is also likely to increase your risk of injury and to ruin your workouts by sapping your energy stores. Runners need a more sophisticated approach than dieting to achieve their best race weight.
There are many general nutrition resources for athletes, and even several for endurance athletes, but very few that address the nutrition requirements and challenges of runners only. Using the very latest sports and nutrition science and my more than 20 years of personal experience as a runner and running coach, I wrote this book to satisfy the glaring need for such a resource.
In the following chapters, you will learn everything you need to know to enhance your running performance with nutrition. This includes information on using nutrition to boost your overall health, because anything that benefits your health benefits your running as well. I will share cutting-edge strategies for how to fuel your body for maximum performance in workouts and races, how to optimize your body composition, how to minimize running-related muscle damage, and dozens of other tips to help you get the most out of your running.
Your training is already customized to your needs and goals as a runner. Get ready to take your nutrition to the same level—and to achieve maximum performance as a result.