When runners submit their applications for FIRST email coaching or to be a participant at one of our Running Retreats, they are asked to list an area of their running that needs improvement. Most cite a need to improve dietary habits. Before the retreat, participants complete a 3-day food diary. Then we analyze their food consumption and provide detailed information about their macro- and micronutrients, as well as their daily caloric intake. What we observe is that runners, like most Americans, fail to eat a balanced diet that is composed primarily of fruits, vegetables, and grains. We are particularly struck by how many runners rely on energy bars for many of their daily calories.
Runners who train vigorously and assiduously are often not willing to be as disciplined with their eating habits. We are convinced that they fail to reach their potential because they are not properly fueled for their training. We have seen runners in our training studies improve dramatically with improved nutrition as much as with dedicated and smart training.
Most of the runners attending our lectures and participating in our training studies say they are confused about dietary guidelines or have difficulty adhering to them. Unfortunately, the avalanche of books touting unsound dietary schemes has not made it easier for runners to be well informed about proper nutrition.
“Portion Distortion” has made it difficult for Americans to recognize what is a reasonable amount of food to consume. Larger servings, plates, cartons, and bottles have made it a challenge to understand what a normal serving size is. Maintaining an ideal weight is a matter of balancing caloric intake (the food you eat) with caloric expenditure (daily metabolism and calories burned by exercise.) Sorry, there is no magic weight-loss diet. Just as it takes months of dedicated training to prepare for a marathon, that same discipline is necessary for losing weight.
• A well-balanced diet is recommended for all healthy adults; just because you exercise doesn’t mean you can eat anything you want.
• A runner’s diet should be based primarily on complex (unrefined) carbohydrates, which includes whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.
• Sixty to 70 percent of your calories should come from carbohydrate sources, with only 10 percent from simple carbohydrates.
• Protein should account for 15 percent of total calories, and should be selected from vegetables and lean cuts of meat. Vegetable protein is just as nutritious as animal protein, but has less saturated fat.
• Fat calories should account for 15 to 25 percent of your total caloric intake.
• Trans-fatty acids (common in snack and processed foods) should be avoided due to their significant negative impact on blood cholesterol.
• Healthy eating will meet all of the needs of the runner, with only minimal changes needed prior to competition.
• The diet must provide the energy needed for successful participation in a vigorous training program.
• Once their optimal weight for training has been obtained, runners must fine-tune caloric intake to maintain their desired target weight.
• Not eating enough will make you unable to complete the quality workouts in the FIRST Training Program and may result in loss of lean body weight.
• It is best to eat various foods that provide a variety of nutrients.
Q. Why should I consume so many carbohydrates?
A. Carbohydrates supply the body’s immediate energy needs and are the major source for glycogen, which is the storage form of carbohydrates in the body. A high-carbohydrate diet ensures the runner a full glycogen load for training and competition.
Minimizing the consumption of simple sugars will help avoid a roller-coaster effect in blood glucose levels. Choosing fruits for dessert is a healthier option than refined-sugar desserts. Fruits, like other unrefined carbohydrates, add lots of important vitamins and minerals and, in some cases, fiber.
Intense training requires that carbohydrates be replaced daily. Since FIRST training is based on high-quality running, it is important that your daily diet be based predominantly on complex (unrefined) carbohydrates.
Q. What is the glycemic index and should I concern myself with it?
A. The glycemic index is a measure of how a carbohydrate source affects your blood sugar level. Some carbohydrates raise your blood sugar level more than others.
Foods with a high glycemic index release sugar into the bloodstream faster than foods with a lower glycemic index. The quick rise in blood sugar triggers an insulin response. The resulting hyperglycemic condition is associated with long-term weight gain, diabetes, and coronary heart disease. Athletes want to consume meals with a low glycemic index so that energy is released steadily throughout their competition. Also, a low-glycemic-index diet reduces hunger and helps you feel fuller longer, which is valuable for weight management.
In general, refined carbohydrates and simple carbohydrates (sugars) have a higher glycemic index than complex carbohydrates (starches). Unrefined grains such as brown rice and whole-grain breads and cereals tend to have a lower glycemic index than refined carbohydrates. Fruits and vegetables also have a low glycemic index. Other examples of carbohydrates with lower glycemic index values are whole wheat pastas, whole-grain breads, bran cereals, grapes, fresh and dried apricots, apples, grapefruit, oranges, baked beans, lentils, corn, peas, chickpeas, green beans, and low-fat yogurt.
After an intense workout or race, however, you might choose to consume high glycemic foods, for example, a candy bar, pretzels, white bread, baked potato, or sports drink, to get the blood glucose level up quickly so as to assist in replenishing muscle glycogen and aid recovery.
Q. Will consuming more protein increase my running performance?
A. Protein does not provide a significant amount of energy when you run or work out. Protein is the major building material of the body and is essential for tissue growth and repair. A diet based on 15 percent protein will meet both of these needs. The body cannot store protein; any extra is converted into carbohydrates or fat, with little being used for your immediate energy needs.
Q. Is the protein from meat better than proteins from plant sources?
A. Protein is protein regardless of the source. Animal protein has been called high-quality protein because it contains all 20 amino acids needed by humans. Soy is the only plant source that contains all 20 amino acids. Therefore, vegetarians must mix and match their food selections to ensure they receive all 20 amino acids from their diet. For example, a combination of beans and rice, sometimes called complementary protein sources, will supply all of the essential amino acids. For health, more of your protein should be derived from plant sources so as to reduce fat intake. While we are not necessarily advocating a vegetarian diet, we are suggesting that endurance athletes and runners adopt a plant-based diet.
Q. Why are polyunsaturated fats preferred to saturated fats?
A. There are numerous studies linking saturated fat with chronic diseases, especially heart disease. Polyunsaturated fats have been associated with a decrease in the risk for these diseases. By combining unsaturated fats and a low-fat diet, the runner will have an optimal disease-fighting menu. A healthy runner is typically a faster runner.
Q. What are trans-fatty acids (TFAs), and why are they considered so bad?
A. Trans-fatty acids are created by a hydrogenation process of corn or other oils to increase shelf life and meet consumer tastes. Trans-fatty acids are known to reduce the good cholesterol, HDL, while increasing the bad cholesterol, LDL. TFAs have also been shown to damage the blood vessels, increasing the risk of atherosclerosis and heart disease.
Q. How much fluid does the runner need to consume?
A. It is important to stay adequately hydrated. Drink enough during the day to keep your urine clear. Two hours before a workout, drink 16 ounces of your preferred sports drink or water. Two hours is ample time for the fluid to be cleared from the stomach and for the kidneys to remove the excess. Thirst is not a reliable way of determining your hydration needs.
You should consume a quantity of fluid that is equal to your fluid loss from sweating and breathing during exercise. Weighing yourself before and after a run is a good way to determine your sweat loss during exercise. In general, you need to drink 1 pint of fluid for each pound lost during exercise. Sweat rates vary from runner to runner and with weather conditions.
You need to practice drinking during your training, both to train your body to handle fluids during exercise and to learn what is a comfortable amount for you to drink while working out. This is especially important during longer events, when fluid loss from sweating might exceed the ability of your body to process added fluids.
Q. What fluid is best to drink?
A. Well before race day, contact the event promoters to find out what types of fluid replacement are available. During your long runs, practice with the race-day drink to get used to it. If you can’t tolerate the event drink, be prepared to drink water or carry your own drink. You do not want to find out on race day that your stomach can’t handle the event drink.
Q. Can I drink too much water?
A. Yes, especially during prolonged exercise. For the last several years, runners have heard “hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.” Hydration is good and important, but during long runs some runners drink too much fluid. The popularity of the marathon has resulted in the participation of runners with a vast divergence of talent. Marathon times have increased to an average of over 4 hours, with many runners still on the road 5 to 6 hours after the start. Many of these runners have trained with groups that stress the importance of fluid intake throughout the course of the race. Due to the low workload related to their pace, these runners actually gain water weight as a result of consuming more water than what they lose by sweating. This results in lower sodium concentrations in their blood and can lead to hyponatremia. Because the symptoms may resemble those of dehydration, hyponatremia victims are often given liquids, only worsening their condition. Hyponatremia is a life-threatening condition that has been responsible for several marathoners’ deaths over the past years. Use your weight loss during exercise as a guide for fluid replacement.
Q. Should I take a mineral/vitamin supplement?
A. In general, a balanced diet will meet the needs of most runners. Due to the stress on the body from high-quality training, taking a multiple vitamin with minerals once a day is fine and has not been shown to pose any health risks as long as “mega” vitamins are avoided. Because you are getting vitamins and minerals from the foods you eat, try to find a vitamin that has no more than 100 percent of the RDA values.
Supplements, unlike drugs, do not have to be shown to be effective by the manufacturer. Consult with your health care provider before taking supplements, especially when combining or substituting them with other medicine.
Q. How many calories do I need to consume daily?
A. The quick answer is “as many as you burn daily.” A complete answer is not so easy. Body size and activity level play a significant factor in the determination of daily caloric needs. A simple estimate of daily caloric needs is to multiple your body weight (in pounds) by 11.3. Then add an additional 100 calories for each mile of running.
For example, a 135-pound runner who ran 5 miles would need approximately:
135 x 11.3 = 1,525 + 500 (for 5 miles) = 2,025 calories
A 61.5-kilogram runner who ran 8 kilometers would need approximately:
61.5 x 2.2 (conversion to lbs.) x 11.3 = 1,529 + 500 (for 8 kilometers) = 2,029 calories
These are estimates and will require fine-tuning by each individual.
Q. What is an ideal body weight for a runner?
A. The runner should be more concerned about body composition than body weight. For long-distance running, extra body weight puts significant stress on the legs. Extra weight also increases the overall workload on the body, thereby decreasing running economy. For most male runners, a body composition of 8 to 15 percent fat would be an achievable goal, while female runners should aim for a range of 16 to 25 percent body fat.
Q. Do I need special nutrition for competition? How about carbohydrate loading?
A. Exercise increases the energy requirements of the body up to 25 times those of normal expenditure. The body converts all carbohydrates to glucose, which may be used immediately as fuel or stored for later use. Glycogen is the storage form of glucose in the body, mostly in the skeletal muscles and liver. The body has a limited storage capacity for glycogen, which may be rapidly depleted during strenuous exercise.
During exercise that feels easy, over half of the calories used for energy comes from stored body fat. As exercise intensity increases to moderate, the body begins to burn less fat and utilize more glycogen- stored carbohydrates. Long runs tend to deplete glycogen. The term “hitting the wall” is used to describe the effect that glycogen depletion has on a runner.
Once your stored glycogen is depleted, your body shifts back to burning fat. Because converting fat to energy cannot be done as efficiently as using glycogen for energy, your pace decreases.
One aim of training is to increase the pace at which you can run while burning fat. In other words, your easy pace becomes a faster pace. By burning fat rather than glycogen, you put off glycogen depletion longer and put off hitting the wall. Appropriate training increases the pace you can maintain before your crossover from fat burning to carbohydrate burning occurs, helping to save glycogen that will be needed farther down the road.
If you maintain a diet that is high in complex carbohydrates, it is not necessary to carbo-load. As you begin a taper, your activity level will decline; thus you will burn fewer of your carbohydrate stores. Your normal high carbohydrate diet (60 to 70 percent of total calories coming from carbohydrates), combined with a decrease in activity (for your taper), will result in carbo-loading. The day prior to your race should also be high in carbohydrates, but refined carbohydrates may make a better choice because of their reduced fiber content.
The most efficient energy yield from stored glycogen occurs with an even running pace. A fast pace early in the race speeds the depletion of glycogen and leads to hitting the wall.
Q. What should the runner eat prior to competition?
A. Individuals must determine the type and quantity of food to eat before a race, as well as when they will consume the meal. To work out your personal plan, begin with the information below. Through trial and error on long-distance training days, vary the type, quantity, and timing of meals. Maintain an accurate log of these variables and your long run performances to determine your most effective and agreeable prerace meal plan.
For a simple way of estimating your caloric needs on race morning, use this formula:
(hours before race) x (body weight in pounds) = (number of calories to eat)
(hours before race) x (body weight in kilograms x 2.2) = (number of calories to eat)
For example, if you wake up at 6:00 a.m. and your race is at 8:00 a.m., that’s 2 hours. So for a 150-pound runner that’s 2 x 150 = 300 calories.
Typically, consuming 300 to 500 calories 3 hours before a half-marathon or marathon followed by 100 to 150 calories of sports drink an hour prior to the race should supply adequate prerace fuel.
For shorter races (5K and 10K) lasting less than an hour, fewer, if any, prerace calories are necessary.
Q. Does the runner need to ingest calories during the race?
A. Running a marathon or half-marathon may deplete your glycogen stores, resulting in your hitting the wall. To prevent it, you need to consume carbohydrates during the race, not only to replace glycogen stores in the muscle but also to maintain the level of blood glucose needed by the active muscles. The goal can be met with 6 to 8 ounces of sports drink every 30 to 35 minutes and on warmer days every 20 to 30 minutes. Some runners like to use energy gels during marathons. Consuming an energy gel with water every hour can also help maintain adequate blood glucose levels.
Even though you may have 90 or more minutes of stored carbohydrates, you need to begin taking sports drink early in the race in order to spare your stores of glycogen.
Q. What should the runner consume after a workout or race?
A. Sports drinks are a good option. The body is a carbohydrate sponge immediately after intense and exhausting exercise. Glycogen resynthesis from carbohydrates consumed after exercise takes place most rapidly during the first 30 minutes. Foods with a high glycemic index may speed up the replenishment of glycogen in skeletal muscle due to the rapid rise in glucose and insulin. During the first 2 hours following exercise, try to take in solid foods that are high in carbohydrates, such as bagels, bananas, pudding, etc.
Research indicates that the maximum human carbohydrate synthesis is 225 grams (900 calories) of glucose following exercise. This amount of carbohydrate should be consumed in small portions over the 2-hour window. If you consume too much carbohydrate, the excess is stored as fat.
Running, as with all physical activities, requires energy. If there are several ways to meet the energy needs of the body, the question becomes, “What is the best diet?” The shelves of bookstores are filled with volumes, all claiming to offer the “best” diet. This manual is not a sports nutrition manual, nor is there room to explore the biochemistry of nutrition. Only basic nutritional information is provided. For more specific dietary information, FIRST recommends consultation with a sports nutritionist.
Hi Guys,
Please bear with my novel-length email; I really want to tell you the whole story. I am a 42-year-old male. I’ve never in my life been medically obese, but nor have I ever been what you’d call “very fit.” Like most people, exercise ebbed and flowed in my life. Some years I exercised regularly, other years not so much. As for running, I never even considered entering any kind of competitive event, and never ran for more than 15 to 30 minutes at a time and only on a treadmill.
Things took a turn for the worse for me—healthwise—between March 2007 and November 2009. During those years, my wife and I had two beautiful little girls. We both continued working full-time, and any shred of healthy eating or exercise went completely out the window. We began to rely on eating a lot of take-out food (can you say pizza and Chinese?) and lots of unhealthy “snacks.” My poor eating habits, combined with no exercise, resulted in an expanding waistline. Over two years, I put on an extra 30 pounds and went from a 32 to a 36 waist. I knew I wasn’t living a healthy lifestyle, but I figured that since I was only 41, I had plenty of time to change my habits and lose weight. Then I got a really, really big wake-up call.
In November 2009 I was in my backyard raking leaves when I felt a sharp pain in my chest followed by tingling in my hands. A short ambulance ride later, I arrived in the ER where doctors performed an angioplasty and put a stent in my right coronary artery to save my life. At the ripe old age of 41, I had suffered a heart attack! Doctors warned me that two other arteries were more than 40 percent clogged, and that if I didn’t make drastic changes in my life, things were not going to get better. To be perfectly honest, I got lucky that day. I very easily could have made my wife a widow and left my two little girls (then 2½ and 8 months old) without a dad. Neither of them would have any memories of me as they got older and would have only pictures and stories of their father. The thought of that was absolutely crushing to me and I was released from the hospital with a determination never to let that happen.
I spent December 2009 to March 2010 in “cardiac rehabilitation.” Under the watchful eye of RN/personal trainers who monitored my heart on an EKG, I built up a solid base level of fitness. I lost all 30 pounds and began to feel healthier than I’d ever felt in my life. I completed rehab in late March, passed a nuclear stress test with flying colors, and received full medical clearance to “exercise vigorously.”
During rehab I really started to develop a love for running. At the end of April, I ran my first 5K (in 26:45) and was absolutely hooked on competitive running. At about that same time, I discovered your book. I had been looking at other running books and training plans but, as you know, most of them wanted me to run 4 or more days a week. And while I love running, I also wanted to have time to bike, swim, and lift weights. Your 3-day-a-week plan was absolutely perfect for me. In mid-May 2010, I decided that I would use your training plans to train for a fall half-marathon. Over the spring and summer your book and training plans became a part of my life. I began getting up very early on Sunday morning for my long runs. I started out with 9:36 as my target HM pace, but revised the time downward twice over the summer as the workouts began feeling too easy for me (I was also carefully monitoring my HR with a HR monitor and checking in with my doctor, don’t worry!).
On race day (for the Parks Half-Marathon, Rockville, Maryland), my target HM pace was 9:01. As you all wisely counsel, I held back at my planned HM pace for the first half of the race as other runners who had also lined up in the 9:00-9:30 queue sped past at blazing speed. In the second half of the race, still feeling very strong, I stepped on the gas and ultimately crossed the finish line in 1:55:52 (8:51 pace; 93/178 in my age group), far faster than I ever imagined I could run that race. Thanks to your phenomenal book and training plans, only 10 months after almost losing my life I had just run my first HM in under 2 hours. My wife and kids were waiting for me at the finish line, and I had never felt so good in my life.
I carry your book with me just about everywhere I go, reading and rereading various chapters from time to time and picking up on things I may have missed on earlier readings. In short, your book and training plans are now part of my life. I plan to run another half-marathon in the spring and then may consider a full marathon for next fall (with almost 2 solid years of running under my belt).
I’m sorry for the length of this email, but I really wanted to tell you the whole story and enthusiastically thank you for your excellent book. Thank you for playing a part in helping me turn my life around. I do hope to thank you all in person at a future Furman Institute running retreat. Until then, I eagerly await any future publications from you all.
Rod Vieira
Environmental Attorney for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
Chevy Chase, Maryland