Tip 8: Fueling on Race Day

If you’re like most runners, you’re concerned about what and when you eat. At no time is this more true than on race day. Marathon jitters combined with the need to refuel properly can make for a tricky food situation, but how you handle fueling should be no different from how you approach training. For each the key is to pay attention to your body.

Race morning: Experts recommend you eat a light carbohydrate-focused meal two or three hours before you start running. Prior to race day, practice eating a breakfast like the one you’d like to have November 10. This will help give you an idea of what your body can handle. Don’t completely skip eating or drinking anything for breakfast. “You need to refill and top off your glycogen stores that your body used as fuel throughout the night before,” says sports nutritionist Suzanne Girard Eberle, author of Endurance Sports Nutrition. Incidentally, coffee drinkers who regularly run after a morning cup don’t need to drop their java habit.

During the race: Some runners don’t like to eat at all during the race, for fear of upsetting their stomachs or getting cramps. But your body will most likely perform better with at least some carbohydrates ingested over the course of the race. Girard Eberle recommends eating 30 to 60 grams of carbs per hour. This is the time to use convenient sports energy foods like gels and drinks.

Again, practice eating these energy sources on training runs before the marathon, and make sure to consume them with six to eight ounces of water. Water, PowerAde, and Clif Shots will be available along the Richmond Marathon course. This is what you have trained with, so your body knows what it is getting.

After the race:There is 30-minute recovery window during which, if adequate amounts of a sports drink and a combination of carbohydrates and protein are consumed, recovery will be improved significantly. After the race, head to the post race area, and find pizza, fruit, energy bars, coffee and more to refuel.