Running Fuel
I admit, I was a late adopter to fueling my runs. I used to eat two hours before, and then nothing while running because I did not like food bouncing around in my stomach. Little did I know that I was slowing my pace and recovery by improper fueling.
It takes a lot of trial and error to find what works. Initially I started with the whole food fueling. Running around Mt. Saint Helens, I carried salami and cheese, along with some vegetarian sushi and tailwind drinking powder. Much of the food weighed down my pack all day uneaten, and and the fat weighed down my stomach and made me nausous. Then when I ran around the Wonderland trail I ate roasted potatoes and pureed fruit/vegtable packages. I tolerated that food better but it became squishy in my pack and took up a lot of space. I eventually started to experimenting with gels. Now I practice my long runs with them consistently.
Recent research shows we can train our stomach to adapt to increased fuel absorption. The evolution of gels give us the opportunity to slurp down 30-90 carbs per package. Humans can adapt to processing high carb fueling over a couple of weeks, and the ability to ingest more carbs per hour seems to correlate with all of the recent broken race records. Some of the elite runners are ingesting over 100 carbs per hour! Personally I aim to hit 50-70 but admit I am still working on it. I notice that my recovery is much faster if I ingest carbs every hour during a run over 2 hours. The best way I “remember” is to set an alarm on my watch. Otherwise I easily skip fueling only to become carb deficient later. When I ran the Eugene marathon I forced gels down every 1.5 hours and I avoided the mile 20 bonk. I saw passed many runners during the last 6 miles and even finished on a negative split. I attribute that to proper fueling so I am sold!
If you want to improve your running I highly recommend working with a sports nutritionist/dietitian. They can review your overall diet and discuss fueling strategies to level up your game. It might make the difference between a lackluster run vs a personal best!
