The Ultimate Pre-Workout Meal for Your Best Run Ever

By Doug Hay

When it comes to pre-race routines, we all have different strategies. For example, some runners could be called preparers; they lay out clothes the night before, arrive hours before the race so they’re first in line for the Porta Potties, and have refreshed their weather app enough times to use up their entire data package. Other runners, well, they aren’t preparers; they hit the snooze button three times before realizing it’s race day, show up with mismatched socks, and don’t make it to their starting corral until after the gun has fired.

Nutrition varies just as much. I once asked my Twitter followers what they like to eat before a race or long run. About 25 people responded, and nearly every answer was unique.

Here’s the thing: While it doesn’t really matter if you set out your clothes the night before or spend race morning trying to find a clean shirt, what you put in your body before a race or long run and when you eat does have an effect on your performance Pre-exercise nutrition: the role of macronutrients, modified starches and supplements on metabolism and endurance performance. Ormsbee, MJ; Bach, CW; Baur, DA. Nutrients. 2014 Apr 29;6(5):1782-808—a big one.

Feed Your Body and Brain

No matter how much time is spent training, nutrition can make or break a race. Anyone who’s ever had a bad run due to improper pre-workout fueling (and most runners probably have) knows that not having enough of the right foods can lead to low energy, an upset stomach, muscle cramping or spasms, and even the dreaded bonk (you know, when your body runs out of fuel and you feel like you’ve run smack into a wall).

Worse, it can hurt a runner mentally. Some of my most painful long runs and races turned sour because I started feeling hungry with an hour or more left to go. When that happened, food was all I could think about.

As runners, the more experience we have, the better we know our bodies and the more familiar we become with what kinds of efforts and distances require us to pay extra attention to food. This goes for what is eaten on the days leading up to the run and during the run itself, but no meal is as important as the one right before a run. If race-day nutrition is done properly, you will be energized and running strong all the way to the finish line.

6 Rules to a Perfect Pre-Race Meal

Unfortunately, there’s no quick and dirty formula to figure out exactly when and what to eat since every runner’s needs are different. The only way to truly know what works for you is to test a variety of strategies and then test them again and again until you find the solution that works. Take advantage of those long training runs, and use them as test …read more

Source:: Greatist