How to Perfect Your Race Week Nutrition Plan

Not sure what to eat the week of a race. You don’t have to be an elite athlete to achieve higher performance through eating. I am not a dietician. Most of what I have learned is through research and trial and error. Making a plan for race week nutrition is a major part of any running training plan.

One of the things I enjoy is growing my own food. I have a huge garden. This allows me to eat whole healthy foods year round. I spend time all summer harvesting, canning and freezing. I am kind of obsessed with it, but you don’t need a big garden to eat healthy. With a few simple tips you can enhance your race performance.

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Where to Start

Don’t wait until the week of the marathon to make your plan for race week nutrition. Race week is not the time to experiment with what works or doesn’t. It takes a time to figure out what works best for you. Luckily you have an entire training cycle to figure that out. Trial your race week nutrition, several weeks prior. Test out your plan for several days prior to a long run. This will give you a sense of how you feel eating and then running. You can then adjust for the race week. Let’s start with some basics about carbohydrates.

What is Carb Loading?

Carbohydrates play a major role in a runner’s diet, especially leading up to the race. The science behind carbohydrates is pretty simple. When you eat carbohydrates, your body breaks it down and stores it as glycogen. When you need a quick burst of energy, such as on a run your body converts glycogen to energy.

Your body will also burn fat when glycogen stores are down, but in order to do so it has to work harder. When you don’t have much stored glycogen, that’s when you begin to feel fatigued and that’s is when the wall comes.

When to Carb Load?

You want to carb load for any race greater than ninety minutes. There are several ways to do it, some plans are longer that others. To make it easier, I usually stick with a 3 day plan. Starting 3 days prior to your race, increase your carb intake to 4 grams of carbohydrates per pound of body weight. That is a lot of carbs! Focus on avoiding processed foods and sugars. Instead choose option such as whole grains, dairy, fruits and vegetables.

Focus on Clean Eating

Clean eating simply means eating unprocessed or minimally processed whole foods. Avoiding sugar unless it is a natural source. Eating fresh vegetables, whole grains and healthy fats. Try to avoid eating highly processed snack foods, sweets and other packaged foods. Think how you would feel if you ate fast food all day and then ran, versus filling up on fresh vegetables.

One of my favorite things to eat race week is beets. Beet consumption and race performance has been studied in runners. These studies have shown that eating beets increases the level of nitric acid in the blood. The nitric acid increases blood flow in your muscles strengthening muscle contractions with less effort. Nitric acid also decreases the amount of oxygen needed to maintain exercise. Simply put, less energy was used to run at a similar pace. The result improved performance. Beets are a true superfood. Check out the USDA for addition nutritional information.

I love beets. Beets can be an acquired taste. When I was a kid, I did not like them at all. I think I mostly ate them out of a can though. A game changer for me was roasting them, so good. Another favorite of mine is beet juice. I will let you be the judge though.

Hydration

As a rule, each day I try to drink 80 ounces of water per day. I think we all heard the 8 glasses per day rule, but that is sometimes not enough. I was having tons of GI issues with running. Sometimes this can be related to dehydration. I had read that you should be drinking half your body weight in water in ounces per day. Since increasing my water intake, no GI issues with runs.

Generally race week I focus on maintaining this. The day prior to a race I increase my fluid intake slightly and I will add Nuun to one of my drinks. I am a salty sweater and Nuun helps to replenish that.

Race morning, I like to drink two 8 ounce glasses of water 2 hours prior to my race. This allows enough time to for absorption. I keep an eye on my urine; clear, pale, yellow and I am good to go.

Keep It Simple

Try eating simple clean unprocessed foods. Maintain hydration. Practice your race week plan prior to the week of the race. This is not the week to try something new. Since this is race week for me, I will share 2 easy recipes during the week: Winter Squash and Black Bean Tacos, Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Beets. Both have a focus on carbs, so stayed tuned.