Question about race nutrition...
Cheryl, who is pacing/crewing for me at Western States, is in school to be a dietician and will be helping out at WS with the hyponatremia study stuff. She is helping workout what type of information they might be able to get from us guinea pigs, and is wondering:
-- how well do you plan out your race-day (and pre-race) nutrition? Do you specifically plan out how much sodium or sports drink you will take in/how much water/how many calories/what calories?
-- do you keep track of this during the race, and if so, how? Do you think your crew would be willing to track this information in a log? Is this something you already ask them to do? (Rhetorically speaking, even if you're not racing anytime soon, does this sound within the realm of reasonable or not?)
Do you wing it or plan? I'm not a planner and yet I definitely don't wing it. That said, I hadn't planned on preparing a spreadsheet or anything. But I suspect that Cheryl might :-)
So, what is your plan? How have you devised it? Too many questions?
12 comments:
I will confess that I am a super freak when it comes to planning race nutrition. I have spreadsheet that calculates all my needs by my weight. Then I make sure my liquids to carbs ratio is in the 7-10% concentration level. I plan my nutrition, liquids and electros by pit stop and make sure I consume exactly what's on my freaky plan based on the hours of running. My crew has plan broken down into note cards and makes sure I eat everything or a substitute. I plan my protein and fat intake as well. It works for me and I can make adjustments for heat and such.
Ronda is a freak, but it surely works for her! :) I do one bottle of carb drink (HEED-like) and 1 bottle water in 1.5 hrs, and take gel every 45 min for the first 5 hrs, then 1gel every 30 min. S!-cap 1 an hour. Pick on AS table a few chips, may be a piece of boiled potato. Tomato juice when I see my crew. Soup after about 8-10 hrs at each AS that serves it (WS will). Pizza works at night well too. Basically, I count it for the first 12 hrs, and then just try and shove in whatever I can, because it will not be enough anyway. Your crew can keep track of it as you empty your pockets of used gel. But you will stop at other AS and will likely empty it there as well. If you have a watch that beeps every certain time - use it as a reminder (I did at second WS, it was great, now I just have a feel of when my 30 min expires, experience). I plan on being there, hopefully, and we can chat more. I am sure you can email Ronda - and me - for more details.
I'm more of an approximitater.
One 20 oz bottle of water between aid stations. When the temperature starts to get up there, two. If I'm not peeing fairly regularly, I'll increase the fluids. If it's a pee-fest, I'll back off a bit.
Gel/SaltStick every 30 minutes. If it gets to 90+F, I'll up the salt to three an hour.
That seems to do it.
-Chris
Ah...my WS race day 'nutrition plan' ? BBQ in my backyard, beer, and the occasional trip to the computer to track your progress...maybe I'll have a beer every time you pass a checkpoint, and a celebratory one for you when you finish! What's Ted doing, maybe he wants to join me?
You'll do great!
Keith
Ronda, I think that's incredibly cool. Any chance of getting you to email me an example of your spreadsheet?
Olga, your approach is basically identical to mine!
Chris, I thought about switching to Salt Sticks since you use them and you're cool but figured I'd wait until after WS.
Keith, that made my day!
My plan involves about 300 calories give or take an hour in whatever form or interval works at the time. Lately I've been swinging more towards gels though. I've also had great luck with odwalla salty almond bars which are the perfect consistentcy to eat while running and very digestable. I've seen to many people barfing up those sugary energy drinks along the trail and have had my own experience with that so nothing but water in my bottle or bladder. I also take 1 or 2 ecaps and hour. I usually rely on aid food to replenish my pockets but keep a few extras like ensure and gels in my drop bags. I use no crew or pacers to monitor but I'm sure that helps. Nutrition is always a evolving process for me.
JR
Danni, I use SaltStick because I seem to need a smaller dose and I like to make my intake/metabolism as even as possible. S! caps are too big a spike for me, but clearly they work very well for most.
I think it's worth experimenting with, but because the right product/dosage depends so much on the amount of sodium in a person's overall diet, I suspect it's not a thing people should fiddle with short term. I assume that kind of adjustment is an adaptation the body needs more time to make.
-Chris
I'm the world's worst exercise physiologist - I don't plan. But, I don't run as long as you, either.
I'll only comment on the log portion - I think it could be very valuable information during the run, and also if I were a crew member I'd be more than willing to keep track.
I was talking to Marty Hoffman about the hypo study. I am not sure if I will participate or not. Being my first 100-miler I'd like to remove some of the externalities. I'm not going to plan too much. Just plan out the general strategy.
1. Ingest some solid food containing fat and protein at Duncan and Robinson (steak/avocado or almond butter/nutella)
2. Go relatively high on calories earlier on when the weather is cool and ease off the calories a bit if it gets really hot.
3. Pretty much coke, gels and sports drink from foresthill to the finish I am guessing.
I will not be keeping track of any of this during the race itself.
Cheers, Paul
This is an on-going learning process :) What I have been doing though is this: 20oz water with Clif Shot or Nuun per hour in my handheld; 3 Clif Shot Bloks on the hour; boiled potatoes, peanut butter preztels or M&M's at aid stations, otherwise I avoid most other things there. Pepsi came in handy towards the end of my 50M last month, so I'm going to try that again at my next 50M. I also took one S!Cap every 2 hours. I'm going to try one/hour at my next race though to see how that goes over.
I don't like getting too caught up in the numbers and what not of race nutrition because that takes the fun out of it for me...so for now, it's lots of experimenting. I learn better through trial and error (emphasis on the error)! I know, so professional of me ;)
Emily, you're funny. Thanks for sharing though.
Paul, you're going to eat STEAK? Of course you are! You're Paleo Man! I understand about not wanting to participate in the study. I doubt it will add much though. Dunno.
Paige, eventually you do figure out through trial and error what works and what doesn't. You're totally right! I'd like to have the trial and error stuff done by race day though of course :p Which is impossible since I have no heat to train in. . .
Oh and Joe that's interesting. I would have thought Odwalla bars would be hard to eat. I will have to try them. I'm digging "Bonk Bars" -- a California discovery!
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