Race Day Nutrition

It is very easy to get carried away with this sports drink or that supplement that is going to help you perform at your best on the day of your race. However, in reality to most important things to do are to make sure you have enough glycogen and fluid on board.

This is done in a similar way to your intake of food and drink before a training session, but is likely to be a little earlier, prior to the race as you are going to be working as hard as you possibly can (not always true for training sessions).

One very important thing to note is the time of day that you are racing - if you are running in the morning, you should practice preparing your body for that time of day. Even if you are not going to be doing running sessions at this time of day (which would be ideal, you can still make sure your body is happy with your eating early. For example if you are doing a race at 9.30, you will probably want to have eaten by 7.00am at the latest. It is vital that you do eat on the day of the race, but doing so too late will only make you under-perform.

There is often a lot of talk about marathon carbo-loading. To an extent this is a bit of a myth as you don't need to eat as much extra food before the race as you might think. Running a marathon will use about 3,000 calories for an average sized person. This is a lot, but it is not unusual for athletes to load up so much that they will consume up to 10,000 extra calories in a week when they are doing much less activity than normal.

This will just leave you feeling bloated and heavy as you race - the total opposite of what you might be hoping for.

In fact, it is not unusual for athletes to use less calories in the week of a marathon, despite the race, because of the light work load in the final few days.

We suggest you make sure you have a good meal, high in carbohydrates, the day before your race, but don't overdo it.

During races it is a good idea to take on fluid (small amounts every 20 minutes or so) and ideally some carbohydrates, whether this be sports bars, drinks or even (a common aid) jelly beans.

The information here is written by an athletics coach who has read widely into the subject and not a sports nutritionist, so is about gearing your food and drink to the practicalities of running.