San Diego Ultra Running Friends
Well, it is now the holiday season, and maybe you have not been eating as nutritiously as usual. Fear not, the new year can bring you a chance to enhance your nutrition in training and racing. I thought I would write you an article this month about general nutritional principles as they apply to long distance running, and then follow that up next month with a more detailed article about nutrition philosophies for your upcoming ultra races.
In general terms, the bulk of the calories in a balanced diet for long distance training is composed of carbohydrates. This might amount to 60% of your caloric intake, while 20-30% is from fats/oils, and 10-20% from protein. For long term health, limit your intake of red meat, butter, margarine, and high fat dairy products. Instead, use lower fat meats and dairy, and lots of fruits and vegetables. Include fish regularly in your diet, to get the benefits of omega fatty acids in lowering risk of heart disease. Remember that a moderate amount of fat in your diet is good for your immune system and for healthy nerve fibers. Use nuts such as almonds and walnuts in salads, cereal, and yogurt for their oils and protein. They are high in monounsaturated fat which lowers your LDL cholesterol (bad type) and total cholesterol. Use olive and canola oil when cooking and baking. They are much lower in saturated and trans fats than butter or margarine, and the vitamin E will help your immune system.
Going too high or low on fat, or carbos for that matter, can hurt your racing performance. A point in case. At SUNY Buffalo, researchers found that runners who averaged 40+ miles per week ran about 20% longer in a run to exhaustion test on a treadmill after having eaten a diet with 32% of calories from fat over the preceding 4 weeks, compared to a diet containing 17% of the calories from fat. So, if sometime you are feeling really drained during training, or constantly moody, maybe you want to look at the types and amounts of fats you are taking in, and the variety of fruits and vegetables you have been eating. If you learn to listen to your body, then you can get what you need from your food while eating healthy and training well. If you want more details, see the article on pages 24 and 26 in the January 1999 issue of Runner's World.
Ok, so you are getting ready for an upcoming ultra race. You might be wondering, how will I keep fueled and hydrated while avoiding or minimizing nausea and other gastrointestinal problems ? One thing you can do is to come up with a nutritional plan for the race, or a set of guidelines. First, consider what will be available at the race for aid stations. How long will you be between aid stations and what is offered at the stops ? If you will be more than a hour or so between aid stations, plan on carrying some foods. Try out several types in training to see what gives you consistent energy, tastes good, and does not bother your stomach. For the race, if you are allowed, pack some of these tested items in your drop bags.
Some people work better on more of a liquid diet (using electrolyte drinks, beverages such as Ensure or Sweet Dreams, and mixed fluids such as Mango Juice with Carbo- Plex, which is a type of starch). In the liquid diet one can suppliment the fluids with just a little solid food. Trying different things in training can show you what works best for you. In general, try for a mix of items whereby the bulk of the calories are from carbohydrates, with about 10% from protein and 20% from fats. In terms of frequency, try to eat small portions on a regular basis, maybe every 30-60 minutes. It is not possible to take in as many calories as you will be burning per hour. A good goal total on calories is 300-400 per hour. To maintain this rate, it often works best to carry foods such as candy, cookies, pretzels, and gels in your pack, and then eat items such as fruit, sandwiches, and soup at the aid stations. Another popular food that will give you consistent energy and be well tolerated in your digestive track is potatoes, coated with salt. Soups are good later in the event, when you have lost a lot of sodium and when your stomach will have more trouble handling sweet or starchy foods. The fats may help settle your stomach and the warmth is nice when you are running overnight at a 100 mile race.
The thing to remember is that what you eat and when does affect how you feel and do in a race. At the slower pace of longer ultras (50 or 100 miles or more) your stomach emptying rate is not lowered and you can go more to solid food as compared to liquids. For a 50k or shorter races, where more blood goes to muscles and less to your digestive system, you might do better using mostly liquids for caloric fuel. One method to get a regular intake of food is to eat while you are walking, in addition to eating a bit at aid stations. When creating a nutrition plan for a race, decide what you will eat, and when, and plan your drop bags and crew stops to match the nutrition plan. I usually like to have several different items that I can go to at any time, in addition to the aid station foods. Over the hours the foods that appeal to me change. Be flexible with the plan. Have some things you can try that you know from training will stop nausea and settle your stomach, and that taste ok after you have been running for several hours. In summary, a good nutrition plan will cover when and how much you eat during the race, the nutrient value of the food, how well you like and tolerate those foods, and what you will try if you have problems such as nausea, stomach bloating, runs, or just plain seem to loose your appetite. Just be sure to try out the food plan (food types, frequency, amounts) in training and adjust as necessary (especially weather conditions) for the race you will be running.
Well, this month I would like to discuss a training tool that some runners use to give them motivation, direction, patience, and a shot of confidence. That tool is a training log. I have kept one since I started running 11 years ago. The log helps organize my thoughts on recent and upcoming training, and provides a record I can look back at to plan for future ultra races. Keeping a log does not take much time, just a few minutes a day. One can use either a book type log or a computer program (of which there are quite a few out there). Some people will use a calendar, as that provides a little different layout, but there is less space to write notes than in either a book type log or on the computer.
What to put in the training log ? Well, that can vary from person to person. I would suggest you write down the type of workout you did, the duration or miles completed, the course details (trail, road, hilly, rocky, etc.), notes about the weather, your effort/pace, how you felt, and aches or pains that cropped up. Most logs will be divided into one week periods, and then you add up time/mileage for the week to get the total training volume. You can also see when you did faster/tougher workouts and races. I can also see easily my off days, when I rested. For those, I record the word "off" in the space for workout type, and a dash for the duration of the workout. I know that if I see few dashes in the log book, I might be pushing the training a bit much, and if I see several dashes in a row on a regular basis, I should get back in gear (unless that is the time of year I am taking a break from heavier training).
Now, lets look back at my log book from last summer. Some people suggested I did "stealth" training in getting ready for the Angeles Crest 100 last September. My log book knows otherwise. Let us look at the period from when I paced at the Western States 100 all night at the end of June, until I started to taper for AC 2 weeks before the race. That is a period of 11 weeks. Over that time, my weekly average mileage was 57 miles, with an additional equivalent of 6 miles per week in cross training (some cycling, a weekly weight lifting session). In time terms, that works out to about 10 hours of running (many trail miles) and 1 hour of cross training per week. The number of long runs (more than 3 hours long) for those 11 weeks was 10, with 6 of those runs being over 5 hours in duration. I did only one race, a 12 hour track run, in those 11 weeks. Two of the long runs were done at night. The log shows 6 speed sessions (intervals, fartlek, or tempo runs) and 4 hill runs (powerwalk or run up, run comfortably down) over this AC training period. Two times I did long runs on back-to-back days, the last was on Labor Day weekend 3 weeks before AC. I had one head cold in this period, early August after the 12 hour race. How does this training compare to the training load I did back in 1995 in preparing for AC ? Well, the weekly mileage is about 10 lower, but the quality of the long runs and speed runs was as good as in 1995. I was stronger due to the weight lifting this time around, and ran more comfortably on downhills this year due to not having plantar faciatis as back in 1995. A review of the log shows I had solid training volume and quality going into AC, and I based my race plan on this information. A detailed training log can be a valuable tool in your development as a runner. Next month I will talk about predicting race times and pace slowdown.
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