Kate Percy, of Go Faster Food, gives her top ten tips to supercharge your race. Wouldn’t it be perfect if your energy levels were at their very peak on race day? Well, they can be! You’ve trained hard for a race, now it’s time to put the icing on the cake. Taper your training and tweak your diet right, and you can ‘super-charge’ your muscles to have the race of your life!
Taper your training
As you reduce the duration and intensity of your workouts in the week prior to racing, the muscle glycogen which would normally be used to fuel your long training sessions will automatically be stored by your body. You may feel jittery and desperate to squeeze in that last run or ride, but you need to try to resist temptation. It’s fine to take a gentle jog or bike ride but it won’t make any difference to your race performance. You’ve done all the work now, the best you can do is rest your muscles, sleep well, eat well and take it easy.
Eat plenty of carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are converted into blood glucose and used for energy or stored as glycogen in the liver and muscle. Your body can store enough carbohydrate to keep you going for approximately 90 minutes, after which it has to resort to burning fat reserves for energy and this is likely to slow you down. Increasing your carbohydrate intake by around 10%* over the three to four days leading up to the race, combined with the taper in your training, will ensure that you start out with the maximum amount of glycogen in your body to help you perform to the best of your ability. Choose nutrient-rich, low to medium GI carbohydrates, the less refined the better, to keep your blood sugar levels stable and sustain energy.
* Assuming your daily calorie intake is around 60% carbohydrate, increase this to 70%.
For a 3-day pre-race eating plan including smart recipes for optimum carbohydrate and protein intake, see Kate’s e-book on pre-event fuelling, FuelSmart for Race Day.
Reduce protein and fat
It’s important that you only increase your carbohydrate intake, not your overall calorie intake, so eat smaller portions of protein and limit fat. Your plate should still consist of around 15% lean protein, such as fish, chicken and eggs, and around 15% fat. This will not only protect your muscles, it will also slow the rate of digestion of the carbohydrates you eat, effectively lowering the GI of your meal. Be aware when you select meals that carbohydrate and fat often go together, such as creamy pasta sauces and butter on potatoes.
Watch the calories!
Many athletes fall into the trap of eating too many calories, or eating the wrong foods during those few days before a race and this can cause weight gain and discomfort. The last thing you want is to stand on the start line feeling like a bloated whale. Poor choices for carbo-loading tend to be processed convenience foods - french fries, crisps, donuts, buttery croissants, creamy pasta meals, cheesy pizzas, lattes, frapuccinos - which, whilst often containing carbohydrate, also contain unwanted fats. Sensible choices are oats, basmati rice, pasta with tomato-based sauces, English muffins, wholemeal toast, plenty of fruit and vegetables.
Look out for two of Kate’s favourite recipes on Sportsister later this week!
Stick to plain and familiar foods
Pre-race nerves combined with the taper in your training can play havoc with the stomach. To minimise the risk of bloating, unwanted gas and diarrhoea, it’s advisable to
- avoid high fibre foods, such as lentils, pulses, bran and brown rice, even if you normally include them in your healthy training diet, and
- avoid unfamiliar foods (particularly relevant if you are race away from home)
It’s good to snack! Eat little and often
With the taper in training, athletes can feel less hungry. This makes eating your daily carbohydrate requirement difficult. If this happens, try to eat smaller meals and snacks more often rather than the standard breakfast, lunch and supper. For examples of carbohydrate-rich snacks, see FuelSmart for Race Day.
Don’t forget to drink
You’ll enjoy the race much better if your body is well-hydrated. Keep a bottle of water with you and sip it throughout the day, although tea, coffee, squash, smoothies, juicy fruits and fruit juices, even soups will also boost your fluid intake. Limit or avoid alcohol.
Race day breakfast
You can relax now! With the taper and your pre-race diet you should be feeling like a coiled spring, ready for action. Don’t overeat on race day; you just need to ‘top up the tank’ about 2-4 hours before the race. This will ideally be what you always eat before a long session in training. Whatever you do, don’t eat anything you haven’t tried in training.
- Eat a reasonable breakfast; porridge or cereal, toast, whatever you normally eat before a long workout.
- Drink 500ml water, diluted juice or sports drink as soon as you wake up, or with your pre-race meal, and then sip on a further 500ml at regular intervals before the start. Not too much or it will be sloshing around in your stomach.
- Do the pee test - you are fully-hydrated once your urine is light in colour.
Enjoy the race and don’t try anything new!
Ideally you will have tested various strategies to fuel your race, as after around 90 minutes of exercise, your glycogen levels will run out and these will need to be topped up to prevent you running out of steam and ‘hitting the wall’. You need to find what suits you as an individual and your particular type of race.
For a triathlon, for instance, you may want to try out different forms of fuel for each discipline; liquids and solids on the bike followed by gels and water or a carbohydrate-protein drink during the run, for instance. For a marathon you may not be able to stomach anything solid but you may find one particular gel more palatable than another. You’ve got to work out the combination that works for you.
You’ll need around 100 calories of carbohydrate per 20 minutes, in the form of sports beans, gels, sports drink, bananas, energy bars, whatever your preference. You’ll also need to replenish lost electrolytes (minerals lost through sweat). See Go Faster Food for more advice on how to work out your race nutrition strategy, including your individual sweat rate.
Relish the recovery
This is the best part! You’ve made it. Now is the time to enjoy the recovery, you’ll certainly deserve it. Eat a high G.I. snack and have a good drink immediately after the race, preferably a sports recovery drink containing electrolytes and a 4:1 ration of carbohydrate to protein. You may not feel like it but it really does help. Your body may be crying out for salty foods if you have sweated a lot; this is when it’s actually good to eat chips or crisps! Treat yourself to a good meal as soon as you can stomach it after the race. This time you’ll need plenty of high GI carbohydrates and protein to aid muscle recovery. Keep drinking plenty of water throughout the day and don’t drink too much alcohol – your body needs time to recover.
Kate Percy, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine
Athlete and cook, Kate Percy, brings sports nutrition to life with mouth-watering recipes for training and racing. Her new book, FuelSmart for Race Day, will steer you through the critical three days leading up to an endurance event with delicious recipes for optimum performance and advice on what, when and how much to eat for your best race ever.
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