How to Fuel for Early Morning Runs

Audio Transcript

Coach Sinead: Hi everyone. I am here with you for today’s episode of Extra Kick brought to you by Runners Connect.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you’re off to a good one and hope you enjoy this podcast.

As always, I’m here to answer your training and racing questions and help you run a little bit smarter and faster.

If you have a question you would like one of our coaches to answer in an upcoming episode, you can submit it at runnersconnect.net/daily.

We would love to hear from you and help you however we can, so please do feel free to submit any questions you have.

Today, we have a question from Kristie about how to fuel for early morning runs.

Kristie: Hi coaches. I have a specific question about how to fuel for an early morning run.

I’m usually out the door around 5:00 a.m so I don’t have a lot of time to fuel before my morning runs.

So, I’m wondering what you would advise in terms of what I should use to fuel for an early morning run, and how much should I be fueling differently for a 45-minute run versus an hour run versus a longer hour and a half, hour and forty minutes run.

How do those fueling needs differ, and what type of solutions have you found work well for those early morning running adventures. Thanks so much.

Sinead: This is a really great question, Kristie, and one that, we do get pretty often at Runners Connect, and it’s understandable why.

So many of our listeners do have busy lifestyles. You have to fit in your run before you head off to work or drop your kids off at schools, whatever the case may be.

Sometimes you do have to get up early to get that run in, so fueling before your run can be tricky, and there are some different strategies I will talk about today, depending on the type of training session you have scheduled for each day.

First off, I will preface this by saying this is very individual to everyone.

Some people have more sensitive stomachs, and others have more iron clad stomachs where they can really digest anything pretty quickly and it’s not going to bother them.

I am envious of those people because I tend to fall into the former group. I cannot process things very quickly, so if I have a substantial meal, I usually like to wait a couple of hours before I go for a run.

Obviously for you Kristie, this is not an option because you do not want to get up at 3:00 AM to eat something before you go for a run, so that’s where you do have to alter your fueling strategy a little bit for these morning runs.

And again, it depends on what your stomach can tolerate, but there are some good guidelines that tend to work for the average runners.

Kristie, you asked how you should fuel depending on if it’s a 45 minute run versus a 60 minute run versus upwards of 90 minutes, and I will talk about that but I will also break it down into easy days and workout days and long run days as well.

We will start with easy days. These are anywhere between 30 to 60 minutes of easy running, and the main objective for these days is to recover.

With rest being the core focus of these days, it’s perfectly fine to spend a few extra minutes sleeping before you head out the door for your run.

This is where you don’t need to get up super early to get in a substantial meal before you go for a run.

This is partly because the bulk of our recovery processes take place while we are sleeping, so you want to make sure you are getting ample sleep in as much as you can on these recovery days.

It’s also perfectly fine to do this because you don’t become truly glycogen depleted until you have run somewhere between 75 to 90 minutes.

If you’re not running any more than an hour, usually you are fine to kind of just get up and roll out of bed and get out the door.

But that said, you want to get a little bit of a breakfast in before you do so, and it can be something very light. You don’t need anything too substantial for runs of 30 to 60 minutes.

My advice to you here would be to get up maybe 20 to 30 minutes before you get out the door.

And just have a banana with a little bit of nut butter, like almond butter or peanut butter, or you could have a piece of toast with the same thing, with a little bit of nut butter of some sort.

Or alternatively, you could have a gel.

These are all great options that are light and easy for your stomach to process, and they’ll top up your glycogen stores to make sure that you get through the run and don’t feel like you’re running on empty at the end of the run.

But again, your glycogen stores typically remain sufficient until you get to about 75- 90 minutes of running.

If you’re running 60 minutes or less, you’re usually just fine to have a little bit of a light snack before you head out the door, and then have a more substantial breakfast after the run.

I will also say the timing of your evening meal can also influence your need for a morning snack.

A runner who eats dinner at say 5:30 p.m. with no other evening snacks may find they feel sluggish, and their legs might feel a little heavy in that morning run, and that’s because their glycogen stores have become depleted during that long period of fasting.

If you do have to get up early in the morning and you don’t have a ton of time to get in a breakfast before you head out the door, you might want to have dinner a little bit later, maybe say 7:00 p.m. or 7:30 p.m.

And then have a bit of a late night snack, a carbohydrate rich snack, before you head to bead, just so that you are building up your glycogen stores before you go to sleep and enter that long period of fasting there.

This is something especially important to do the evening before a workout or a long run.

If it’s a run where it’s higher intensity or you’re running more than 60 minutes, it’s important to get a substantial meal a little bit later in the evening, maybe 7 o’clock or 7:30.

And then have a carbohydrate rich snack right before you go to bed, just to top up those glycogen stores and make sure that you have a little bit more to carry yourself on in the run the following morning.

But as for fueling the morning of a workout or a long run day, you typically want to consume somewhere between 300- 500 calories, when it’s a day where the glycogen demands are far greater.

When you need sustained energy through a long, challenging workout or run, you want to aim to have about 60% of your calories from carbs, and then 20% from protein and 20% from fat.

This is a good balance that will provide you energy that you will need over that longer period of time, and the carbs will help you get that initial energy while the protein and the fat will help as the workout gets longer and more physically demanding.

The carbs are nice for that little initial boost of energy and then the protein and fat help to prolong the breakdown of those sugars, and give you a little bit more sustained energy throughout the run.

Again, this is very individual to everyone. If you are getting up at 5 o’clock, I would say you want to get up, I know this is hard, but about 30- 45 minutes before a run of this nature.

If you are getting up to do a speed workout, you need to get up and get something slightly substantial in your system.

Again, something between 300 and 500 calories, and you can try a lot of different things but I will say keep it really, really, simple.

Most runners know that you want to stay away from fibrous foods and stick to simple sugar foods.

This is where you can have some toast with some nut butter and a little bit of fruit, maybe have two pieces of toast and nut butter with a banana, or you can even have – if you are fine to have dairy – a yoghurt smoothie.

This is something that I personally steer clear of, because I do not process dairy very well before a run.

This is something that you have to figure out for yourself and see what your stomach can tolerate, but these are a few good options.

Oatmeal is another great option. Something that’s very simple and easy to process.

If you add a little bit of nut butter, and maybe some walnuts or just some sources of protein and fat to that, it’s going to give you some nice prolonged energy to carry you through the run.

Those are some good options. Again, you do want to try and get at least 300 calories in because you are going to be expending quite a bit during the run.

I will also say for those mornings, where you have to get up and get everything together pretty quickly before you head out, you can also resort to a calorie dense granola bar of some sort.

A few good ones that tend to be easier on the stomach and will give you a good amount of carbs to protein to fat include KIND bars, those are really great ones.

They have a bunch of different flavors and they use all natural ingredients, very little sugar, I think the average bar has about six to seven grams of sugar, so they’re very good for you, and have a nice amount of carbs to protein that will hold you over during the run.

A few other good options, when it comes to bars are Lorabars; this is another good one. Luna bars are good ones, and Kashi bars.

Those are four that I’ll mention. There are so many different types of bars out there that can fit your needs as a runner, especially if you need to have something quick and a bit calorie dense before an early morning run.

You can open one of these, and it won’t be too heavy on your stomach, but it will give you more prolonged energy for that long run or workout.

One more thing I will say is that for these early morning runs, it’s going to be essential that you get in a decent breakfast following the run.

Especially if you are doing a long run or a workout, you want to make sure you get in something substantial during that critical metabolic window which is about 30 to 60 minutes following the run.

You do want to make sure you get something that’s either a 4:1 or 3:1 ratio of carbs to protein.

It’s going to be important that you get a pretty carbohydrate-rich breakfast in, because this will help your body to get that muscle glycogen resynthesize process going.

It’s going to help build your muscles back up, and help your recover in time for your next run.

One more final note I will make is again, this is so individual to everyone, that you have to play a little bit of trial and error here, see what works for you and what doesn’t work for you, and just experiment to see what your body reacts to best.

I have known many runners who can get up at 5:30 AM and have a pretty sizeable breakfast of eggs and toast, and then go out the door at 6:00, and have absolutely no problem.

But I’ve known many runners who, like myself, are not so fortunate. We have to have something a little bit lighter and eat a more substantial meal later the previous night to make sure that we have pretty sufficient glycogen stores before heading into our run.

It depends on your individual needs, but make sure that you play around with it and see what works for you.

These are just a few guidelines that tend to help the average runner, but again it is very, individual.

Kristie, thank you so much for submitting that question. I enjoyed answering it today, and hope what I said has given you a few good tips for those early morning runs of yours.

If you have a question you would like one of our coaches to answer in an upcoming episode, you can submit it at runnersconnect.net/daily.

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I hope everyone’s training is going well, and I hope you have a great run today.