What To Eat Before a Run

Audio Transcript

Coach Hayley: Hey Runners Connect fans. Welcome to Runners Connect, Run to the Top Extra Kick Podcast.

I am here to answer your running and training questions so that you can train smarter, stay healthy, and achieve your goals.

Today, we have a great question from Meghan.

Meghan: When and what should I eat or drink before a run, for the best performance and less side effects? Can you break it down in terms of types of run? Maybe easy days, hard sessions, and long runs? Thanks in advance

Hayley: That’s a good question Meghan and the answer could be long. However, I’ll try to give you the main points.

What and when you eat can really make a difference to how you feel during the run. Too much and you could feel sick or uncomfortable. Too little on a harder or longer run and you could run out of energy.

I’ll start with the timing of your pre-run food. This is very individual. I feel I need at least 90 minutes after a small meal before I head out.

My boyfriend regularly boosts down a couple slices of toast and jam, and then heads straight out the door. He’s also been known to munch some McDonald’s then go for 20 minutes later sorry.

I can guarantee they’re not too many people are like that. He’s a bit of a knob one. You need to experiment to find out what’s right for you.

Try eating a medium size snack or small meal 90 minutes before your next run. If your stomach is okay, move this forward 15-20 minutes and see how you feel.

If this doesn’t sit well, push it back 15-20 minutes and again know how you feel. Play around with it and you can find your optimum.

Of course, this timing depends on what you eat. It’s worth practicing this with your usual pre-run meal or something you’d be happy to eat pre-run or pre-race.

The timing also depends on how much you’ve eaten. With a small snack, you might be or to go for a run 30 minutes later. With a medium sized breakfast, you might need to wait 2-3 hours.

The timing will also be different depending on the intensity of your workout. So, I can go and do an easy run an hour after eating my morning oatmeal but I need to before my hard work out.

The second part of your question, what to eat. This very much depends on the individual preferences as well as the type of training run you’re doing and the nutritional demands it entails.

It’s worth remembering that the body has enough glycogen stored in the muscles from your normal diet to run a Marathon pace for number of hours.

After that on easy runs, you’ll likely be relying more on fat for fuel, and you can see why you don’t really need to load up on extra carbs or calories before your easy and recovery runs.

You might only burn 400-600 calories on 45-60 minute run. You’ve got enough fuel on your muscles to run for two hours if you’ve been eating normally for the past few days.

A small snack 30-90 minutes before your easy run is all you need to stop you feeling hungry and boost your blood sugar.

If you’re used to it, you can even do these runs faster that’s before you’ve had breakfast. I mean that again is quite in-vitro thing. I really like doing that so often and if you’re on the lighter side of a normal body weight, maybe it’s not something to do all the time.

But if you’re used to it, it’s also got the benefit of teaching a body to store fat. In terms of what sits well before the easy run, also individual.

Most people do well with something light and easily digestible. A banana, a bowl of cereal, a piece of toast with some nut butter, all good options.

Long runs or harder work outs need to be thought about a little more.

If the workout is going to take more than 90 minutes to complete, it’s worth taking some time to have some extra fuel.

This is especially true for morning runners as your muscle glycogen will have been slightly depleted by the overnight fast.

So, 30-120 minutes for running and medium sized snack or small meal will give you that extra boost. You’ll know from your experiment how much time you need to leave before you run after having this.

You should also play around with what food sits well with you. For example, for some people, dairy is just fine while for others it can cause G.I. issues.

You need to experiment with what you can tolerate well. Easily digestible is key.

You want something low in fat and fiber or a good blend of simple and complex carbs plus a little protein to keep the full is perfect.

My go to before Marathons was always a bagel with some jam and honey and then half away protein too.

That worked well. I’ve also had some oatmeal with some honey and made with a little bit of non-dairy milk and that does me well too.

If you run in the afternoon or evening, you want to have a good breakfast and a healthy lunch, three to four hours before.

That should be high in carbs, moderate in protein, low in fat, complex carbs, and good longer lasting energy.

You probably want to avoid high fiber foods as they can also cause some issues for some people.

Avoid purely simple sugars like soft drinks and sugary snacks, as they can result in some spikes in blood sugar which can then result in some hypoglycemia later.

Remember that the more you eat, the more time it’ll be before you can work out and not experience issues.

Earlier on, I talked about doing some runs in a faster state and I thought I’d mention that at Runners Connect also recommend doing some glycogen depleted runs. These are runs that are done on an empty stomach on purpose.

I wouldn’t recommend doing them all the time and personally I use them very sparingly, but I think they can be included in a training plan with great effect.

They help the body to burn stored fat teaching it to run on fat. It is a great benefit to have If you’re training for a Marathon because your stored carbs will last longer.

They work well for a lot of people. I hope this gives you a variety of options and it’s a bit of a summary of a very wide range in topic.

The main thing is it’s about experimenting, playing around, and finding out what works best for you.

Stick to easily digestible familiar options for hard work out or long run but also recognizing that that before an easy run, you might not need too much extra or anything special.

Thanks so much for your question. For those of you listening that want to have your questions answered by one of the Runners Connect coaches, head over to runnersconnect.net/daily and press record button to send your question over.

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Have a great day and be sure to tune in next time.