Fuelling mid race
Race nutrition is a crucial and often overlooked aspect of endurance training and racing. Done right, it can get you across the line to reap the rewards of a solid training block. Done poorly it can result in a DNF or you off pooping in the bushes. It's important to note that race nutrition strategies can be highly variable. What works for one athlete may be the undoing of another. It's not a simple copy and paste of what worked for the person who came 1st. They have probably tweaked their own nutrition plan over months and months of training and racing to find their own personal efficiencies with nutrition intake. In saying that, hopefully there are some interesting and useful tips to follow below. More so guidelines to overlay on your own race nutrition strategy.
What are the key recommendations of intake during a race?
The main focus of fuelling during a race is carbohydrate repletion, electrolytes, ergogenic aids like caffeine and fluid replacement. As the race distance increases, there is a need to substitute more diverse foods into a nutrition plan as focusing on simple carbohydrates alone can be an oversight. Most of these recommendations will be covered in this article aside from caffeine and hyponatremia/electrolyte imbalances which require a bit more detail.
Carbohydrates-
For events under 60minutes, there doesn't need to be a focus on carbohydrate repletion. Between an hour and 2.5 hours, the recommendation is 30-60g CHO/hour. For events longer than 2.5hours, performance benefits are seen with 60-90g CHO/hour ( if you gut can tolerate these levels). It's interesting to note that if the CHO source is a mixture, most commonly glucose/fructose, then our bodies utilise different pathways to transport it to working muscles. This allows for greater overall CHO to be consumed and can also help GI issues when taking a glucose/fructose combination.
When exercising we also have to be mindful of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. This is the push and pull effect of digesting food or stimulating muscles during movement. Ideally, we want foods which spend minimal time impacting the GI tract. For this reason opting for simple carbs and low fibre foods can help race fuelling. These can take many forms. Some examples include
crumpets with honey
bananas
white bread and jam/peanut butter
sports drinks
gels
lollies
What about fluids?
Fluids are a great way to get both water and fuel in at the same time and implemented by many athletes. Regardless of whether you add fuel to your water intake (eg. electrolytes or carbs), it is recommended to aim for ~400-800ml of water per hour. This is highly variable depending on sweat rate, sodium in sweat, time of race, outside temperature and preference. A good way to train with these numbers is to weigh yourself before and after a longer run to understand fluid loss. After a long session you should aim to replace fluid with 150% of what you lost and monitor it by the colour of your urine (light straw colour is the goal)
Is replacing sodium important?
If you have a high sweat rate (greater than 1.2L/hour) or are exercising for longer than 2 hours, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends sodium intake of ~300-600mg/hour. This would be a little less for regular athletes but it's important to find what works for you. Again, electrolyte intake such as sodium is highly variable depending on the athlete and ties in strongly to fluid intake. As a reference, most standard sports drinks contain sodium anywhere from 230mg-700mg so can be an easy substitute. Salt tablets contain roughly 250mg of sodium. Keep in mind that overconsumption of these can create other GI side effects or effect performance .
Race nutrition is a nuance that athletes need to personalise themselves alongside their coach or nutrition professional. This article is the research supporting fuelling during endurance events. They aren't rules but more guidelines to help athletes understand the nutritional needs within a race. Training also needs to includes making sure your gut can handle the fuel you plan on using. A good rule is nothing new should be tried on race day and that is especially true for nutrition.