Pre- and Post-Workout Fueling

Hi, Friends & Fellow Runners:

Next to the commitment you bring to whatever training you may be engaged in, nutrition is the most important factor in determining your ongoing  and ultimate success as a runner at any distance.  The simple truth is that you must eat right to run strong.

Your concerns should be not only what you eat but when you eat it.  An hour or two before the start of a run you should make sure you ingest some food rich in carbohydrates, and 30 to 45 minutes after a run you should look for a healthy shot of protein.  Think carbohydrates for energy and protein for recovery.  And remember, the best carbs come from fruits, vegetables and whole-grain breads, cereals, rice and pasta, while good protein sources include dairy products (low-fat milk and yogurt, as well as eggs and cheese); lean beef, chicken and fish.

Prior to your morning runs, consider a breakfast that includes one or another of these choices: steel-cut oatmeal, pancakes, a bagel or brown toast with peanut butter, whole-grain cereal with bananas, or two scoops of All-Greens powder blended with skim milk and real fruit.  And before your evening runs, when time is often short and convenience a concern, consider a snack consisting of either instant oatmeal, two pieces of fruit, an energy bar, three or four fig Newton’s, or a granola bar.  Obviously, the quantity of food you eat should be commensurate with the distance and pace of your intended run.

Once your workout is over, it’s important that you kick-start the process of effectively and quickly repairing muscle tissue and replacing damaged cells.  Here the recovery options include Gatorade Recovery drink, Clif Builder’s Protein Bar, Branched Chain Amino Acid powder, or a protein shake such as Muscle Milk.  On a par with these products is the most prosaic recovery drink of all – plain old chocolate milk.  Eight to 12 ounces of it are what you’d need.  And if you blended in with it a scoop of whey protein powder and a banana, you’d have the equivalent of“chocolate milk on steroids.”  Afterward, the ideal conclusion to the post-run recovery effort would be a meal featuring either eggs, chicken, fish or lean beef.

The importance of protein in muscle repair does not detract from the fact that complex carbohydrates are the foundation of an runner’s diet.  They should become about 60% of the nutrients you consume while in training, up from 50 to 55%, where they probably are now.  Just try to avoid refined grains like the plague.  Here we mean everything from white rice to Wheaties.  And know that perhaps the best you can say about Wonder Bread is that it has more nutritional value than the plastic it comes wrapped in.

Finally, for heaven’s sake, keep yourself properly hydrated at all times.  A rule of thumb is to consume daily a quantity of water that is the equivalent, in ounces, of half your body weight in pounds.  Thus, if you weigh 120 pounds, you should drink 60 ounces of the clear liquid that some people, with poetic license, have called “the champagne of life.”  It sounds like a lot, but as with so much else, it’s one thing your body can quickly get used to.

Coach Stephen