Transcript
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Introduces the marathon fueling topic and explains that race-day nutrition begins long before the start line. Covers the speaker's general everyday fueling principles and how they apply to training.
I'm standing on the start line of a marathon I'm hooked up to a continuous glucose monitor so we've got real time evidence and today we're going to talk about fueling in a marathon the science behind it but weknow also that it doesn't begin here Marathon fueling starts way before the start line so we got to go back before we can go over this line look at these crowds okay there's two parts to this fueling thingthere's how we fuel for life generally and how we carb load so let's go part one how we feel for Life generally we tend to live our lives by five simple fueling principles that you can learn more aboutby watching this video or reading this book by Matt Fitzgerald but when it comes to our fueling we've got five rules one eat quality pretty self-explanatory most food cooked fresh and not processed two eat carb centered not to
be confused with carb heavy by the way but carbs form the basis of most of our meals three eat enough we make sure we properly fuel to ensure training is high quality but not OV we try to tuneinto the body signals four eat everything we don't restrict a particular food group and we eat a bit of everything even treat meals a good healthy balance across all five eat individually we've experimented enough to know what worksfor us what foods make us feel good and make us perform well trial and error of course but everyone is different so that's how we live our about General Life fueling wise but you want to know how you
Explains how to carb load in the days before a marathon, including target carbohydrate amounts and practical food choices. The speaker also frames the video as a science-based guide for refining an existing fueling plan.
would fuel for a marathon right let me try and break it down in 1 minute as simply and as quickly as I can first of all follow featherston nutrition and rosna performance on Instagram great sources of the sciencebehind it and how to do it now Mary followed a 3-day carb load which means she was aiming to take in 8 G of carbohydrates per kilogram of her body weight for each of the three days if youare a 100 kg human you'd be looking at getting 800 G each of the days in I did a two-day load so it's a bit more aggressive I was looking for 10 to 12 G of carbohydrates per kilogramof body weight I'm 63 kg give or take so I'm looking at 630 G of carbohydrates minimum it's quite a lot by the end I was like pushing spaghetti into my mouth and it was falling back out but
the way that we found worked for us was you eat your normal breakfast which had carbohydrates cuz it was oat cereal fruit pasta or something for lunch pasta or potatoes or something for dinner and then in the periodsthrough the day things like Bagles orange juice is a great source of carbohydrates in this in the form of fructose carbohydrate drinks from the likes of bicks or Tailwind we were just keeping it topped up throughout the entireday and that clearly worked for us when it came to the Chicago marathon and then on the morning of the race it's just topping it up it's having a breakfast having orange juice topping up those stores off yougo in fact off we go to the buy Ram Marathon which is like the craziest marathon in
Thailand all right we might as well go run a
marathon now I know what you're thinking I already know how to fuel for a marath I've got a strategy that works for me and it's something like bang a jail every 5 miles or jail every 45 minutes oror whatever it is and that's okay but what I want to do in this video is talk you through the science so that maybe you can adapt or tweak your approach if it hasn't been working for you oreven if it has to make it a little bit better
Discusses when to take gels, why timing matters, and how long they take to affect blood glucose. It also covers the common mistake of underfueling and recommends focusing on time-based fueling intervals.
what I now intend to do is spend my entire Marathon banging on about what I do when I do it why I do it so that you can uh you can give it a go as well we're juststanding behind the that's the 4H hour Pace we're aiming for a 4H hour marathon today cuz Mikey and Paulie are pushing Coco in a buggy somewhere over
there okay here's the first thing to take into account when you're running in a marathon and it's the gels don't hit quite as quickly as I think you think they're going to hit so if you're standing on thestart line with 5 minutes to go and you bang a Jael that's not going to hit for 20 to 25 minutes into the race which might not be a problem but I've always been a firm believer of keepingyour glucose topped up the whole time the carb levels up so if you want to time it right you want to be looking at taking a gel between 20 and 30 minutes before to have the peak of thathit when you cross the start
line the proper party Vibe here we're actually running around the Chang race circuit I think there's like a lot of car racing that goes on
here why don't we address the misconception here on how many cars you should be putting in an hour because I think a lot of people they really under fuel in the marathon and and again the evidence is prettyoverwhelming you look at 80 to 100 G of carbohydrates an hour and think about it in some gels there's 25 G four GS an hour quite a
lot so you might be asking how do I combat needing to get that much carbohydrate in my body with not being able to take four gels an hour that's just insane so number one is a lot of thegel Brands nowadays are making kind of 40 GS of carbohydrate type gels where it's a bigger hit but for a similar size packet so I tend to rotate between a 40 G and a 25 G and take gelsevery 20 to 25 minutes when I'm giving it a full send not doing that today but that way I'm looking at getting up to 80 just over per hour near enough when you average it out so I tookmy first gel at 30 minutes in it was just gone 5K uh it's about 6:30 no about 7:00 p.m.right so actually that should be hitting around now because we're about 25 minutes later so I think it's about oh there we go I think it's about 725 so this is when I'm going to take my next gel
so as it's waning as we're at the peak I'll take another gel should hit again but this time I'm going to take a 40 G Joe abit pretty much touching it B on the 1 hour as I say if I was racing full send I would have traditionally taken this way earlier but I'm running very conservatively today cuz we're having a lovely time
we're 5 minutes away from taking our next show so let's touch on the importance of the timings rather so rather than distance I focus on time and I'll tell you what look at the cck at the crowd it'slike a full party so we take them every 20 in a race 25 we're taking them every 30 today and that's because time is pure time doesn't change right if you say you're going to take your Gils every5k Every 6K every 5 miles I can guarantee you this a 5k at the start of your race probably is not going to take the same amount of time as a 5k at the end of the race arguablywhen you're going to need it the most so if you stick to time it's really pure you take them every 20 minutes every 25 minutes without fail and then your fueling strategy can't go
Reflects on the halfway point of the race and stresses the importance of practicing with the exact gels and drinks you plan to use. It also covers hydration and warns against delaying a planned gel when you feel comfortable.
wrong an hour and a half in just over 17 km in and it's time to take the next jail and I'm going to take for comparison purposes this time a Morton 40 G they're called Morton 160s
here's what will be interesting to me at the halfway stages uh because I've taken gels every 30 minutes and not every 20 minutes my susp I don't know I'll put the chart up on the screen in a minuteis that I'm not really taking advantage of keeping the glucose High I suspect it's going in real Peaks and troughs because I'm just leaving it a little bit too long between Jael hits but I don't know it's justa feeling I
get Mike is an absolute hero today he's getting all the cheers we're halfway and uh what I feared might happen is going to happen this blood glucose monitor it's happened a couple of times in my 28 days oftesting so far but it just cannot handle the sweat um and it's coming loose and I did try and really stick it down with plasters before we left but you know the rest of the points I don't needa blood glucose monitor I know enough I know the science and I'm hoping I'll still be able to help so it is coming off I got to stop it stabbing me in and out for some reason the microphonejust decided not to work for this clip but no worries because I can show you some of the amazing buy Ram Marathon course while I'm narrating but the essential part of this point was that you need to practice
with the gels that you're going to use on race day or at least whatever fueling you're going to use and whether that be gels with caffeine or not it all makes a difference because just grabbing gels at theside of the road those that the race puts on is never usually a good plan usually a recipe for disaster because it can cause a lot of gastro intestinal distress and you know what even with caffeine if youhaven't practiced with it properly and you start to take it during a race it can go very pearshaped all you need to do is just ask Mary how that went in Seville this is her telling you it didn'tgo well but the basics is you can train your gut to take pretty much anything so find gels that you know work for you and practice with them in training as much as possible and take them with you
on the course take no risks you are not going to bring your best race out without a good fueling
strategy one thing we haven't talked about yet when it comes to fueling is hydration which is a really important part of it and my strategy has always been and will always be get myself completely hydrated Before the Racemake sure I kind of almost need to go to the L at the start line and then during the race I don't think I really have to worry about dehyd ation as such just need to keep topping itup rather than keeping myself out of the danger zone I never feel like I dip too low it's just top UPS all the time little and
often actually this is a point I could have made much earlier in the video but I'll make it now because it's quite relevant I'm running along I've ticked over the half hour mark where I'm supposed to take mygel but I'm in a rhythm and I'm like ah I don't want to break it by faffing around I don't feel like I need it it's a trap hang on let me turn the lights on it's a trapI do need it I must have it it's not for now it's for a little bit later so don't be lured into that feeling of like I'm all right I'll have it a little bit later trust me whenI say this I've been caught out before so onto the Mortons again just making sure I'm keeping myself topped up is sensible the marathon doesn't really start until 32 km
Explains that larger runners may need more fuel even at lower intensities, then closes with advice to stick to a fueling plan and use emergency calories if needed late in the race. The ending briefly covers finishing, recovery nutrition, and the video outro.
so while we've got 8K to go it's worth touching on the fueling needs of Runners with different Siz bodies because let's be honest we looking around this Marathon lots of Runners of all different sizes no less of Runnersby the way but everyone is different and there's a recent scientific paper that's come out saying that Runners over 70 kg actually require more fuel than less even if they run at lower intensity or slower because their bodyis just burning that much more fuel so the misconception is that if you're running slower if you're running easier you need to put less fuel back in but that's a misconception you actually need to put more back inif you're over 70 kg so don't be fooled into thinking okay I don't need to use I don't need to fuel as often you do in fact you need to fuel more
often I guess my penultimate piece of fueling advice is quite a simple one take the plan seriously viously have a plan and take it there's no way you bring out all of that hard training over weeks and monthswithout a really good fueling plan to match it because if you just come into a marathon with no plan or you disrespect the plan you have then you're not going to do yourself Justice I think it's just thatsimple would you agree totally got to have the plan got to stick to it got to have the plan got to stick to it
and my final tip is I think it's my final tip unless I think of something else by the time I get to the finish line but if you get to about this distance into a marathon and you're reallystruggling oh it's not easy hang on if you get to this distance in a marathon and you're really struggling you know don't be afraid to reach for the Coca colola that's on the table or the sweet drink orsomething you know if you're really struggling what's the worst that can happen you end up in a poalo but you know it could be the thing that saves your skin so in the depths of a race reach forsomething that might help if you need it
we did it we made it
something this is Coco
finish I got to tell you buy Ram Marathon was amazing we'll definitely be back and if you want to know how to fuel after your race then just eat carbohydrates and protein to recover it's not that it's notrocket science if you liked the video then please first of all consider subscribing to the channel as we are aiming for 1 million by tomorrow is and also I think you're going to like this video If you likethis one which was the one that started it all the endurance diet based video with Matt Fitzgerald and again hopefully that will help you dial in your diet for your running and get the best out of yourself thanksfor watching see you next week