Runners
and food. How strict is the relationship?
“You
run a lot. So you must be able to eat whatever you want!”
“You
do marathons. So you must be really careful about what you eat!”
And,
somewhere in between those two misconceptions… lies reality.
Firstly,
a disclaimer: I’m not a nutritionist. I can’t even cook, which is why the books
on the topic I’ve purchased over the past few years don’t feature the dog-ears
oft associated with cooking books. Over these past few years, however, I have
developed a better understanding of the type of food I should eat ahead of,
during and after races. And I mean ‘races’, as opposed to ‘runs’: I can just
about pay attention to what I eat around races, but to do so on a daily basis
would be unworkable. Not least because I’d often struggle to fathom when I’m
‘recovering’, ‘tapering’ and ‘carbloading’…
.
. .
As
per the saying that “what gets measured gets done”, I first logged my weight on
MyFitnessPal on January 27, 2016:
and have done every Monday since. Equally, I log everything I eat on there.
Does that mean I’m obsessed?
With
stats, perhaps. But not with food. So yes, I do weigh my breakfast cereals as I
pour them into my bowl, so that my stats can be accurate; however, given that
my bowl typically ends up containing one Shredded Wheat and one Weetabix
biscuit, 30g of granola, 20g of Fruit & Fibre and 20g of fruity muesli, I’m
hardly holding back… You wouldn’t accuse a Michelin chef of being
weight-obsessed for measuring the ingredients in his star-winning mix, so how’s
my cereal bowl any different? And that without me admitting to sometimes
throwing in a few grams more, or munching a handful of dry cereals before
closing the box…
I
started using MyFitnessPal to shed a few pounds ahead of my 2016 target
marathon, Manchester – although doing so days before traveling to Italy for a
Half in the town where I grew up, knowing that weekend I’d be enjoying my
Nonna’s homemade cooking, may not have been optimal timing. Then again, nor was
the inclement weather that caused the race’s cancellation. Whilst the app will
offer you a prediction of your weight four weeks down the line, were you to
maintain a similar level of calorie intake and burn, I’ve never paid much
credence to that. That’s partly because those guesstimates are utterly
unreliable, least in my case: MFP factors the calories that Strava believes
I’ve burnt through running, a figure which Strava overestimates (and Garmin
underestimates). And, partly, it’s because that’s not where I find value in the
tool…
…working
from home, I’m constantly tempted by snacking. Whilst the likes of fresh fruit,
cereals, cereal bars and rye biscuits are hardly unhealthy options, everything
beyond moderation has its drawbacks, just like everything in moderation is
fine. Est modus in rebus, folk. That’s why, for me, one of the two major
benefits of MFP lies in the knowledge that I’ll have to log anything I eat, as
it makes me think twice about grabbing it in the first place and helps those
hard-to-find fruity Ryvita packets last a little longer. As for the second
benefit…
Let’s
briefly step back from nutrition to good old-fashioned running. I enjoy the
discussions on Strava, which give my solitary, early morning runs a social
coating, as I do enjoy dissecting detailed on Garmin Connect, if not for every
single run. I’ve benefitted immensely from fellow runners’ comments, and hope
that some of mine have been helpful to others. As races approach, however, I
find Strava at its most useful in its simplest form:
That’s right: I enjoy
looking at bubbles. Looking for patterns in mileage and pace covered ahead of
races, both those that went well and those that didn’t. Just how did I taper
for my last marathon? How did it go? What did I do ahead of my best race? How
long was my last long run? At what pace?
MyFitnessPal plays a
similar role. I could give you a pretty good idea of what I’ll be eating at the
start of the week that will culminate with my 2018 ‘A’ race, Barcelona
Marathon. Because, cometh Monday, March 5, I’ll look to replicate
what I ate on April 3, 2017, six days out from my PB at Rotterdam
Marathon. Main meals are likely to vary, because this is a family
household and not a pro training camp, although Karen’s very good at
accommodating my principles over those final few days. And those principles are
quite simple: low carb intake Mon-Wed, carbload Thu-Sat, race Sunday. I’ll be
looking to follow it balancing control and flexibility, all the more
comfortably so after last April’s Rotterdam jaunt, where the scrumptious
breakfast I ate (at Baker & Moore, if you’re heading that way!)
with fellow running friends on Marathon eve deviated from the plan but didn’t
stand in the way of the desired outcome. So, for ‘plan’, read ‘blueprint’:
guidelines that help not undo weeks of good work, but that need not be followed
to the letter. Not least because we don’t know what we don’t know. And by that
I mean…
Does the fact that last
April’s approach helped me to a PB mean it was optimal?
No, of course not. It
worked: but that’s not to say there’s no scope for improvement. Should we ever
be lucky enough to stumble across the optimal approach, be it across training
and nutrition or just one, we still wouldn’t be able to know. Should my last
long run have been shorter? Slower? I took my weekly speedwork workout out of
my weekly routine in the taper week leading up to Bath HM on March 12, and
somehow never got around to reintroducing it: did that have any impact? Would I
have been faster had I begun carbloading a day sooner – or maybe a day later?
As with most of my
questions, the answer is: “Who knows?”. And that’s where it comes down to one’s
degree of risk aversion: how prepared are we to tweak a successful formula in
search of an extra 5%, knowing that we won’t find out if it delivered any
marginal gains or if it had a detrimental effect until after the event? And,
even then, we’ll only be able to go on… er, ‘gut feel’, as we can never
attribute a step up or down in performance to any one factor?
I did experiment with
carb-depletion ahead of last year’s London Marathon. It was hot on the heels of
Rotterdam and I wasn’t gunning for another PB. Not till the days before the
race, anyway, when the fact that the calf tear I’d unknowingly dragged around
the Netherlands had healed left me wondering whether I could do better. I was
amazed by how much weight I lost through carb-depletion, and still had time to
carbload ahead of London. It’s a race I don’t remember fondly, but not because I feel
nutrition let me down: and I would certainly recommend tweaking proven formulas
ahead of races that don’t represent major targets. After all, any time we clock
is ultimately the combination of four sets of factors, such as (and this is a
limited list):
In The Weeks
Beforehand
|
In The Final 24 hours
|
|
Within
our control
|
- Training
- Diet
- Rest
|
- Nutrition
- Kit Preparation
- Mentality
|
Beyond
our control
|
- Work (esp. travel)
- Travel to race city
- Life
|
- Weather
- Race organisation
- Fate
|
Of course, none of the
above fit perfectly into those boxes. ‘Rest’ is not always within our control:
sometimes sleep eludes us, sometimes noisy neighbours (especially in hotels)
will put even the best-laid plans (but not us) to rest. And sticking
‘Mentality’ amongst factors we can control is a gross oversimplification: it
fits there for me, though, so I’ll leave it there. Just like I’ll leave ‘Fate’
as a catch-all final category: a four-letter word, it fits more neatly than
another four-letter word (‘fits’).
Right: enough waffling.
Enough suggesting I have a clue as to what I’m talking about. And back to food…
. . .
It’s no secret that I
began running to lose weight. I managed that within a matter of months (and on
a fraction of my current mileage), as there was more than enough to lose. As to
why I’ve carried on running, it’s a mystery. Or a combination of enjoyment,
camaraderie, achievement, happiness and general enrichment to a life that would
otherwise see me stuck inside this house all day long. You decide.
When targeting a race
goal, it’s easy enough to work out the required average race pace. Running it
less so: but the theory is simple enough. The reality is one of potential
divergences between GPS and mile or kilometre markers (with the latter
ultimately holding sway) and of sharing the roads with a few thousand people:
hence, while my watch may think I ran 26.7mi in Rotterdam (see bubble above),
if you look in the book it says 26.2 – and that’s all that matters. So, come
March 11, I know that having my watch tell me I’ve run 26.2 miles at an average
pace of 6’40”/mi may not mean I’ve achieved my 2:54’59” goal, whatever the calculators may say: so, if we assume that GPS mismatches and having
to deviate from the shortest route to overtake mean my watch will measure the Barcelona
course the way it did the Rotterdam one, I need to be running at 6’33”/mi – or
4’04”/km, if you prefer. As if 6’40”s (4’09”/km) didn’t feel disarmingly
daunting enough… but at least I can figure out the figures, if not necessarily
run the run.
What’s harder to figure
out, and impossible to be certain about, is all the fluffy stuff around it.
It’s all well and good me listing ‘training’, ‘diet’ and ‘rest’ as items within
my control, with ‘training’ and ‘rest’ combining to give us a fourth key item
over the final two weeks: ‘tapering’. But the fact that I can control, or at
least “heavily influence”, them doesn’t mean I know for what I should be
aiming…
…and that is particular
true about one statistic which reflects the combination of those factors: race
weight.
There is a very simple
number that routinely gets banded about when discussing race weight: 127.
That’s the number of seconds that, all other things being equal, you can
supposedly shave off your marathon time by losing a kilo. In this equation, if
form, course and conditions are constants, for every thousand fewer grams you
cart around for 26.2 miles you can cross that finish line 2’07” earlier. Such
logic is indisputable. Or is it?
In principle, yes. It’s
reflected in the millions poured by F1 teams into making their cars as light as
possible. But you won’t find them compromising on engine power. That remains
paramount. So where do we draw the line? At what point does less weight equate
to a weaker engine?
Another open question.
Another “it depends” answer. Although we do have some clues…
When it comes to elite
marathon runners, they have significantly lower BMIs than leading athletes in
other fields. London 2012 Olympic gold medallist Stephen Kiprotitch comes in at
18.2, for example. At the opposite end of the scale you’ll find
another London 2012 gold medal-winning runner. But sprinting is a different
game, for which Bolt needed his BMI of 24.9. Of which I doubt even an ounce was
fat, whereas muscular runners leading a major marathon are a rare sight. Just
like you’re unlikely to see a man above 1.82m (my height, as it happens) at
the front of the pack. Just as well the 1.95-tall Bolt took to sprinting, then,
where those looong legs proved an unbeatable asset. As for me, I can’t shrink…
but should I be looking to bring my weight down?
Well, it would be nice –
but…
Given that on 22/11/2011
(the day of my epilepsy op) my BMI was 30.0, and that two years later it was
22.5, I think we can safely say that the law of diminishing returns has long
kicked in on that front for me. Still, let’s do some maths anyway. Feed the
average of my last six Monday weigh-ins (68.4kg) into the NHS calculator, and it spews out a BMI of 20.6. To
hit 20, which represents the lower end of the ‘normal’ range and is
an accepted rule of thumb for a good marathon racing BMI, I’d have to get down
to 66.25kg…
…is that realistic? Is
it worth it?
You’ll have fathomed by
now that, as with most things running-related, I don’t have an answer. So, as
with most things running-related (not least sub-20 attempts, be they over 5k or
100 miles), I’m going to file it in the “worth a go” category. Not for long:
when I finish my next long run on Sunday, Barcelona will be four weeks away.
This means both that I won’t have to cut corners for long and that I haven’t
got long to cut corners: two more long’uns, then Bath Half on
March 4, a race which usually works perfectly as an indicator of my marathon
shape but which this year is too close to my target race to be anything but the
most expensive training / tune-up run I’ll have ever run, then it’ll be race
week. Besides: which corners can I cut?
I’m not going to
overhaul my diet, that’s for sure. It’s a good, balanced diet; I already steer
clear of most of the food you’d expect someone training for a 2:55’ marathon to
have cut out; and I certainly won’t be foregoing my share of the panettone that
we bought for Christmas but have yet to open, due to a plethora of yuletide
alternatives followed by Karen’s birthday cake taking precedence. What I can
do, however, is reinstate the habit that was the foundation of my weight loss
when I first started running almost six years ago, and turn on one that I
normally only reserve for taper-time…
…because, of all the
things that helped me shed 25kg in around five months, only running helped more
than me resisting the urge to finish off any food my kids left on their plates.
It’s a habit I’ve knowingly got back into, because I can – although, to be
fair, they don’t leave much these days! Now to see if I can just as knowingly
get back out of it again, because I want to; and, at the same time, to reduce snacking
in between meals. Which means stop putting my hand in the cereal boxes, and not
eating the sandwich crusts that make it home in Roberto’s school lunchbox.
There’ll still be scope for proper snacks, be they fruit, ClifBars
(of which there is never a shortage here) or the like: but, on the whole,
getting back into that habit of drinking more water and munching less shouldn’t
do any harm. I’ve made a start: and, if history is anything to go by, resisting
temptation will get easier. That’s because unnecessary snacks only fuel more
hunger rather than the body: a problem that’s all the more acute in the UK, the
only country in Europe where processed foods (of which many are sugary) account for over
50% of the food we buy. But main meals will be pretty much
unaffected. After all, a man’s gotta eat. Because a man’s gotta run. And that’s
not something I’ll be forgetting. So I might stop clearing up my kids’ plates –
but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop helping myself to seconds in any great hurry…
Indeed, the role of food
and how amateur athletes look at it was a core topic covered by four-time
Ironman World Champion Chrissie Wellington at a talk she gave in Bristol
a few months back and which I was fortunate enough to attend. Some points that
stuck (and I paraphrase):
- Food should be viewed as ‘fuel’, not ‘reward’ – so don’t deny yourself
- During training, teach your body to adapt to a race scenario. You can’t go on a long bike ride devouring cake and then expect your body to get by on gels on race day
Since I go out before
breakfast, my body generally does a decent job of running on fat and preserving
carbs: something which works well on some training runs, but won’t be my
strategy for Barcelona. As for viewing food as reward, I think it can be all
the more enjoyable if associated with a successful workout or race: but the
principle that it is first and foremost fuel is sacrosanct. So yes, there is a
chocolate bar in the rucksack I use for parkruns (of which I’ve not run one
since early December – eek!) which I’ll only eat when I break eighteen minutes:
but there’ll be Clif Bars aplenty beforehand!
It’s worth noting that
Chrissie has long openly spoken about her own struggles with eating disorders,
and points visitors to her blog in the direction of a 2014 article from triathlon magazine “220”
on the topic which has sadly lost none of its relevance. Indeed, only a few
months ago Scottish record-holding high-jumper (turned non-elite marathon
runner) Jayne Nisbet spoke about her battle against bulimia,
which fortunately she won. In this regard, elite athletes, and those a rung
below trying to make it to the top, probably face greater risks than
recreational ones, as they seek that extra 0.1%; and they may sometimes find
themselves being pushed in the wrong direction by reckless, irresponsible coaches,
or misguided parents. Zoom in on female athletes, and the issue takes on an
additional level of complexity and risk.
So: if I shed a couple
of pounds, great; if I don’t, no worries. The majority of the indicators on my
form dashboard are pointing in the right direction, and even if I were to gain
a couple of pounds ahead of Barcelona I’d be approaching the race start line
lighter than I ever have. Of course, I reserve the right to worry nearer March
11: but that’s because I know no cure for maranoia. I just know that, however I’m running,
however I’m feeling, it’ll kick in. Least after last April I know that being
around friends in the build-up to a race will help keep it under control when
it could be at its peak, something I plan to remember in particular when I sit
down for breakfast with friends in Barcelona on Saturday, March 10.
Talking about sitting
down to eat with friends… in a few hours’ time I’ll be meeting up with some
I’ve not seen in a year or more for a succulent curry. Oh yes. Bring it on! And
I’ve already logged what I plan to eat, so I shouldn’t get carried away…
…oh: and this post was
very much centred around my goals and my habits. So I didn’t find time to go
off on one about fad foods and the over-emphasis placed on carbloading, both of
which running mags needing to attract advertising may occasionally promote as
more beneficial to running than training itself, whereas they are only
beneficial once the hard graft’s been put in… or about how carbloading only
helps if you’re running for at least two hours, meaning that carbloading for a
Half Marathon can actually prove detrimental… But I might do another time.
