Fueling for Race Day (Short Races < 30 Minutes)

Nutrition for race day prep is highly individual - you'll want to experiment with what works best for you. This article will set the stage. Let's start with a brief overview of how you use energy during a race - if you know the mechanisms, you'll know how to maximize your race!

CAVEAT: The strategies discussed in this article are based on the assumption that your cells are able to efficiently access and produce energy from the food you eat. If you regularly feel any of the signals (symptoms) below, this is a sign that your cells are struggling to produce enough energy. We first want to heal your cells in order to open up the energy firehose so that you're fully powered up for racing. While you're healing, my race nutrition strategies might adjust based on how severe you're feeling these signals.

Signals:

• Irritability “Hangry"

• Headache

• Afternoon Sleepiness

• Nausea

• Anxiety

• Brain Fog - Difficulty Concentrating

• Dizziness

• Heart Palpitations

• Fatigue

• Shakiness

• “The Sweats”

• Muscle Weakness

For high intensity exercise - a race lasting less than ~ 30 minutes - your body loves to use the sugar that's stored right onsite in your muscles - called glycogen. For races longer than ~ 1 hour, your body will perform best by pulling some longer term energy from storage (body fat) to help supplement glycogen. The focus of this article will be on shorter races, so the main concern is maximizing glycogen stores.

An average adult male can store about 400g of glycogen in their muscles. If you have less muscle mass, you'll have less storage. You also never start filling from a completely empty glycogen tank. Let's say you're a 15yo athlete and you have room for 150g of new muscle glycogen the evening before a meet. You'll want a dinner with the right energy to fill up those glycogen stores.

What's the best dinner to have the evening before a competition and when should you have it?

First, going to bed on a full stomach will harm your sleep. You want to eat early in the evening (4+ hrs before bed) to give your body plenty of time to digest your dinner that may be slightly larger than normal - though it's also not a good idea to over stuff yourself.

Second, you want a slow trickle charge of sugar in to your muscles - too much sugar all at once and your body will call an emergency meeting and shove a lot of that sugar into your fat cells instead of muscles. Remember: All non-fiber carbohydrates get broken down into sugar. It's the speed of digestion and the accompanying nutrients (and when you eat it) that determines how healthy that sugar is. That's why we're not a fan of the pre-competition pasta dinner. Tomatoes have lots of nutrients, but fruits (which tomatoes are!) are mostly super quick sugar. Pre-made tomato sauce also usually has a lot of added sugar. Further, pasta is made from highly processed grains so it's also very quick to digest into sugar. Pasta has close to no nutrients (fortified synthetic vitamins and minerals are very low quality). Garlic bread is similar to pasta. The classic pasta party is a fast acting sugar feast that ends up shoveling lots of energy into long term storage - body fat.

Instead, start with your typical dinner centered around protein, high quality fats (butter, tallow, olive oil...), and add an extra serving of slow-digesting carbs. Potatoes (any kind), quinoa, 100% wild rice, black rice, squash, beans, lentils, full fat dairy, and Ezekiel bread are all good examples of slow-digesting carbs. It's not always an option in our busy lives, but to truly optimize you want to be through digestion before bedtime. Now you've charged up your muscle glycogen storage via trickle charge and you haven't disrupted your sleep!

What should you eat for breakfast the day of a competition?

What's the goal for today? You want to have stable energy for the whole competition, and you want to keep your muscles topped off with glycogen. The first focus, like any other day, should be on those healthy fats that have you running at peak capacity all day long. Second, include some protein, but it doesn't have to be much - protein isn't very good at providing energy. Lastly, increase the slow-digesting carbs versus what you'd have on a normal day. To sum up a fantastic race-morning breakfast: Eat healthy fats for all-day energy with some slow-digesting carbs to top off your glycogen stores.

What should you eat throughout competition day?

There are too many variables here to give an exact answer:

• How many events are you competing in?

• How much time between events?

• Is it a single session or are you expecting to race prelims and finals?

• Is it a single day or multi-day meet?

Let's go back to biological mechanisms to create a framework of how to think about which fueling strategy is right for you.

Because we've already set up the day with a baseline of steady energy with those high quality fats at breakfast, the rest of the day should be focused on keeping the glycogen topped off while not saddling your stomach with anything heavy. On a day-to-day basis, lots of snacking will impede muscle protein synthesis and long-term growth, but on a day with multiple races it's beneficial to snack - just choose wisely.

If you have more than an hour or so between races, keep that baseline energy going strong with small tidbits of healthy fats every couple hours: 1/2 of an avocado (guac!), a piece of string cheese, a small bowl of full fat yogurt, and olives (tapenade if you want to be fancy) are all great options.

Note: while soaked or sprouted nuts are full of amazing nutrients, they're not great at maximizing quick energy output, so skip the nuts on race day.

Most importantly, you want to ensure glycogen is topped off before every race. 10-30 minutes before each race have a bit of fast acting sugar - a banana, apple, or mango, fresh or dried. Combine that with a rice cake or two and you'll be primed to go! Don't fill your stomach too much though or you'll start to feel heavy. You'll need to experiment with how much food makes you feel best (don't be afraid to leave half the banana for later). If you're in a big time crunch, a few gummy bears or swigs of a sports drink can help in a last second emergency. That said, it still takes time for sugar to make it's way from your mouth to your muscles so downing a spoonful of sugar as you're heading to the race start won't make a difference.

Lastly, DO NOT FORGET THE ELECTROLYTES AND HYDRATION! Sodium, potassium, and magnesium are all extremely important. Without them, drinking lots of water is actually dehydrating. Magnesium is one of the few supplements we recommend that nearly everybody should take regularly, including on race day. You shouldn't need to supplement with potassium if you generally follow Hi Energy nutrition principles and you've followed the race prep ideas above. Additionally, if you're mostly eating lots of low-processed and nutrient rich foods, you should always be liberal with adding salt. On race day you want to be extra liberal with the salt. You might want to add a pinch of salt to every glass of water you drink - and drink lots of it, especially if you're outdoors in the heat and sun. Try making your own electrolyte mix - Salt, lemon juice, and a drop of liquid stevia.

There you have it! You now have the general framework for optimizing your race day nutrition. Just remember that every body is different. You'll need to experiment with what works best for you in relation to your specific sport. There are lots of considerations to hone in on to further support your specific biology as it relates to your sport for your specific race(s), for the length of time between your events, and the number of days you'll be competing. For that you'll need to experiment and consider working with a nutrition coach.