Last time: We talked about why you should probably not ignore that stabbing pain in your heel, why the Mongolian Yaks are probably doing just fine without you, and we tried to forget a picture of me in a tiny red singlet...
What (not) to Eat
I have a friend, let's call him Allan Jaymes, who insists on eating flax seeds, hemp and dolphin's tears at every meal in the run up to a race, in order to squeeze every last piece of possible goodness into his body. I have another friend, let's call him me, who pretty much lived off pizza, pasta, bread and Jaffa Cakes for most of his marathon training period and managed to get through it. I'd say somewhere in the middle probably lies the correct approach... Nobody is suggesting that you stuff your face with whatever you feel like, because you are very likely not to get the nutrients you need during this extremely demanding time for your body. But, come on, you can allow yourself the odd treat still.
Eating advice can largely be divided into 4 categories, so let's take advantage of that possibility:
1. Before a run
Conventional wisdom suggests you carb load the night before a big run - and most people end up with a Big Old Bowl Of Pasta, which certainly works well, although in some instances it can just massively bloat you out so that you feel like you're running with an inflatable beach ball down your shirt, so take care.
The 'BOBOP' approach worked pretty well for me, until the night before my first 10 mile run - I'd planned to do the same as usual but ended up being unexpectedly invited for dinner at my sister's house (funnily enough, not the one who kept disagreeing with me in the last part...), whereupon I was presented with a gigantic roast dinner with all the trimmings and then a lovely apple crumble for pudding. I absolutely FLEW along the next morning, feeling like Superman, and after that decided that it apparently didn't really matter that much what I ate.
As for the day of a long run, I wouldn't eat much in the couple of hours beforehand - perhaps a banana or some oat biscuits in the morning before you head off on the train, but I mostly find that I'm good to get up and run any time before lunch without any breakfast. And (Top Tip) don't eat two massive pitta breads full of sliced banana 30 minutes before you start running unless you want to find out what it's like to be a penguin feeding its young for the duration of your workout...
The week before the marathon is generally known as the 'Carb Loading' phase, when you're supposed to up your ratio of carbs to protein way beyond what it has been during training - and it was therefore probably quite lucky that I spent it in Denmark, land of all the good bread. I must admit, though, that it became a struggle at points to eat quite as many carbs as were suggested, and when I was loading my plate up with yet another spoonful of potatoes that I didn't want one lunchtime at the work canteen, I did really wonder if it was worth it.
2. During a Run
Consuming anything more nutritious than water during a run is something you never really think about until you start training for something longer than a 10k race, so I must admit I was at a bit of a loss to know where to start. Fortunately, a Google Search whose results I read extremely selectively suggested that Jelly Babies were a good thing, so I started out by taking a small bag with a few of those in it - until I realised that they were annoyingly fiddly and that I kept on losing them on the ground as I tried to feed myself on the go, which was frankly far too traumatic to continue with.
Fortunately, soon after this, I noticed that my local pound shop had a special offer on Dextro Energy tablets (they were only a pound!) and remembering these from the 1990s, I decided to give them a go. They're pretty good, actually - eating one every half an hour or so during a run gave my motivation a definite pep talk and I ended up just using these pretty much all the time up until about 6 weeks before the Marathon. The problem with them is that they're very powdery and crumbly, and the problem with running is that it makes you breathe in quite sharply, quite a lot, often at the same time as you're trying to put something nutritious in your mouth. One disastrous choking incident later, I decided that these would be reserved for walking moments only.
By this time, I'd joined the UKRunchat community and discovered that (unlike what I suggested last time) Twitter could indeed be used to impart or receive useful information, and the information I got on this occasion suggested that Energy Gels were the only way to go for a serious runner. Vaguely remembering that I had one in a goody bag from my last race, I decided it was time to give it a try, so opened it up at mile 4 of a 12 miler, and tried to drink it, only to discover that it had the consistency and taste of a bag of Haribo that had been left in a car parked in direct sunlight for a month. Retching and coughing, I managed to force it down like a child eating its greens (I may even have held my nose), and washed it down with tons of water, but pretty much decided that Energy Gels were NOT for me.
That was until I was halfway through the Surrey Half Marathon and they handed us out some SIS gels, which at first I was tempted to fling into the nearest canal, but ended up trying, being able to drink/eat without bringing last night's dinner back up, and becoming a convert of. SIS. Science in Sport. That's their website. How about you go and click on it to make my dreams of endorsement deals a reality... "SIS Energy Gels - They don't make you gag as badly as the other brands."
Of course, after a certain distance, you start needing real food, and since there's only so much you can carry with you, you either need to start taking a backpack with supplies in it, or arranging for people to come and meet you at various points along the way to hold out bananas, chocolate milk, energy drinks and replacement bottles of water for you to grab, elite-athlete style. I find parents particularly useful for this kind of stuff, as your back-up people need to love you enough to have the patience to stand waiting in the drizzle in the middle of a forest in France, while you get lost in a housing estate and delay your arrival at the checkpoint by 30 minutes.
Oh, yeah, this may be obvious, but it's something I've neglected to mention - please take plenty of water out with you. I find 750ml will do me for a maximum of 2 hours' running, and after that I start to slow down and my urine, the next time there is any, starts to resemble John Smith's instead of Stella. The idea of not taking water on any kind of run with me is completely, unthinkably daft - and I mention this because I have a friend called Tom Smith.
I'm naming and shaming Tom Smith because he goes out for 13-mile runs in the sun and doesn't bother taking any water, or anything else for that matter, then comes back and doesn't stretch and heads to the pub for a liquid dinner when he's done. Don't be a Tom Smith. The fact that he's still alive is a great mystery (and slight annoyance) to me, to be honest. I'm not annoyed that he continues to live, more that whatever he does he seems to be able to carry on running, when I get injured by so much as looking at a pair of shoes for too long.
3. After a Run
This is just as important as before the run, only now you have different requirements - you'll still crave carbs and you should definitely have some, but focus number 1 is now on loading up on Protein and repairing those muscles as soon as possible. Focus number 2 is all the salt you just lost, which needs replacing as well.
For that excuse, I managed to convince my partner Karin that she should definitely cook me a massive fry-up after every long training run, and it worked, too. Salt and protein, massive check.
I'm not *entirely* convinced about what Allan Jaymes would have to say about the ridiculous quantities of fat contained in every protein refill meal like this, in fact, no I'm sure he would be explaining to me how if I ate rainbow seeds and otter testicles it would be far better, but to be honest I'm all for listening to what your body tells you at these times. And mine tells me MEAT. And, to a lesser, extent, EGGS.
Oh, and start the whole process off by grabbing a bottle of chocolate milk as soon as you stop running and get it down your neck, so you can rehydrate and protein-ify immediately.
This is all assuming that you can actually force anything down, after any particularly long and hard sessions you'll probably feel like you're about to throw up permanently for several hours - once you've stopped crying for long enough to notice, anyway. Enjoy!
In the slightly longer term, I found that isotonic energy drinks (whose name I won't mention because of their ridiculous product placement in the Marathon training plan) were good to drink every so often over the next couple of days, to replace the lost electrolytes (or maybe I've just swallowed their marketing BS hook, line and sinker...)
And once I was running more than 10 miles every weekend, my normal lunch of a couple of slices of ham in a pitta bread wasn't going to cut it any more, so door-stop sandwiches containing 2 hot pan-fried turkey steaks became my ultimate craving and probably the reason that I made it to the finish line at any time in the last month of training. That and ridiculous, stubborn-as-hell competitiveness, anyway.
Losing Weight
Running is an excellent way to lose weight, right? Well, maybe over shorter distances, but training for a marathon seems to me to be about as good a way to lose weight as an all-inclusive holiday to Las Vegas.
When I trained for a 10k, the physical and mental demands weren't quite so high, and in fact I started it as a way to lose weight in the first place, so I was carefully counting calories, found that the shorter runs would offset nicely my urges to eat more than I otherwise would have done, and watched the pounds fall off nice and easily.
One of the things I very quickly realised, after a couple of mornings of dizzy spells, is that proper marathon training and attempting to limit your calorie intake isn't the best idea in the world. I therefore made the decision that I needed to "listen to my body" (aka stop listening to any sense and reason) and just eat whatever I felt I needed.
As you can imagine, as well as all the sensible things which I told you above that you need to eat, my body (actually, I suspect it was the 8-year old inside my brain) decided that vast quantities of refined sugar, fat and salt were exactly what my body needed.
Did this cause any problems with training? I'd say that's debatable. At some point we'll actually get to the end of this mammoth story and you will find out how I did on the day, from which you can make up your own mind.
Did it cause any longer-lasting effects? I'd say photographic evidence, the reading on my scales and 2 additional trouser sizes would suggest that, yes, if you give into the temptation to eat whatever the heck you want during intense periods of training, then as soon as you stop running, you are in for a whooooole lot of weight gain. Just think how much you've been fuelling yourself for all those months. Do you think your body or your brain is going to be happy now to go back to a bowl of porridge, a sandwich and an M&S Fuller Longer ready meal?
That's enough pictures of beige food now, James...
Next time: The Long Runs... (Luckily, "the runs" not involved...)
What (not) to Eat
I have a friend, let's call him Allan Jaymes, who insists on eating flax seeds, hemp and dolphin's tears at every meal in the run up to a race, in order to squeeze every last piece of possible goodness into his body. I have another friend, let's call him me, who pretty much lived off pizza, pasta, bread and Jaffa Cakes for most of his marathon training period and managed to get through it. I'd say somewhere in the middle probably lies the correct approach... Nobody is suggesting that you stuff your face with whatever you feel like, because you are very likely not to get the nutrients you need during this extremely demanding time for your body. But, come on, you can allow yourself the odd treat still.
 |
| "We don't actually have tears, you know..." UP YOURS, PEDANTIC DOLPHIN! |
Eating advice can largely be divided into 4 categories, so let's take advantage of that possibility:
1. Before a run
Conventional wisdom suggests you carb load the night before a big run - and most people end up with a Big Old Bowl Of Pasta, which certainly works well, although in some instances it can just massively bloat you out so that you feel like you're running with an inflatable beach ball down your shirt, so take care.
The 'BOBOP' approach worked pretty well for me, until the night before my first 10 mile run - I'd planned to do the same as usual but ended up being unexpectedly invited for dinner at my sister's house (funnily enough, not the one who kept disagreeing with me in the last part...), whereupon I was presented with a gigantic roast dinner with all the trimmings and then a lovely apple crumble for pudding. I absolutely FLEW along the next morning, feeling like Superman, and after that decided that it apparently didn't really matter that much what I ate.
As for the day of a long run, I wouldn't eat much in the couple of hours beforehand - perhaps a banana or some oat biscuits in the morning before you head off on the train, but I mostly find that I'm good to get up and run any time before lunch without any breakfast. And (Top Tip) don't eat two massive pitta breads full of sliced banana 30 minutes before you start running unless you want to find out what it's like to be a penguin feeding its young for the duration of your workout...
 |
| A penguin, yesterday, as it would like to be remembered. Majestic, stoic. Un-vomiting. |
The week before the marathon is generally known as the 'Carb Loading' phase, when you're supposed to up your ratio of carbs to protein way beyond what it has been during training - and it was therefore probably quite lucky that I spent it in Denmark, land of all the good bread. I must admit, though, that it became a struggle at points to eat quite as many carbs as were suggested, and when I was loading my plate up with yet another spoonful of potatoes that I didn't want one lunchtime at the work canteen, I did really wonder if it was worth it.
2. During a Run
Consuming anything more nutritious than water during a run is something you never really think about until you start training for something longer than a 10k race, so I must admit I was at a bit of a loss to know where to start. Fortunately, a Google Search whose results I read extremely selectively suggested that Jelly Babies were a good thing, so I started out by taking a small bag with a few of those in it - until I realised that they were annoyingly fiddly and that I kept on losing them on the ground as I tried to feed myself on the go, which was frankly far too traumatic to continue with.
 |
| "It's ok... you go on... save yourself... I'll be o..." SPLAT... NOOOO! |
Fortunately, soon after this, I noticed that my local pound shop had a special offer on Dextro Energy tablets (they were only a pound!) and remembering these from the 1990s, I decided to give them a go. They're pretty good, actually - eating one every half an hour or so during a run gave my motivation a definite pep talk and I ended up just using these pretty much all the time up until about 6 weeks before the Marathon. The problem with them is that they're very powdery and crumbly, and the problem with running is that it makes you breathe in quite sharply, quite a lot, often at the same time as you're trying to put something nutritious in your mouth. One disastrous choking incident later, I decided that these would be reserved for walking moments only.
By this time, I'd joined the UKRunchat community and discovered that (unlike what I suggested last time) Twitter could indeed be used to impart or receive useful information, and the information I got on this occasion suggested that Energy Gels were the only way to go for a serious runner. Vaguely remembering that I had one in a goody bag from my last race, I decided it was time to give it a try, so opened it up at mile 4 of a 12 miler, and tried to drink it, only to discover that it had the consistency and taste of a bag of Haribo that had been left in a car parked in direct sunlight for a month. Retching and coughing, I managed to force it down like a child eating its greens (I may even have held my nose), and washed it down with tons of water, but pretty much decided that Energy Gels were NOT for me.
That was until I was halfway through the Surrey Half Marathon and they handed us out some SIS gels, which at first I was tempted to fling into the nearest canal, but ended up trying, being able to drink/eat without bringing last night's dinner back up, and becoming a convert of. SIS. Science in Sport. That's their website. How about you go and click on it to make my dreams of endorsement deals a reality... "SIS Energy Gels - They don't make you gag as badly as the other brands."
Of course, after a certain distance, you start needing real food, and since there's only so much you can carry with you, you either need to start taking a backpack with supplies in it, or arranging for people to come and meet you at various points along the way to hold out bananas, chocolate milk, energy drinks and replacement bottles of water for you to grab, elite-athlete style. I find parents particularly useful for this kind of stuff, as your back-up people need to love you enough to have the patience to stand waiting in the drizzle in the middle of a forest in France, while you get lost in a housing estate and delay your arrival at the checkpoint by 30 minutes.
Oh, yeah, this may be obvious, but it's something I've neglected to mention - please take plenty of water out with you. I find 750ml will do me for a maximum of 2 hours' running, and after that I start to slow down and my urine, the next time there is any, starts to resemble John Smith's instead of Stella. The idea of not taking water on any kind of run with me is completely, unthinkably daft - and I mention this because I have a friend called Tom Smith.
I'm naming and shaming Tom Smith because he goes out for 13-mile runs in the sun and doesn't bother taking any water, or anything else for that matter, then comes back and doesn't stretch and heads to the pub for a liquid dinner when he's done. Don't be a Tom Smith. The fact that he's still alive is a great mystery (and slight annoyance) to me, to be honest. I'm not annoyed that he continues to live, more that whatever he does he seems to be able to carry on running, when I get injured by so much as looking at a pair of shoes for too long.
3. After a Run
This is just as important as before the run, only now you have different requirements - you'll still crave carbs and you should definitely have some, but focus number 1 is now on loading up on Protein and repairing those muscles as soon as possible. Focus number 2 is all the salt you just lost, which needs replacing as well.
For that excuse, I managed to convince my partner Karin that she should definitely cook me a massive fry-up after every long training run, and it worked, too. Salt and protein, massive check.
I'm not *entirely* convinced about what Allan Jaymes would have to say about the ridiculous quantities of fat contained in every protein refill meal like this, in fact, no I'm sure he would be explaining to me how if I ate rainbow seeds and otter testicles it would be far better, but to be honest I'm all for listening to what your body tells you at these times. And mine tells me MEAT. And, to a lesser, extent, EGGS.
Oh, and start the whole process off by grabbing a bottle of chocolate milk as soon as you stop running and get it down your neck, so you can rehydrate and protein-ify immediately.
This is all assuming that you can actually force anything down, after any particularly long and hard sessions you'll probably feel like you're about to throw up permanently for several hours - once you've stopped crying for long enough to notice, anyway. Enjoy!
 |
| "I... can't.... do this... any more..." |
In the slightly longer term, I found that isotonic energy drinks (whose name I won't mention because of their ridiculous product placement in the Marathon training plan) were good to drink every so often over the next couple of days, to replace the lost electrolytes (or maybe I've just swallowed their marketing BS hook, line and sinker...)
And once I was running more than 10 miles every weekend, my normal lunch of a couple of slices of ham in a pitta bread wasn't going to cut it any more, so door-stop sandwiches containing 2 hot pan-fried turkey steaks became my ultimate craving and probably the reason that I made it to the finish line at any time in the last month of training. That and ridiculous, stubborn-as-hell competitiveness, anyway.
Losing Weight
Running is an excellent way to lose weight, right? Well, maybe over shorter distances, but training for a marathon seems to me to be about as good a way to lose weight as an all-inclusive holiday to Las Vegas.
 |
| This section is brought to you by "Pictures of some of the many things I ate during my marathon training because I figured I was doing so much running that I couldn't possibly put on weight..." |
When I trained for a 10k, the physical and mental demands weren't quite so high, and in fact I started it as a way to lose weight in the first place, so I was carefully counting calories, found that the shorter runs would offset nicely my urges to eat more than I otherwise would have done, and watched the pounds fall off nice and easily.
One of the things I very quickly realised, after a couple of mornings of dizzy spells, is that proper marathon training and attempting to limit your calorie intake isn't the best idea in the world. I therefore made the decision that I needed to "listen to my body" (aka stop listening to any sense and reason) and just eat whatever I felt I needed.
 |
| Mmmmm.... |
As you can imagine, as well as all the sensible things which I told you above that you need to eat, my body (actually, I suspect it was the 8-year old inside my brain) decided that vast quantities of refined sugar, fat and salt were exactly what my body needed.
 |
| The Dead Hippie burger at London's Meat Market. Drooooooool.... |
Did this cause any problems with training? I'd say that's debatable. At some point we'll actually get to the end of this mammoth story and you will find out how I did on the day, from which you can make up your own mind.
Did it cause any longer-lasting effects? I'd say photographic evidence, the reading on my scales and 2 additional trouser sizes would suggest that, yes, if you give into the temptation to eat whatever the heck you want during intense periods of training, then as soon as you stop running, you are in for a whooooole lot of weight gain. Just think how much you've been fuelling yourself for all those months. Do you think your body or your brain is going to be happy now to go back to a bowl of porridge, a sandwich and an M&S Fuller Longer ready meal?
That's enough pictures of beige food now, James...
Next time: The Long Runs... (Luckily, "the runs" not involved...)
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