Marathon fueling (Read 2335 times)

    On DB's point: If you drink too much, then you have to stop and wee.  Once I stop to wee, my legs are just not the same.  It's something I learned at BayState.

    "If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus

      But I can also lose 15 pounds of sweat in a 2 hour run, so hydration is pretty important to me ... or more exactly trying to keep in a lessor state of dehydration as possible.

       

      Different rates for everyone, yep. Took me awhile to figure out what works for me.

      Get off my porch

      bhearn


        On DB's point: If you drink too much, then you have to stop and wee. 

         

        ftfy.

          On DB's point: If you drink too much, then you have to stop and wee.  Once I stop to wee, my legs are just not the same.  It's something I learned at BayState.

           

           

          I think though that I notice a distinction between people who take this stuff seriously and those who don't and it mostly aligns with people who run farther than a marathon.

           

          My memory isn't all that great anymore, but I think DB is someone who has run a little farther than a marathon a few times. Big grin

           

          So if a marathon is all you're doing, you can be pretty sloppy about a lot of stuff. Get a little food in, get some water and maybe a little sodium, any half-assed guess will be fine because the marathon will be over really soon. It's like taking your hands off the steering wheel of your car when you're going to stop 100 yds up the road: pretty easy to point it straight and not end up in the ditch.

           

          But if you're going to be running through sunrise and sunset, maybe even seeing your second sunrise, then you have to treat this stuff like a science. Get the rates wrong and things will get really bad later on. Once you've figured how to get all the nitpicky details exactly right for a longer race then you hit it with unnecessary precision for a marathon. 

            On DB's point: If you drink too much, then you have to stop and wee.  Once I stop to wee, my legs are just not the same.  It's something I learned at BayState.

            Ha!  Here's the advice I got before Twin Cities last fall:

             

            Big tip here, if you've got to pee early in the race...stop and pee.  Get it out, get it over with before you become tired and have a hard time starting back up.  So if you feel an urge to pee before mile 10 just stop and do it asap.  If it's after mile 18, just let it rip on yourself if you're having a good race Wink

             

            (I never got the urge.)

            "I want you to pray as if everything depends on it, but I want you to prepare yourself as if everything depends on you."

            -- Dick LeBeau

            heather85


              FWIW I think that our GI systems are as trainable as anything else we use to run. Something I've done is to do medium training runs after a day of fasting (or eating very little) and start eating stuff starting a couple of miles into the run - work on eating more than I would in a race. It seems to have made a big difference for me with how well my stomach works under race conditions.

               

              (YMMV and any other appropriate disclaimers)

               

              Thanks!

              DoppleBock


                dehydration as little as 4-5% of body weight can cause a drop in performance of 10% - The blood thickens un and can carry less o2 to the muscles. 

                 

                But to Nobby's point, I have thought about it, but do not overthink it.  I never have a drinking plan (Except after Monkey) ... I just drink.  I have never gotten sloshy stomache or had to stop and pee in a marathon.  I do think people make the mistake on a cool dry day of not drinking at all or in the case of Alberto Salazar - On a hot day in 1982 - not drinking at all.

                Long dead ... But my stench lingers !