Whether you’re training for your first marathon or are an experienced long distance runner, your body needs energy (and not just a little) for the physically demanding task of running a marathon. In other words, you need nutritional food to help you run the 42 km. A balanced diet and training are increasingly essential as the big day approaches.
Although running a marathon is definitely one of the most demanding endurance challenges, it also seems to one of the most popular, and discipline and endurance are essential to success. When preparing for the race, you will have to find a balance between training, healthy eating and getting a lot of rest. On the day of the marathon, you will certainly burn more than 2000 calories, so you will have to take in some form of carbohydrates while running, and you will have to try this at some point during your training. Keep to your schedule for training and nutrition, and you will run over the finish line with a smile on your face.
The right nutrition is important for a marathon, but how do you know what foods are good for you? There are so many sources with thousands of tips and tricks, often contradicting one another, which only makes it harder to start preparing for a marathon.
Etixx products are made based on scientific research. All of our products are developed and tested by a team of scientists and top athletes before being put on the market.
Every athlete has a set of personal needs depending on his or her objectives, condition, experience with sports nutrition and specific problems. Excluding these personal effects, we have found a lot of similarities between the members of our teams, including Endurance Team Moeskroen and all of the recreational runners who have been involved in the testing of our products.
In general, runners require more vitamins and minerals because of the exercise they do. Due to overworking and excess fertilisation, our agricultural land has been degraded, so that fruit and vegetables now contain less vitamins and minerals than roughly 50 years ago. This lower level of vitamins and minerals, combined with lower consumption of fruit and vegetables in general, means that runners have to pay extra attention to this. For this reason, extra supplements are highly recommended.
Our level of performance is directly proportional to our loss of moisture. It is important to start your training sessions properly hydrated. Pre-hydration starts the day before exercise, and mainly involves drinking water. The colour of your urine is a good indication of whether you are sufficiently hydrated. Dark yellow urine is a sign that you have not drunk enough. A light yellow colour indicates that you are well hydrated. During the meal before your session (3 hours before) or 10 minutes before the exercise, you can drink a sports drink to hydrate and get some extra carbohydrates.
The amount of moisture that you will lose during exercise depends on duration, intensity, genetics, body size and various environmental factors such as humidity and temperature. It is therefore not entirely clear how much you should drink while exercising. A very good way to determine how much moisture you need to consume is to use some scales on a day during which you will be training. Weigh yourself before and after training, and multiply the lost weight by 1.5. The outcome is the quantity of fluid that you need to consume in order to compensate for what you lost as sweat.
In order to perform during long periods of exercise, the muscles must have enough glycogen, and that is why it is important to consume carbohydrates while training and replenish these reserves. If no carbohydrates are consumed during long periods of intensive exercise, glycogen in the muscles will become depleted after 90 minutes. The table below shows how much carbohydrate must be consumed, because requirements depend on the duration of the exercise:
<1h | No additional carbohydrates required |
1-2h | 30g per hour |
2-3h | 60g per hour |
>2,5h | Up to 90 g per hour |
You can choose to consume carbohydrates during exercise in liquid, semi-liquid or solid form. The more liquid the food, the faster the carbohydrates will be absorbed during exercise. In stress situations, preference is always given to liquid sources of carbohydrate, because our digestive system does not work optimally when we are under stress.
Proper recovery after training is crucially important, because strangely enough, your body gets stronger and fitter after exercise, not during. In line with the motto “You’re only as good as your last recovery”, it is important to pay attention to what you eat and drink after exercise. This determines how much you will gain from your training. Often, you have to drive or catch a bus, or rush to your next appointment, so you do not immediately supply your body with the building materials it needs to ensure proper recovery. This can cause you to start your next training with fatigue, potentially causing you to enter a negative spiral. This can result in delayed progress, or even injury. What you should do, is provide your body with fuel and the right nutrition as fast as possible.
For those who are ready to take it a step further and are aiming for challenges that are just within their potential. The products below can help you with this depending on your goals.
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