Getting into Shape for the Marathon

Now your training is in full swing it's worth thinking about how you will prepare your body for the marathon itself and make it through the final weeks of training free of injury and illness. Sensible training progression will allow the body to get stronger and fitter but inadequate nutritional support could leave you failing to reap the rewards of all your hard work. Getting your nutrition right could on the converse lead to faster more enjoyable runs, better recovery, less soreness and a more successful marathon performance. Lynn Clay explains.

You are likely to have organised your training so that your long runs and overall training load are increasing at present and this is often where the strain of an inadequate support diet can start to show. Picking up infections more easily or struggling to complete training sessions as your body is still sore from the last long run can leave you a little frustrated and panicked at the thought of your impending marathon. Ensuring you build in a lighter training load week every four to six weeks will help your body to adapt, recover and become stronger and complimenting your structured training programme with more structured nutritional support can help to accelerate recovery, support better energy levels and improve performance too. So how should you go about this?

General dietary support

A strong base diet is your surest step to staying energised and capable throughout your marathon training. Matching your increased calorie expenditure with adequate intake is crucial to support both a strong immune system and performance, and ideally this should be achieved by eating regular meals across the day. Carbohydrate is your body’s primary energy source so it’s important to consume enough across the day, however, this should not result in you scoffing lots of sugary and processed foods and drinks that are likely to negatively affect immunity and recovery from training. Instead select a small serving (ideally fist sized) of a starch based food in each meal, choosing wholegrain varieties such as rice, pasta, bread and cereals. Compliment your carbohydrate with a low or good fat rich protein source such as chicken, turkey, fish or beans and ensure you are eating a side serving of vegetables, fruit or salad at each meal sitting. This will provide the body with a steady supply of vitamins and minerals to support good immunity and health as well as stabilising energy levels across the day so you pretty much always feel energised and ready for a run.

Eating Breakfast, mid-morning, lunch, mid-afternoon and evening meals and saving a small balanced snack for the evening too is ideal food organisation, dividing your calorie intake as evenly as possible across these sittings. As many struggle to find easy to transport protein rich snacks mid-morning and mid-afternoon, this is where adding whey protein can benefit. High mileage increases your protein intake requirements from approximately 0.8g per kilogram of body weight to between 1.2 and 1.4 grams per kilogram of body weight. A difference in requirements of between 27.5 and 41.5g protein for a 70kg individual each day. Not matching this increased need for protein in the diet can lead to poor recovery and impaired immune function, reducing the body’s ability to cope with the demands of marathon training. Just one to two serving of Promax per day can make up this shortfall in requirements, adding a quality low fat protein to the diet and ideal for mid-morning and mid-afternoon.

Carbohydrate and fluid before, during and after training

Once your basic diet is sorted you can then reap the rewards of supporting exercise with the correct nutrients to further improve performance. The combination of carbohydrate intake before as well as during training has been shown to be superior to a single strategy, choosing either carbohydrate before OR during an event, so it’s wise to organise appropriate fluid and meals accordingly. Indeed research indicates that sensible carbohydrate intake before and during your training to ensure your stores are adequate can extend duration by approximately 20% and improve performance over a set distance by 2-3%; sounds like an simple way to support better performance and faster times.

Before & During your run

Interestingly, research in The International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism indicates that most of us start exercise in a dehydrated state which can have a negative impact on performance too. To avoid this scenario, combine sensible daily drinking, so that your urine is a pale straw colour prior to exercise, with good hydration before, during and after your runs to match your exercise losses. Ideally sip on 250-300ml of Viper in the hour prior to exercise, and aim to drink to match your sweat losses each hour. To work out how much fluid and salts you lose per hour try the following pre and post exercise weighing strategy:

Calculating your fluid replacement needs:

Pre run: Record your weight
Run: Complete your long run of the week hydrating on 500ml fluid per hour
Post run: Record your weight

For each kilogram of weight lost at least 1 litre of fluid should added to your hydration protocol. In cold conditions this will suffice, but when the weather is warm this should be increase d to 1.2 litres per kilogram and in the extreme heat (80 degrees plus) 1.5 litres per kilogram.

Cold conditions: 1l fluid
Warm conditions 1.2l fluid
Hot conditions 1.5l fluid

For example; a 70kg individual running for 2 hours in spring like temperatures and consuming 500ml fluid per hour may lose 0.5kg. This indicates that a further 500ml should be added to support a 2 hour run in similar conditions (bringing the total to 1.5litres). This gives an hourly fluid replacement requirement of 750ml.

You can match your fluid replacement need by combining pre and post run drinking with what you consume on the go. E.g. The above individual with a total replacement need over 2 hours of 1.5 litres could drink 300ml Viper before exercise, 750ml whilst running 450ml in the recovery period.

Ensuring you match your needs in each exercise session will support general health, immunity and performance helping you to keep your training on track and choosing a drink that supports energy provision and hydration in one is a sensible option.

The key to recovery

If you’ve taken for granted those heavy achy legs after a run are just part of what you signed up for you’ll be pleased to hear that a good recovery protocol will not only reduce this muscle soreness after exercise, but will also support immunity too.

Instead of just replacing carbohydrate after exercise, aim for a combination of carbohydrate and protein (3:1 ratio) in this period by using a product such as Recovermax. The little bit of added protein will improve transport of carbohydrate to the muscle stores and support muscle recovery too. Indeed, including protein in your post workout food or drink is certainly worth doing according to a study conducted in 2004 which looked at the effect of different recovery beverages on marines. This study found that the addition of 10g protein to a carbohydrate formula was shown to lead to 33% fewer medical visits, 28% less bacterial or viral infections, 37% less treatment visits for joint or muscle problems, 83% fewer visits for heat exhaustion and less muscle soreness after training when compared to a carbohydrate formula without added protein. It seems that adding protein to your recovery food could reduce your injury risk as well as refueling you efficiently. If you’re not sure what to eat or drink after a run why not try one of the following options to support speedy recovery and ensure you are refueled for race day.

Recovery Smoothie’s

Deliciously refreshing, simply select two to three fruits of your choice, add 200ml of apple juice or ‘my favourite’ innocent smoothie mix, whizz around in your blender and then add a scoop of whey protein (Promax). In periods of hard training a colostrum (Provite) serving will give you some much needed immune support after your run.

Protein enriched smoothie:
1 banana
½ apple (You can eat the other half while you’re making it!)
200ml banana & strawberry innocent drink
1 scoop Promax or Provite

Soups

A good old vegetable soup is a fast option for hot food after a run. Generally the only problem with soup is that it doesn’t tend to contain enough protein. With ½ a can of chickpeas, heated and added however, this provides a perfect option for post exercise. Canned soups tend to have added sodium and are complimented with potassium rich vegetables so this will help to replenish some of those salts lost in sweat too.

Sports Nutrition Recovery formulas

Although you can always make up a shake, soup or smoothie for a quick and tasty recovery, you will not find the mix of nutrients that specifically designed recovery drinks contain.

Recovermax

Recovermax contains a mix of maltodextrin and dextrose for quick and sustained energy replenishment plus whey protein for its protein source, assisting with muscle repair. It also contains 5 grams of glutamine in addition to approx. 1g naturally found in the whey protein. This hits the correct amount recommended in research to improve markers of immune function (ideally ingesting another 5g two hours after this). Providing electrolytes too to replenish the salts lost in sweat after hard training, Recovermax offers a premium range recovery formula with great functional benefits.

Whether you choose a home-made smoothie or a specific pre-designed recovery formula, it's important to eat again within two hours to encourage good glycogen restoration and really support good recovery, but make sure you are no tempted to simply skip the immediate feeding and end up waiting a couple of hours for your meal. Think immediate recovery and it will really make a difference to how you feel after your run and ultimately your marathon performance.

The combination of a balanced general diet and sensible drinking and eating around exercise can really make a difference to your body’s ability to cope with training, making it much more likely you’ll make the marathon start line raring to go and ready for an enjoyable run.