Run for Your Life!

Here's an article I wrote on running and nutrition for the Georgetown Running Company's January newsletter.

Many people start the New Year by making resolutions to get back into shape; however for us avid runners, the New Year often means a time to set goals about taking our performance to the next level. We think about what races we want to run, how we want to improve our times, and start mapping out a training plan to achieve our goals. Yet many runners often leave one very important piece out of this equation – nutrition. Developing a strategic eating plan is essential to getting the most out of your training.

Many athletes who train at a high level support the philosophy of author John Parker in his book Once a Runner that "If the furnace is hot enough, it will burn anything." The drawback of this philosophy is that many runners have a difficult time figuring out how hot their furnace is actually burning, leading to an energy imbalance of either overfueling or underfueling. Another drawback is you may be getting a lot of toxic byproducts if you’re always choosing low quality fuels. For example, if your daily eating consists of lots of processed foods such as soda, chips, sweets, and fast food, you may get the calories you need but also lots of sugar, sodium, and saturated fat. These “toxic” byproducts impair optimal energy and recovery. You may be unfairly blaming your tired legs and decreased speed at the end of the week on your training routine when it is really your low octane nutrition that may be the culprit.

Therefore, the key to keeping you a high performance machine is to provide a foundation of quality fuel with occasional treats. You want to focus on nutritious foods 85-90% of the time while enjoying “fun” foods 10-15% of the time. As you consider your nutrition, here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Do I consider my diet a part of my training regimen?
• Am I tailoring my diet to support my training cycle?
• Am I getting in at least 2 pieces or cups of fruit and 2-3 cups of vegetables every day?
• Am I mostly eating less-processed foods, closer to the earth in their natural state? For example, apples rather apple juice, baked potato rather than French fries, whole grain bread rather than white bread.
• Am I including healthy fats in my diet such as nuts and seeds, nut butters (such as peanut and almond), avocados, olive oil and canola oil?
• Am I balancing my carbohydrates (bread, pasta, rice, grains, fruits, vegetables) with servings of quality protein (meat, fish, eggs, beans, tofu, low fat diary products)?
• Am I eating consistently throughout the day, eating every 3-4 hours, to maintain my energy levels?

To quote world-class marathon runner Juma Ikangaa: "The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare." Don’t forget that preparation includes nutrition.