August 15, 2010
The Nutrition Plan
In my continuing look into my upcoming race, the Leadville Trail 100, today we focus on the fuel!
A marathon really distinguishes itself over races of smaller distances by being the first race that takes more calories to complete that your body has stored up in glycogen. This is the crux of why people who can run a 1/2 marathon can’t up the game to a marathon easily. You have to figure out how to get over that hump of when you burn through the glycogen store. We call this the “bonk”. Its not hard and its done weekly by runners all over the world who complete marathons. But the basic trick is to eat while running. As the distances increase, the same principles apply but get more dramatic.
Before I get into it, I want to say this is not an exact science as I found out. So we do some rounding and hope for the best. There were options of more testing that would help dial the numbers in a bit, but I opted not to for now.
So the name of the game is calories. You burn them so you need to replace them. The key is how many. For a random hour of running around home at paces much faster than Leadville but still in my easy zone, I often see 600 calories burnt per hour. That can go up to 1,000 if I am really working hard.
25 hours of running times 600 calories per hour is 15,000 calories. That gives us a ballpark for what I need to finish this race. Remember that 1/2 marathon story and saying your body has enough fuel on board? How much was that? Well, the common rule of thumb is about 1,800 calories. Oh, great. I should be all set them needing to eat only 13,200 calories now! How many cheeseburgers is that?
There is another internal source of fuel that gets to play at a race of this length. Fat! Good old body fat gets burnt as fuel when you are doing exercise at aerobic levels. Meaning you don’t get this when you are working really hard. Just at lower levels. Ever seen a “fat burner” level on your treadmill? Its below the “max performance” setting. This number depends as well but 2,500 isn’t out of range. Down to 10,700 calories that I have to consume.
There are 9 major aid stations. So if you divide the race up by those, I should be trying to get 1188 calories per aid station. I don’t mean eating it all there but trying to consume that amount from the start of the journey to each one until I get there and during the stop. Eating on the run is mandatory. The bad part is that eating while running doesn’t feel good in the gut. So you have to take it slow. Eating small amounts constantly.
To get that amount of calories down, I hope to consume 3 different types of things:
1) Calories from hydration. Drinking electrolyte rich drinks like Gatorade give you calories. From the hydration plan, I had 6 bottles of Gatorade listed. Those are worth 100 calories each. I will also down some at all 9 aid stations. Maybe 1/2 the amount. So 6 * 100 + 9 * 50 = 1,050 calories.
2) Fuels, such as GU an Shot Blocks. These are the main source of planned fuel. They are easy to digest and are made to quickly convert into energy. Most of the packets are 90 or 100 calories depending on brand and flavor. I plan to leave each aid station with pockets full and munch on them every couple minutes. I feel like one pack per 30 minutes is about what I can mentally get done and stomach. Maybe more early and less later. Its pretty average for a run. Aid stations on the 25 hour plan are on average 2 hours and 30 minutes apart. That’s time for 5 servings. Call it 500 calories then per race segment. 10 segments. 5,000 calories.
Quick math check: 10,700 - 1,050 - 5,000 = 4,650 calories to go.
3) Real food. Not Real Food (tm) but real food. Back to the 9 aid stations. If we do about 500 calories per aid station again, we get 4,500 which is about what we need. This is the part that I don’t have so dialed in but I know what the menu looks like. I can bring whatever I want and race staff will have food out too. Everything from sandwiches to candy to soup. I will also have cans of Red Bull (110 calories) and Ensure (250 calories) on hand. Salty chips, tortillas, fruit snacks, Nutella, shaved meats. I was going to try to plan out these calories to a T but I just don’t think its worth the effort. Well, I mean it is but the variables of the race will be at play. I think the key message is just knowing that 500 calories should be going down the hatch at each aid station in addition to all the eating down in between. Its not going to be in my best interest to fly out of each aid station and not think about food. Its going to catch up with me. I may be able to tough it out near the end or something but this is a long long event and the numbers don’t lie.
Another tidbit that I picked up in training was about proteins vs. carbs. The studies showed how proteins (meats, etc) took about 8-12 hours before they started providing raw energy to the athlete. Hence, eating that in shorter races is a waste. However, at Leadville, you have the time. But I see that the game to play is eating this stuff early on like in the first 1/2 of the race. Then defocusing it during the 2nd half of the race because its not going to be ready to power you until after you cross the finish line.
So I hope to monitor this intake myself and with the help of my crew to see how I do for a few reasons. Future performances as well as any lack of performance on this race day. I have trained around this but you never know until you actually have to do it. And it may vary from race to race.
Honestly, this is going to be the hardest part of the race. I hope I have conveyed how eating is going to be much more on my mind than actually running. The hope is that I feel good enough to eat a decent amount as listed here, that my body needs maybe a bit less than planned, and that I can tough it out at the end if I am behind. Otherwise, its really just the situation I will put myself into.
I have taken over our dining room table. Made a box for each aid station. I am slowly filling each box with what I need. Counting the calories in the boxes to match the totals. Moving 1 GU from this box to that box because not all segments are created equal. Then rethinking it all again. On Wednesday night, I will bag up each box, label it, and seal it. No more thinking about it. Just do it.
