I guess we shall just keep this running shin dig rolling into another running post. Your comments from yesterday’s post about real running really warm my heart!  I was pretty nervous that some people wouldn’t feel as strongly as I do, but it’s a really big topic that I even talk about in real life with my nonrunner friends!  😉 

Since it is a what I eat Wednesday day, I thought I would share some of my favorite prerace foods. 

I must say-I’m mostly boring when it comes to prerace foods.  I have never really had a point where I ate too close to a race and vommed for running but I’ve come kind of close.   I have with swimming and vom+chlorine water.  Oh dear but that was because I ate a piece of pizza literally 10 minutes before swimming the mile race.   In middle school, I knew how to prerace fuel let me tell you.  My only concern with middle school swim meets is how much pizza I could have. 

I digress.

Depending on the race time and how far it is away-I will eat different things.  Any races after 8:30am-I’ll wake up around 6 and have a waffle or pancakes.  I eat them every morning before I do my training runs-why change it?  They give me energy and I always feel more comfortable.  The only thing I skip though if it’s race time, is yogurt.  That normally doesn’t sit well in my stomach.

oatmeal pancakes have been my prerace choice lately (in my recipe section)

Dairy won’t sit well in my stomach via running or swimming unless it’s had 2 hours to digest.  I don’t like to take chances-especially in longer races.  Yogurt is the most awful thing to feel when you are having a hard workout, in my opinion at least.

So let’s all pretend that you are shocked that I eat pancakes before a race.

Confusion face shot. Appropriate.

What happens if the race is at 7 am?  Am I waking up at 4 to eat breakfast?

I can honestly say I have never done that before.

Then it comes into, well how long is the race? 

(I should have made a flow chart).

If the race is under an hour I will have a snickers marathon bar.  They have never once upset my stomach and we all know how much I rave about these and eat them like candy.  I normally will have one before the race and one after-usually an hour before.

I normally hoard and have about 20 on my person at all times.

If the race is more than an hour and starts before 8:30am (ie: 10 milers and halves)., I’ll have a bagel with peanut butter or pumpkin butter.  I’ll still eat it about 2 hours before and normally cold.  I don’t toast my bagels a lot but before races I do.  Random fact of the day.

Toasted bagel with pumpkin butter. Also peanut butter, but not almond butter because I don't care for it.

Keep in mind this is all eaten with 24 ounces of coffee and 24 ounces of powerade zero.  Both are my favorite prerace beverages of choice.  For me personally, I can stomach coffee before races but I know that is not the case for a lot of people.

Because gas station coffee is the bomb.

———

Question for you:

1.       What do you eat before races?  After races?  During races? 

2.       What can/can’t you stomach during races? 

Like I’ve rambled…the only thing I’ve had a problem with is stomaching yogurt.