Marathon Consultancy

Due to the popularity of this marathon nutrition page, all of the following information is moving to a bigger and better website.

FitFAQS.co.uk now features dozens of questions on marathon training, nutrition and injuries as well as a whole load of FAQS about fitness, diet and general health plus information on where to buy my books, "The Marathon and half marathon: A Training Guide" and "Is it just me or are sit ups a waste of time?"

In addition, at fitFAQS you have the opportunity to ask whatever specific question you have about your training and have it answered online within days!

So, feel free to read the content below, but you'll find far more at fitFAQs running and marathon page

See you there!

Of all the advice that runners seek to help improve their performance, nutrition is one area that often generates the most interest – and confusion. The subject of sports nutrition is rife with inconsistency and contradiction, usually due to the power of marketing and the endorsement of “performance enhancing” supplements and sports drinks.

Over time, marathon consultancy will be constantly updating the site to provide runners with unbiased and cutting edge information on sports nutrition, to help enhance the performance of your training and racing. If there are any specific nutritional issues you are interested in, email info@marathonconsultancy.co.uk with the subject you are interested in and we will endeavour to upload it in due course.

View our current selection of running and nutrition downloads

As you can see, the distinct lack of nutritional advertising banners clearly indicates that the views and advice provided by marathon consultancy is totally unbiased and uninfluenced by any nutritional supplement company. The advice provided on this site are the professional views of a fitness professional who has advised and trained hundreds of runners, giving you the confidence that every word you read is factual and scientifically proven. If you require specific advice on your nutritional status, please send us an email and we will be happy to discuss a nutritional programme catered for your individual requirements.

Advances in science and research over the years have helped sports scientists and nutritionists gain a much greater understanding into the physiology of the running human body and the best ways to fuel it to perform at an optimum level. The role of biochemical individuality is once again a factor, in what works for one person may not necessarily work for another, but science has uncovered a number of fundamental facts that are applicable to all runners.

The importance of adequate fuel intake and hydration for endurance running must not be underestimated. No matter how hard you train, without following the correct nutritional guidelines, your running performance will not improve.

Every year at running events, so many runners make the same mistake with their fluid intake, bad timing of carbohydrate consumption and worst of all copying what a friend eats. It is so important that you find out early on in your training what foods agree with you and which foods don’t; so that you know right from the start the foods that you can tolerate.

No matter how little you know about sports nutrition, one type of food that you are bound to have heard plenty about is the macronutrient carbohydrate. Over the years, so much attention has been given to carbohydrate rich foods both in both sports nutrition and general health nutrition, that many people are left confused as to whether they beneficial or detrimental to our health. Dr Atkins created a sea of controversy with his world famous diet, advising dieters to cut out all forms of carbohydrates to loose weight.

This nutritional approach has been strongly criticised by the majority of physicians and as a runner, following such a diet for would leave you collapsed in a heap after the first few miles of the race. To understand why, a little more must be understood about how the body uses carbohydrate as a fuel.

At rest and during low intensity activities, the body's preferred source of energy is fat. At 9 calories a gram, fat is calorie dense and is stored in abundance in the body. Even a lean person weighing 60kg (132lbs) can store enough fat to provide 60,000 calories worth of energy. Unfortunately, due to the way that fat is oxidised and utilised as an energy source, high intensity activities such as running make it difficult for the fat to be broken down quickly enough to supply the muscles with sufficient energy to maintain exercise. Despite possessing enough body fat to provide energy to run back to back marathons, these stores cannot be utilised on their own to meet the energy requirements that running demands.

Carbohydrates may have had Dr Atkins preaching on his soapbox but without carbohydrates, running any distance let alone a marathon is simply not possible. As soon as exercise intensity is increased from walking to running, the muscle’s demand for sugar increases and by converting stored carbohydrate into glucose; the blood is able to provide the muscles with a constant supply of energy. It is when sugar levels begin to drop that performance begins to deteriorate and health problems can arise.

With limited storage space for carbohydrate, or glycogen as it is clinically known, most runners exhaust their supplies after 2-3 hours of running and unless extra carbs are consumed, the closing stages of the marathon provoke you in uttering the immortal words, "never again!"

Knowing how much carbohydrate a runner should consume to sustain training intensity but not gain unwanted weight is difficult to quantify. Personal carbohydrate requirements depends on individuality and daily training hours etc, but through excellent research by leading sports scientist Dr Michael Colgan, a table has been devised to guide runners with an estimate for their daily carbohydrate requirements (in grams).

This is of course a general guide and may not suit every runner's biochemical individuality. If you find you are putting weight on after a few weeks of training, it may be a good idea to revise your carbohydrate intake and perhaps reduce it a little.

For further reading on carbohydrate requirements for athletes, Dr Colgan's book "Optimum Sports Nutrition" is highly recommended.

Carbohydrates clearly play a significant role in keeping your body sufficiently fuelled for training runs and the race itself. Neglecting them will severely affect your performance and possibly even your health. Every year, runners pull up at races at various points on the course suffering from hypoglycaemia, a condition which is brought about by a lack of sugar in the blood stream. The symptoms include:

• Dizziness
• Confusion
• Headaches
• Disorientation
• Heavy legs
• Severe Lethargy and Fatigue
• Fainting

Symptoms like this are unpleasant whilst at rest let alone when you are competing in an event you may never do again. All steps must be taken to avoid hypoglycaemia during the race. Your determination may drive you through the initial warning signs, but when there is no sugar left in the blood and the body is trying in vain to break down fat and protein quick enough to produce sugar to feed your brain, you can black out and potentially drop into a diabetic coma.

Along with ensuring you have got your pre race carbohydrate intake correct, measures can be taken whilst you are running to help stop blood sugar levels dropping too low. These include:

• Take advantage of the sports drink stations
• Consume a carbohydrate gel with water every 45 mins
• Snack on easily edible sugary sweets, such as jelly beans or jelly babies

The importance of correct carbohydrate intake throughout you preparations is clearly important and something that should not be taken for granted. If you ever experience the symptoms of hypoglycaemia on a long run, it only then that you can fully appreciate how important carbohydrates are to the endurance runner.

It is not only poor carbohydrate management that affect the performance of many amateur runners. Insufficient and incorrect fluid intake can also have a major impact on the performance and health of a runner.

Further advice on liquid nutrition will follow in due course. Keep visiting marathon consultancy for further nutritional advice in the coming weeks.