Marathon Week Eating and Rest Plan
The week of the marathon starting with Monday, plan to eat a higher percentage of
carbohydrates and a little less red meat and fat. On Monday through Wednesday, try to
eat healthy, avoid junk foods like chips and donuts and eat a little less than you normally
would. Also, make sure you are drinking plenty of water - try to get half of your body
weight in ounces of water per day.
Also, during this entire week, try to get a little more rest than usual and plan on not
running any more than 5 miles on any given day. Take off one additional running day from
the prior week. With your extra time, don?t go shopping and take on extra projects around
the house. Do lower energy activities like catching up on your reading or meditating or
picking out your marathon outfit and deciding what if anything you will plan on buying at
the marathon expo things you can do without being on your feet too much. Get a massage
before Friday, if you have a chance.
The Thursday before the marathon, come out to the track and we will have a short fairly
intense workout to deplete our glycogen stores. After that workout, you will want to eat
a much higher percentage of carbohydrates than normal all day Thursday, all day Friday and
Saturday morning. On Thursday and Friday, try to take in about 25% more calories than
normal. Eat your normal meal and have a glass of orange juice or an extra banana with it.
Add one additional fruit snack, or a few power bars during the course of the day.
Drink lots of fluids Thursday and Friday because water is necessary for your body to
store extra glycogen in your muscles. Drink some juice and sports drink during this time
too. During normal times, juice is too calorie dense for heavy consumption but during
these few days, it is okay. An occasional few ounces of sports drink is a good addition as
a safe guard against hyponatremia a rare condition where your blood electrolytes levels
become too low which is usually from not eating much and from drinking large quantities of
water. (This condition arises a lot in marathons were runners are drinking water instead
of Gatorade and they are drinking very frequently and are on the course for a long time.)
On Friday evening after picking up your marathon packet, come to the pre-marathon dinner
and get a meal that is very high in carbohydrates such as pan fried potatoes,
sweet potatoes, rice, fruit, yogurt smoothies, etc. Try to get to bed early Friday
evening because Saturday you may not rest as well with the building excitement.
On Saturday morning, consider pancakes or French toast and add extra juice.
Saturday afternoon eat your normal amount of calories but stay high in carbs.
On Saturday evening, eat a meal that your body will tolerate well and try to eat
fairly early. Keep drinking early Saturday but wind down a bit before evening so that
you will not be up all night.
On race morning, try to get up a few hours before the race, about 5 a.m. and have a
light high carbohydrate snack like a few bananas and a bagel with jelly, or a power
bar and some apple juice, or a few pieces of toast and some tea. This snack is to
refuel your liver glycogen which is depleted overnight. If you don?t do this, you will
have about 300 calories less to work with during the course of your marathon.
Drink a few glasses of water before 6 a.m. but slow down on your drinking then.
Take a small bottle of Gatorade to the race with you so that just before the start you
can drink about 6-8 ounces. After the race starts, drink about half a cup of Gatorade
every other mile. The drinks you get in the early miles are more important than those
that you get later.
-Coach
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