As marathon runners invested in improving our times, we often try to optimise our training and gear as much as possible. Correct nutrition is often overlooked and in recent times, it is known that:

• a correct carb load can increase race day performance by 2-3% ¹
• optimized race nutrition can further increase performance (60 - 90g carb p/ hour) ²

So I’ll share my thoughts on nutrition and what specified things I included in my training for the Sydney Marathon.  You can read my race report and see how I did here.

Training with nutrition

Even though it ends up being expensive to train with the same nutrition as race day, I see it as a worthwhile investment, in particular on key sessions. 

Some of the key long runs/ sessions which I did leading up to the marathon were:

• 20 Jul (8 weeks to go): 40km with 15KM at MP (4:26 min/km avg)
• 10 Aug (5 weeks to go): 30km with 17km at MP (4:25 min/km avg)
• 17 Aug (4 weeks to go): 32km with 14km at MP (4:28 min/km avg)
• 31 Aug (2 weeks to go): 25km progression run (4:23 min/km avg) (5km at MP, kilometers 14-18)

For these runs, I ran with my handled that I would be using on race day, and tried to take nutrition at about the same timing as the race. I’ll share more details of my training in a separate post, but in the meantime here is my training for the Boston marathon.

Nutrition used

I like to use Maurten and Precision Fuel and Hydration (PF) products. Maurten is unflavored and I do tend to get a bit of flavour fatigue from it (encountered during CIM last year), so I prefer to mix up my nutrition and that’s why I use PF (as the same reason that I don’t use PF for everything either). I opted to use the caffeinated gels from PF, as I feel that there is a bit of caffeinated after taste in the Maurten one. 

Carb load

For carb loading I used the Featherstone carb loading calculator, to consume a total of 375g carbs over 3 days. I opted for the 3 day carb over the 2 day carb load (560g over 2 days), as it felt like too much food for me. The general guidelines are 8-12g of carbs per kg of body weight ³.

I’ll admit that it was difficult to estimate the amount of carbs on prepared (non pre packaged food). For example, when I went to eat out. For these cases, I just went with my best guess with serving size. 

Apart from trying to eat slightly larger meals (for example sample adding more rice or bread), on the days leading up, I increased my carb consumption by consuming:

• Maurten 320 (I had this in a pre mixed bottle, and was constantly sipping on it throughout the day) 80g of carbs ⁴
• Maurten 160 bars (I probably consumed about 1 every day leading up to the marathon, including race morning)
• Graham crackers (these are gold, 77g per 100g ~ roughly 4 crackers). I found out about these through believe in the run. I kept these in my bag, and would snack on them throughout the day, a very easy way to increase your carb intake !! 

I’m still refining my carb loading strategy, and my current belief is that “any type of carbs is better than no carbs”. So as long as I was able to hit my carb intake goals, I was not fussed with what type of carb I was consuming (ie. simple vs complex carbs)

Race day

Race morning

Breakfast, consumed approx 3 hours before start:

• 1 cup coffee with oatmilk
• 1 plain bagel (45g carbs)
• 1 banana (30g carbs)

1.5 hr before start

• Maurten 160 bar (40g carbs)

15-20min before start

• PF 100 caffeine gel (30g carbs)

During the race

Having experimented with different intake strategies:

• time based: a gel every 20-30 min
• distance based: a gel every 5-7km 

For me, I decided to take a gel every 6km (~every 27min, if running at 3hr 10min pace = 4:30 min/km). This meant a total of 6 gels, and I took:

• 6km: PF regular
• 12km: PF 100 caffeine
• 18km: Maurten
• 24km: PF 100 caffeine
• 30km: PF regular
• 36km: Maurten (ended up consuming at approx 38km, read blog here)

As mentioned previously, I like to alternate which gels I am consuming, and too also spread the caffeine intake throughout the race. I also ran with a handheld containing a Maurten 160 (40g carb), mixed with an unflavoured LMNT, which I finished at about 25km. I chose to add an LMNT (which contains 1000mg of sodium), as the gels do not contain much sodium (Maurten ~20mg, PF 0mg), which may not have been necessary for a cool day like the Sydney marathon, but definitely helpful for hotter days.

• 2x PF 100 caffeine (30g carb each) (2x30g = 60g total)
• 2x PF regular (30g carb each) (2x30g = 60g total)
• 2x Maurten regular (25g carb each) (2x25g = 50g total)

Total carb intake during the race: 210g (= avg 66.3g per/hour, given a 3hr 10min finish time). 

It should be noted that intake timing is highly individualistic and will depend on what pace you are running (since pace will determine how much distance you will cover in a period of time), but the current recommendation is to aim for 60-90g of carbs per hour of exercise. And how you get there is up to you.

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