Running and Diet

[Ian Myers]

Im a high school xc runner and am about to start the preseason track miles. I will be running 30-35 miles per week and doing 4 wods per week. This past xc season I believe my diet was too high in fat and too low in carbs, and I'm thinking nows the time for me to move some stuff around. What do you guys think about a 50 carb 20 protein 30 fat ratio in about 3000 calories? My other problem is getting all of these carbs without eating any grains, is getting 300+ carbs a day feasible with fruits and potatoes/rice? If so, how would you go about getting 300+ carbs? Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Ian Myers]

To be more specific, would i be increasing carb intake everywhere or just during workouts? Heres my schedule on a gb wod day

where would I add in carb sources?

School 8-3:30

I can eat whenever during school, regardless of what my teachers say :wink:

Running 4:15

anything from 6 miles at recovery pace to a workout like 12 300 meter pickups at 56 pace

GB wod anywhere from 6-8

I generally have a shake of 23 g of protein from whey, a banana, and however much milk i feel like

Sleep 10:30-11:00

[Larry Roseman]

In general yes, getting more carbs is a gooooood idea. Performance can suffer on a low-carb/high-fat diet.

If you are eating paleo-esque then you can also use potatoes and rice ( sweet and brown varieties especially).

If you are merely wheat-o-phobic, then also look at beans and peas . And buckwheat and quinoa.

And especially oats! Actually beans/peas are ok by some paleo writers - if they are soaked and well cooked anti-nutrients are almost nil. Also, cooking meat is allowed in paleo, so why not beans?

Fruit will do the trick up to a point. Have it in the morning and for snacks and after workout but probably want keep it

under 7 servings a day. That's about 100g sugar - about half in fructose (on average). However fruit is not particuarlly high

in carb actually. The fibre may or may not agree with you, just as beans may or may not.

As far as macros go, 50-20-30 is probably ok, but 60-20-20 or 55-25-20 is probably better. It really depends on your weight as that translates into caloric needs, and your ability to meet protein and carb requirements. Try to get at least 50g of carb after running workouts out every few hours too.

[Ian Myers]

ive got buckwheat and quinoa, so that isnt a problem. I just cant imagine managing to get 300-400 g carbs without sugary drinks or cereal

[Daniel Burnham]

  igm503 said:

ive got buckwheat and quinoa, so that isnt a problem. I just cant imagine managing to get 300-400 g carbs without sugary drinks or cereal

Just know those two are really slow digesting. You should use something faster post workout to quickly get the nutrients you need.

[Ian Myers]

  Daniel Burnham said:

  igm503 said:

ive got buckwheat and quinoa, so that isnt a problem. I just cant imagine managing to get 300-400 g carbs without sugary drinks or cereal

Just know those two are really slow digesting. You should use something faster post workout to quickly get the nutrients you need.

Like raisins? What else would work?

[Ian Myers]

What do you guys think about this?

I eat about 50/50 carb fat split when I'm resting at school, and about 2 hours before practice I get in about 150g carbs from buckwheat and a few raisins. Then after practice I have some raisins and a few pieces of fruit and then sweet potatoes over the next hour or two. Would that be sufficient for my carb needs? I weigh about 150 and will be hitting an average of 6-7 miles per day

[Larry Roseman]

  igm503 said:

What do you guys think about this?

I eat about 50/50 carb fat split when I'm resting at school, and about 2 hours before practice I get in about 150g carbs from buckwheat and a few raisins. Then after practice I have some raisins and a few pieces of fruit and then sweet potatoes over the next hour or two. Would that be sufficient for my carb needs? I weigh about 150 and will be hitting an average of 6-7 miles per day

It sounds reasonable. 50-75g / hour carb is probably enough though. Go by your feelings and your recovery.

You shouldn't be eating closer than 45-mins before your training run though. So your pre-workout window may need

to move back a bit.

6-7 miles is probably under an hour, so you don't neccessarily need anything but water during the run.

Although, sports (sugar/salt) drink during training could be helpful during a break especially if it is hot.

Raisins are good after for sure.

I guess you'll burn around 600-800 calories; depending on your pace. In total 150-200g carb would cover that, given some

of your burn will be fat, especially as your conditoning improves. However you will also need carbs for other reasons,

so 300-400g per day seems reasonable. Closer to 400 probably. GST could eat up 50-100g carb depending

on what you're doing for how long...

[Joshua Naterman]

  FutureisNow said:

  igm503 said:

What do you guys think about this?

I eat about 50/50 carb fat split when I'm resting at school, and about 2 hours before practice I get in about 150g carbs from buckwheat and a few raisins. Then after practice I have some raisins and a few pieces of fruit and then sweet potatoes over the next hour or two. Would that be sufficient for my carb needs? I weigh about 150 and will be hitting an average of 6-7 miles per day

It sounds reasonable. 50-75g / hour carb is probably enough though. Go by your feelings and your recovery.

You shouldn't be eating closer than 45-mins before your training run though. So your pre-workout window may need

to move back a bit.

6-7 miles is probably under an hour, so you don't neccessarily need anything but water during the run.

Although, sports (sugar/salt) drink during training could be helpful during a break especially if it is hot.

Raisins are good after for sure.

I guess you'll burn around 600-800 calories; depending on your pace. In total 150-200g carb would cover that, given some

of your burn will be fat, especially as your conditoning improves. However you will also need carbs for other reasons,

so 300-400g per day seems reasonable. Closer to 400 probably. GST could eat up 50-100g carb depending

on what you're doing for how long...

In my opinion, anything other than using the MET table along with calculated BMR is a bad idea. I'm not going to do a personal consultation on a public forum, but that much needs to be said.

[Ian Myers]

  Joshua Naterman said:

In my opinion, anything other than using the MET table along with calculated BMR is a bad idea. I'm not going to do a personal consultation on a public forum, but that much needs to be said.

When calculating for a gst workout, do you use something around 8 METs multiplied by your TUT or do you just use a lower number say around 3-4 and use it for the total workout time?

[Larry Roseman]

Absolutely Josh. One can work that out in detail however it is still an estimate.

After doing that numerous times for myself, I find that I have an intuitive sense of what is reasonable.

No matter what the initial starting point, monitoring and adjusting based on feelings and performance is going to make a big difference, IMO. If performance stagnates, he feels tired, doesn't recover, feels sick during runs, etc - adjust!

However, I am optomistic and believe the guidance I gave will be an improvement in the right direction

[Joshua Naterman]

  FutureisNow said:

Absolutely Josh. One can work that out in detail however it is still an estimate.

After doing that numerous times for myself, I find that I have an intuitive sense of what is reasonable.

No matter what the initial starting point, monitoring and adjusting based on feelings and performance is going to make a big difference, IMO. If performance stagnates, he feels tired, doesn't recover, feels sick during runs, etc - adjust!

However, I am optomistic and believe the guidance I gave will be an improvement in the right direction

I don't disagree with that Running the numbers a few times allows you to know what you need, and to make reasonable estimates for others if you run numbers for a few common sizes of people. If you know 150 lbs, 175 lbs, and 200 lbs you'll be able to make estimates for almost everyone off the top of your head.

The basic idea of getting more calories after the workout is the right thing to do.

[Joshua Naterman]

  igm503 said:

  Joshua Naterman said:

In my opinion, anything other than using the MET table along with calculated BMR is a bad idea. I'm not going to do a personal consultation on a public forum, but that much needs to be said.

When calculating for a gst workout, do you use something around 8 METs multiplied by your TUT or do you just use a lower number say around 3-4 and use it for the total workout time?

If you use a set, rep, and rest scheme similar to weight lifting then you need to use a weight lifting MET level for the entire time, rest and all.

Same goes for more of a circuit training scheme. You would use circuit training MET levels.

[Glen222]

As you are a runner so you don't need to skip more fat in your meal. Fat is the actual fuel that gives you energy for running for longer distances. So just maintain a good balanced diet and eat healthy and clean food.

[Joshua Naterman]

  Glen222 said:

As you are a runner so you don't need to skip more fat in your meal. Fat is the actual fuel that gives you energy for running for longer distances. So just maintain a good balanced diet and eat healthy and clean food.

Maintaining a balanced diet and eating healthy is great advice, but fat is not the actual fuel that gives you energy for running longer distances.

You can't actually say anything at all about fuel substrate consumption unless you start talking about % of VO2Max, which is actually extremely easy to guess at because it correlates nearly perfectly with how you feel on the 1-10 scale of effort during steady state exercise (running, biking, whatever, at a fairly steady pace without stopping or raising/dropping effort level dramatically).

If you feel like your run is an 8 our of 10, you are at about 80% of your VO2 max. A 10 is the fastest pace you can keep for at least 60-120 seconds (but not more than 3-4 minutes) AFTER you have been running for at least 15 minutes at a minimum of a 7 out of 10 on the effort scale. It feels like an 11 if you've never done it before, but that's a 10.

At 40% of V02 max you are burning about 50% carbs, and any real training run at a pace that a runner needs is going to be burning substantially more than that.

The substrate ratio doesn't even START to shift for the first 60 minutes, and takes another 60+ minutes to shift about 10%, after which it stays fairly steady.

In short, the harder your run is the more carbs you burn. Regardless of distance. That's why they give carbohydrate gel packets for the Tour de France riders instead of sticks of butter.

[Ryan Libke]

Yet butter seems more french...

[Joshua Naterman]

  Wolf with one Ear said:

Yet butter seems more french...

I know... It just goes to show that you never know with the French...

[Daniel Burnham]

If you're a very good runner. Like sub 18min 5k then most of your fuel would come from carbs.

[Azure]

  Joshua Naterman said:

  Glen222 said:

As you are a runner so you don't need to skip more fat in your meal. Fat is the actual fuel that gives you energy for running for longer distances. So just maintain a good balanced diet and eat healthy and clean food.

Maintaining a balanced diet and eating healthy is great advice, but fat is not the actual fuel that gives you energy for running longer distances.

You can't actually say anything at all about fuel substrate consumption unless you start talking about % of VO2Max, which is actually extremely easy to guess at because it correlates nearly perfectly with how you feel on the 1-10 scale of effort during steady state exercise (running, biking, whatever, at a fairly steady pace without stopping or raising/dropping effort level dramatically).

If you feel like your run is an 8 our of 10, you are at about 80% of your VO2 max. A 10 is the fastest pace you can keep for at least 60-120 seconds (but not more than 3-4 minutes) AFTER you have been running for at least 15 minutes at a minimum of a 7 out of 10 on the effort scale. It feels like an 11 if you've never done it before, but that's a 10.

At 40% of V02 max you are burning about 50% carbs, and any real training run at a pace that a runner needs is going to be burning substantially more than that.

The substrate ratio doesn't even START to shift for the first 60 minutes, and takes another 60+ minutes to shift about 10%, after which it stays fairly steady.

In short, the harder your run is the more carbs you burn. Regardless of distance. That's why they give carbohydrate gel packets for the Tour de France riders instead of sticks of butter.

I helped train a few xcountry runners and observed/talked diet with the head coach who was an accomplished runner himself (college scholarship to a very competitive school) and just wanted to add to Joshua's post that none of those guys were concerning themselves with how much fat they were taking but carbohydrates were of a major focus.

[Joshua Naterman]

Every single research study done in this area shows that carbohydrates are king when it comes to high intensity aerobic performance. It is very unusual for there to basically be no detracting evidence in an area of research, and this carries over directly into athlete performance.

Sounds like a good coach to me

[Ian Myers]

thanks guys

[Stefan Hinote]

An interesting read similar to the subject: http://eatingacademy.com/how-a-low-carb-diet-affected-my-athletic-performance