A guide to successful race nutrition
One of the key factors for a successful race day is your nutrition. This article from Vietnam Trail Series by Topas aims to distill the complex topic of race fueling into three main parts: Plan – Practice – Execute.
Even with the best training possible, if you cannot fuel your race, you will not succeed in ultras, or any trail run which takes many hours to complete. You must therefore plan and practice your nutrition to execute successfully on race day.
Thousands of race reports are filled with the lament (or excuse!): “My nutrition wasn’t good.” Don’t let that be the reason you do not have a good race. Plan; practice; then execute your race day nutrition.
PLAN YOUR NUTRITION
A fundamental aspect of your race nutrition is predicting your time on course so you can plan your calorific intake accordingly.
How much to consume?
As a general guide, you will need to consume 200-280 calories per hour on race day.
Here are the median VMM 2023 completion times:
If you are signed up for VMM 2024, you hopefully already have a prediction for your finish time. How accurate this will be will of course depend on your experience. If you are not very experienced, you should add extra to your predicted time, particularly if you are new to Vietnam trails.
To work out how many calories you will need to consume on race day, you can use this:
Finish Time (hours) X 200 (calories minimum) = ?
It is important to note that the maximum number of calories per hour you are able to consume is a very personal thing, but 200 is the minimum you should aim for.
What to eat?
Here are some typical calorie quantities to help you plan out your nutrition.
- Typical Gel: 100 Calories
- Sport Energy Bar: 200 Calories
- Snickers Bar: 240 Calories
- HEED scoop: 110 Calories
- Banana: 100 Calories
- 100g cooked rice: 100-120 Calories
- Haribo 30g: 120 Calories
Perhaps for 3-4 hours you could run with just gels, but could you eat only gels for 15 hours and be happy and well fueled? Likely not. You will need to vary your nutrition, adding in some protein and fat, especially after 4 hours +.
Race checkpoints are a good place to supplement your nutrition, but you should not be adding new foods on race day that you never ate before. At checkpoints, follow the same rule as for your pre-planned nutrition: use what you know works for you. Race day is not the time to test for the first time.
Look at the calories in each of the products you will use on race day and work out how many of each product you will need.
Think about not only what you put in your race pack, but when during the race you will eat it. 2 gels per hour might be fine from hour 2 – 4, but after that, what will you eat? A gel, a rice ball, a snickers, an energy bar, some nuts, some jelly babies? Plan it, then execute it later.
We recommend you then add some extra calories in case you have a sub-optimal race.
Further, we suggest you add variety in case your favourite product suddenly feels less tempting on race day (more on that below).
Note that to keep this article focused, we are not including info on salt intake or your hydration strategy.
PRACTICE YOUR NUTRITION
When you know how much you need to eat, you need to practice it in training. This is particularly important on your long run training sessions.
Your mantra needs to be: practice in training; execute on race day.
Practice when you are fatigued
It is particularly important to practice eating when you are feeling fatigued.
You need to know before the race day if you can still enjoy / consume your ‘favourite’ products when you are feeling tired. Your favourite gel or bar can become extremely hard to chew, let alone swallow, when you are deep in the pain cave. Better you discover this on training day than on race day.
Practice on all terrains
At any trail race in the north of Vietnam, you will definitely need to be able to consume calories on varied terrain. There is simply not enough flat to allow you to eat only on smooth, flat trail.
You need to practice eating on uphills, on downhills (ok, not full gas downhills!) and on flats.
EXECUTING YOUR NUTRITION PLAN
Once you have planned and practiced your nutrition, it is time to execute at the race.
Before the race, make a checklist for all your nutrition. As you put it in your race pack, check it off your list. You will then be sure it is packed.
Now you need to remember to eat it. Set a timer on your watch with an alarm every 20 minutes to remind you to eat. Set a more frequent alarm if you are able to eat more often.
However, on race day you have new factors to contend with:
Race day nerves / excitement
This may mean you can forget to eat. Using the timer on your watch is very helpful for this.
The course profile
You might need to eat during a very long climb. When this happens, you might decide not to because it is hard to eat going uphill. However, you still need to take moment to eat – stick to your nutrition plan. The 2 minutes you use to slow down (or even stop) to eat could save your race from a DNF later. Your previous practice eating on all terrains will help you with this race day issue.
Race day distance vs training distance
In training, some people will not do a long run that is close to their race day distance. If this applies to you, you will need to make sure you have plently of variety in your race pack. This will help ensure you still have something you want to eat when you get deep into the race. Prepare variety and you can execute a better race using that variety.
To sum up, you need to prepare and practice to prevent your race day report containing the dreaded phrase: “I had a bad day because of my nutrition.”
Good luck and fuel well!