Friday Ramble 08/12/22
This week: A plethora of easy to make nutritionally dense snacks for runners on the go. Plus, I think my watch is trying to tell me something.
One of the interesting things about preparing for a 50-mile race is there are a few weeks during training when you’re literally hungry all the time. You not only eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you also make room for brunch, second lunch, and assorted snack sessions throughout the day.
On average, I’d guess that I consume at least 3,500-4,000 calories per day during heavy volume weeks. You might think it would be fun to eat this much, but it’s really not. After a while, the mere thought of eating anything seems like a chore.
I’m making it a priority to keep eating anyway because the effects of low energy availability (i.e. underfueling) during training can be disastrous. Not only will it hinder recovery and performance, it may also get in the way of allowing all those hard-earned adaptations to take root. That’s like bashing your head against a rock, and then shooting yourself in the foot.
Obviously, there are levels and layers to any metabolic equation. Your genetics are different from mine, and you certainly don’t need to consume nearly as many calories during a 20-mile week as you would during a 60-mile week. Still, whenever your mileage creeps up, your caloric intake should follow an upward trajectory as a general rule of thumb.
(Unrelated: This is why it’s really hard to lose weight as a runner. The more calories you burn, the more your body needs calories to replenish its glycogen stores and provide enough energy to keep going. A topic for another time.)
Last summer, I made it a point to eat anything and everything during my first buildup to the 50-mile distance. Frozen pizzas, packaged snacks, you name it. This year, I’m trying to take a slightly healthier approach by minimizing processed foods and emphasizing what we might call “real” food whenever possible.
This requires just a bit of planning and forethought. Rather than leaving myself at the mercy of whatever gastric urges come my way, I’ve made an effort to prepare a number of incredibly simple and nutritionally dense options to have on hand whenever I’m hungry. Which, again, is all the time.