Eat Cheese And Walk With A Purpose
By: Adam Gifford
As your race distances get longer you will find that conventional race nutrition and pacing becomes less useful. It is much easier to determine nutritional needs for a race that will last 4 hours as compared to one that will last 32 hours. Nutrition and pacing for a 50 or 100-mile Ultra Marathon can be made simple by taking a “back to basics” approach to your actions. The two best ways to follow this approach is to eat cheese and walk with a purpose.
Eat Cheese. Aid stations tend to be filled with the kind of food runners spend all of their training time trying to avoid such as baked goods, candy, pretzels, and soda. Try to mix some cheese into your race-day diet rather than indulging like a 7 year old at a birthday party. The fat in the cheese will help to slow your digestion and allow your body to more readily absorb the nutrients in your stomach. The salt in the cheese will help replace lost electrolytes. Finally, the taste of the cheese will help to offset the “film of sweetness” that tends to coat the mouth after spending hours consuming sports drinks, and gels.
Walk with a Purpose. It is easy to track and maintain your running pace when you are on a flat road. It is a completely different story when you are on technical trails in the mountains. The use of walking is a common strategy in Ultra Marathon. In fact, all but the top runners will wind up walking at least some of the course. There is a big difference, however, between walking and walking with a purpose. When you walk with a purpose you are keeping in mind that you are still in a race and the clock is ticking. This type of walking should still feel challenging and you should maintain an increased heart rate. Using this strategy early in the race can help prevent the middle of the night death march that so many Ultra Runners suffer during their 100-mile attempts.