Diet And Performance: One big advantage of being a runner is that you can eat a lot without putting on weight. The more you run, the more you can eat.
The needs of the average sedentary man can be met by 2500 calories a day, but a runner putting in 10 miles a day can consume at least an extra 1000 calories a day. I say 'at least' because running speeds up your metabolism after exercise so that you continue to burn fuel at a faster rate even at rest.
I do not believe that diet has very much to do with athletic performance. 'You are what you eat' is much less true than 'you are what you do'. The proof of this, to my mind, is that you can take a world championships field and find among it people of widely different cultures and enormous differences in their dietary habits, yet the differences in their performances are measured in fractions of a percentage point.
I don't think there is anything you can eat which can make you run faster, but I will accept that a diet which is consistently deficient in certain vitamins and minerals will limit your performance. One of the spin-offs of eating a large amount of food is that one is very unlikely to suffer from a deficiency of any of the trace elements. From the point of view of the elite athlete, I'd like to look at the way we tackle certain practical problems.
The regular daily diet
As long as you emphasise variety, you should cover all the necessary vitamins, and the problem may be just one of preparing and eating enough in a day to get the necessary calories. My rules are:
I . Each meal should include either fresh fruit or salad, or both.
2. Each meal should include a major source of carbohydrates, which can be added to as necessary.
3. Water should be taken immediately after each training session, and some food as soon as possible afterwards.
The hard-training athlete may need 4000 calories a day and since more than half of those should come from carbohydrates, he or she should be eating over 500 grams of carbohydrates a day. A large plateful of rice or pasta represents about four ounces ( 11 3g) of the food in its dry form, which is mostly carbohydrate. The athlete needs to eat four to five times this amount per day, depending on how big he or she is and how much training is being done. When we are in training camp, the daily menu looks like this:
Breakfast: Fruit juice or fresh mango/pineapple/pawpaw, Porridge with milk and honey, Toast and marmalade, ad lib A banana, tea or coffee.
Lunch: Soup, with a lot of bread, Pasta with a simple sauce, Green salad or coleslaw, Bread and cheese, if needed, Fresh fruit.
Supper: Fish, chicken or meat dish with large amounts of rice Potatoes or pasta and a green vegetable Fruit salad or rice pudding, tea or coffee.
In addition to this, we often have a cup of tea and some bread or cake right after training. Most runners drink at least half a pint of water or dilute juice immediately after each training session; when the mileage is really high they drink high-carbohydrate drinks such as High Five or Leppin, where you mix the powder in with the water.
I have made no specific mention of fibre content here because by eating a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables we get all the fibre we need. The same goes for proteins because, in addition to the protein foods of the main course, there is an appreciable amount of protein in bread, potatoes and pasta.
A recipe for disaster
I recently went to a training camp with a very promising young British athlete. The way he ran in training was terrific, but his eating habits horrified me. His daily menu when at home was:
Breakfast: Sugar-frosted cornflakes, cup of tea
Lunch: Microwave-baked potato, with sauce, crisps, Coke
Supper: Takeaway burger and chips or fish and chips, Coke
Additional energy was made up by chocolate bars or more chips. He rarely ate fruit and never ate salad or vegetables. In spite of this, he performed extremely well last winter. Does this show that bothering about diet is a waste of time? I think it shows that in the short term it is inherited ability, plus training, that matter most, but it is also my opinion that his competitive career will be interrupted by injuries and illnesses if he does not improve his diet.
Travelling
A big problem for the modern athlete is that he or she is taken away far too often from their stable environment, where they are getting an adequate diet, and forced to buy food, often from fast-food outlets at stations and airports. The guidelines here are:
1. Take a packed meal with you so that you can get what you want.
2. Carry a water bottle with water or dilute juice in it so that you don't get dehydrated.
3. Carry a reserve of fruit and chocolate and/or museli bars.
4. Try to eat a small meal every three to tour hours, rather than starving for hours and then stuffing yourself when you arrive.
Pre-race meals
This is where it is easy to make mistakes. Athletes, being very nervous, often don't feel like eating, but on the other hand some people eat far too close to the competition, then find their food does not digest as quickly as usual.
You should finish your meal between three hours and five hours before the start time of your race. If you have breakfast at eight and your race is at, say, one o'clock, that is fine, but if your event is at two-thirty I would recommend having a drink and a snack at eleven. Incidentally, you can go on drinking right up to the start of your race, and in hot weather I would recommend this. Use plain water, squash or an isotonic drink, but avoid taking a lot of tea or coffee because of their diuretic effect.
The right things to eat at this stage are those which are easily digested, non-fibrous, with a high carbohydrate content. Fibrous foods can lead to an attack of 'the runs' just before or during an event, which is very unsettling.
Foods recommended: White bread or toast, ripe bananas, honey sandwiches, chocolate bars, cereals such as cornflakes or rice crispies which are low in bran.
Foods to avoid: High-fibre foods such as museli, fatty foods such as fish and chips, milk shakes, tried bacon and eggs.
Post-race meals
After a big effort, your body is dehydrated and your muscles are low in glycogen. The first need is to replace the fluid, and I would recommend an istonic drink here, unless you have been running a very long way, in which case a high-carbohydrate drink is best. If you can put back some of the fuel within the first hour after the exercise your recovery rate will be much quicker. The enzymes which were used to break down the glycogen are the same ones that bring about the resynthesis of glycogen, and they are present in high concentration in the muscle cells immediately after the exercise--so take in some simple carbohydrate food as soon as you can tolerate it.
Special events
If you are running a marathon or taking part in an event which goes on for several hours, your requirements are somewhat different. For a start, because you will be exercising at a slower rate for some of the time it is all right to have some t:at in the meal at the beginning of the day--provided you have time to digest it. It is also a good thing to keep on snacking every hour-and- a-half so that your glycogen stores can be topped up, and it is essential to keep taking fluids. This is where the commercial replacement drinks come into their own, and you should choose one that has a balance of water and salts, plus enough carbohydrate to meet your energy needs, but not so much that it upsets your digestion. In a marathon, you should be taking drinks every three miles, and in a long-running sport you should take drinks at least every halt:hour if possible.
Carbo-loading
There is definite evidence that you can store up extra glycogen just before a long endurance event if you take in extra carbohydrate at the right time.
In the last few days before a marathon you will be tapering off your training, running three or tour miles a day instead of 1() to 20. Hence you will tend to build up your stores even without eating anything special. If your marathon is on a Sunday, I recommend that the last bit of effort--a brisk six or eight miles--should come on Tuesday afternoon, and after that you should eat only smallish amounts of carbohydrate for the next 48 hours. Excessive depletion is dangerous. From the Thursday evening, for 48 hours, take large amounts of carbohydrate-10 grams per kilo of body weight--per day and large amounts of water. This will cause you to put on weight. On the Saturday, you should have only a normal evening meal so as not to upset your digestive system, and the following morning have a normal breakfast. The extra glycogen stored can make all the difference to your energy reserves--hungry people do not make the best fighters if they are weak from hunger!
Bruce Tulloh