Let me say that I was first an ultra marathon/adventure junkie, and I'm now getting my master’s in nutrition and functional medicine. It’s been a learning process, and how much do I wish that I had a lot of this information when I was doing the my Ironman Triathlons, 5-Day Adventure Races, and the Red Bull X-Alps! I’ve been refining my fueling strategies for 15 years now, but just in the last couple of years, I’ve had some great breakthroughs in what works consistently, time after time. Last fall, after I qualified for the Spartan World Championships in Tahoe, I raced the Beast on Saturday (14 miles) and then the Ultra Beast on Sunday (30 miles). I finished respectably on Saturday, but then came back on Sunday to win my division by over 3 hours, against women who hadn’t raced the day before. More importantly, I felt amazing the last few miles of the race, and only ate 900 calories during the 9 hours I was doing the Ultra Beast. What I did though, was make sure every calories I took in, was of the highest quality I could get, and added some key supplements to keep my stomach happy and my muscles going strong.
Of course there’s a hundred different nutrition strategies and supplements you could go after, but I’ll just point out a few that will have the most bang for your buck, and help you recover and go harder the next day while feeling fresh.
There are three macronutrients, we’re all familiar with them; fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Your goal in training and especially a long race, should be to get the highest quality of each that you can buy, so that there is less waste for the digestive system to process, and then more of what you need gets delivered right to your working muscles.
PROTEIN
The body breaks down the protein we eat into amino acids, which it then uses to make the proteins we need to support our body functions. The proteins in food aren’t very well absorbed, with eggs being the highest (49% of protein absorbed, the rest as nitrogen waste) and most whey protein powders and BCAAs being the lowest (17% down to just 1%). That’s a lot of waste products the body has to deal with. See graph below.
It’s now possible to get all of your protein needs from a pill. They are called Essential Amino Acids, and they come in the right formulation that just 30 grams of them in a day is all the protein building blocks that you need. This is what the Tour de France riders use to come back stronger every day. These EAAs come in pill form or powder to be mixed into a drink. I would advise 5-10 grams a day on training days, and a full 30 grams each day of a long race. There's a great article by Ben Greenfield (below) explaining why they are so amazing.
What's the Difference Between Protein Sources?
Quality, quality and quality.
The chart illustrates the Amino Acid Utilization (AAU™) that PerfectAmino offers, dramatically greater than dietary
protein sources.
- At the low end of the spectrum are branched chain amino acids – only 1% of their content is utilized by the body with 99% resulting in waste that your body must then process and eliminate.
- Whey and soy proteins – only 18% or less of their content is utilized by the body with 83% leaving as waste.
- Food like meat, fish and poultry fare a bit better with 32% being absorbed and 68% being wasted.
- Eggs are the winners in the food stakes with 48% being utilized and 52% converted to waste.
Now compare those numbers to PerfectAmino – a massive 99% is put to work by the body, with only 1% leaving as waste. Not only that, but PerfectAmino is absorbed by the body within 23 minutes! And there is only 0.4 of a calorie per tablet.
FATS
I follow a mostly keto / low-carb diet with some higher carb refeed days. I think for longevity it’s a good thing, because it controls blood sugar and insulin and that is a key factor in overall health. However, if you are thinking about this type of eating and have a big event coming up, be careful to start it early enough to be fully adapted. A couple of months minimum and 3-4 months would be even better.
Regardless of your normal eating habits, what you can do during a race is give yourself high quality, quick digesting fats. The rest of the time, I do advise adding in more good fats (olive oil, avocado, coconut oil, meats) and avoiding anything with corn oil, canola oil, or anything deep fat fried, especially 48 hours before the race. Bad fats will make you slow and sluggish.
MCT oil is a super quick digesting derivative of Coconut oil. The liquid form can be hard on the digestion, however in powdered form, which is easier to store anyway, it seems to work amazing during my races with no gut issues at all.
CARBOHYDRATES
So I don’t eat many carbs normally, I think regulating my insulin will help keep me feeling better in the long term. Before a big race, for a few days, I will add in good carbs like white rice and sweet potato, not tons of it but just enough to top off my glycogen stores. These are two great carb sources in between multi day events, too.
The morning of and during my races, I use UCAN super starch, this product is a super long chain of carbs which digest slowly and don’t spike your insulin, meaning you won’t have a sugar crash during your race. They come in bars or powder, I use both. Peanut butter chocolate bars tastes the best, but the cinnamon bars don’t melt, I carry them racing as they survive better. I use the powder in my drink mix, comes in a bunch of flavors.
The science behind UCAN is amazing.
https://www.generationucan.com/superstarch/
I mix up my own race drink mix, which includes:
UCAN powder
Essential Amino Acid powder
MCT oil powder
Electrolytes (Skratch, OSMO, or Wilderness Athlete). Get something low in sugar and high in the actual electrolytes.
Colostrum (see below)
Get a small funnel and mix a serving of each item into disposable plastic water bottles. It’s chalky and hard to clean out of a container otherwise. Do NOT mix ahead of time, drink within a few hours of adding the water. I
It tastes meh, but not horrible. Word to the wise, get complementary flavors of everything you mix together. I’ve found it all in Berry flavors, whereas chocolate with lime with raspberry doesn’t really go well together!
If you want to get a premix, try this one. I haven’t used it yet as it’s a new product but all the ingredients are what I was mixing up myself, although the carbs aren’t UCAN but a similar sort.
Perfect Aminos Power Meal
Colostrum
The biggest issue I’ve had in my history of racing is gut problems. You drink too much, eat too much of the wrong things, and your stomach is sloshing and you are forced to walk. The biggest help has been colostrum. I load with it in capsule form for a week before a big race, then mix powder into my race mix too. Voila, my stomach is happier. It coats the stomach and keeps the intestines happy. Read about it below.
Rocket Fuel
I also carry little baggies of pills in my pocket during my races. In these baggies I carry Spirulina, Essential Amino Acid tablets, Enzymes, Colostrum tablets, Electrolyte chews and capsules, Caffeine Mints, Alt Red Nitric Oxide supplements, Qualia Mind capsules and whatever else I have at the moment that might keep me alert, strong, and quick. I swallow or chew a handful every couple of hours.
So, that's about all I eat even during long races. By all means, I eat a potato chip at an aid station if I am craving them, but mostly I alternate my homemade drink mix with my supplement baggies and UCAN bars, and have run up to 9 hours. For multi-day events you will want a real meal occasionally. I never seem to get as hungry as I think I will, and now I trust that I really don't need that much. I once packed 10,000 calories a day of food for a 5 day event (!), and brought most of it home afterwards. I don't have a long event on the horizon now, but if I did, I think I could be fine with just a few thousand calories and my gut would be happier too.
Daily Vitamins and Minerals
Ok, then a few basic supplements and vitamins, that as an athlete are fairly important. The best thing you could do apart from this, is find a Functional Medicine doctor who will give you a basic blood test and suggest other supplements based on those results, like Iron and B Vitamins.
Vitamin D & K
Get your blood checked if you are curious, ask for the 25-OH Vitamin D test. You should aim for your level to be above 50. Regardless, just take 5000 IU in the morning every day, especially in the winter. D and K are important vitamins in the body for many reasons.
Magnesium
Magnesium is absolutely essential for athletes. Most people are deficient in it. It helps with so many body functions you can’t list them all, including muscle cramps. It will also help you sleep better. Absolutely essential. Take 2 every evening from now until the race ends. Magnesium Malate, Magnesium Threonate, or Magnesium w/SRT, don’t get other forms as they can give you diarrhea!
Multivitamin
There’s a lot of minor micronutrients that it’s easiest to get in a multivitamin. Here’s the best one money can buy at the moment, it’s worth it to start a bottle of it the month before a big race. 3 in the morning, 3 in the evening.
Creatine
Science says that everyone should supplement with creatine. Take 5 grams a day, half in the morning half in the evening. Don’t load it, you don’t need to cycle on and off, that’s a myth. 5 grams a day will keep you topped off and help with strength, recovery and muscle mass.
Beets
Nitric Oxide is a vasodilator, which is super important during races. Eat lots of beets if you can tolerate them. If not, try a powder or pill. Load for a week before a race, and then take some during the race too. I don’t have a favorite brand yet, they come in pills or powder,
This company claims that it's the red color of beets that give an athletic advantage, and have the studies to back it up
Enzymes
Enzymes speed up chemical reactions in the body. In some cases, reactions without enzymes would take a million years, but with them, take microseconds. Enzymes help with digestion (those big meals at night during the race) but on an empty stomach they also help with recovery, wound healing, and aches and pains. I would take 5 every morning of the race, and 5 more before your big meals. They will also help you recover from injuries faster. I personally take 30 a day when I’m injured and heal up super fast. Here’s the best money can buy, and quality matters with enzymes.
Spirulina and Chlorella
Algae. Packed with vitamins and minerals and amino acids and omega 3s. Amazing superfood. Spirulina is good for exercise, Chlorella is great for recovery. This is where fish get the Omega 3's, so you can get it straight from the source without eating the fish or fish oil. You can take them separately, or get them together. Either way, take about 75 of these tablets a day a multi-day event or long race. Haha you think I’m kidding but that’s what I would do if I were racing something long, or doing a backpacking trip. So beneficial.
Ok, if you’ve read all the way down here, you may have sticker shock from the amount of things in your amazon cart, and you will feel like you are taking a handful of pills morning and night. My husband complained about all of this too…until he started feeling better, sleeping better, and racing double Spartans on the weekend with me while feeling stronger than ever. Oh, and he’s over sixty so that’s no mean feat. The truth is that the food we eat these days doesn’t have the amount of nutrients it used to, and we are subject to toxins like never before. Not to mention the amount of stress put on the body with long days of vigorous exercise. The few hundred dollars for supplements will pay you back in spade during the race as you are stronger, recovering faster, and going harder at the end than your competitors.
You notice I haven’t said a lot about what you could actually eat beyond a drinkable mix during races. You have to experiment with foods that you like that are easy on your gut. These days, steak and sweet potato or sushi as a meal the night before a race works well for me. Everyone thinks of carb loading with a huge plate of pasta, but that can be hard on the gut. The more high quality stuff you can eat while racing, the less junk you will need to eat otherwise. That plate of pasta will just clog up your digestion, and you won’t sleep as well which means you won’t recover as well. That being said, go with your own experience and don’t try anything exotic. Eat when you are hungry and drink electrolyte water.
Here’s my blog post from 6 months ago, which says some of the same things and adds a few more too. Notice I've cut out some of the expensive stuff like Vespa and HVMN Ketone Ester....doesn't mean they don't work and I might try them again someday, but unless you are doing the basic supplements first, I don't think these are worth the expense.
Happy Racing!
My 50k took me 6 hours and I was running (or hiking uphill) as fast as possible the whole time. Red-lining, in other words. Slight dehydration and legs very sore afterwards. The hardest run I've done in a while. Here's the data the ring recorded during the day of the run
