Discussion: eating what & when before a meet

i'm an ovo-lacto vegetarian orienteer in his 50's. here's a hypothetical: i get up at 6:30 to travel to a meet where i'll have an 11:00 start. what should i be eating, & when should i be eating it, to have optimum energy thru my run?

I think a lot of that is personal, to be discovered through experimentation as to what you need to feel comfortable. You probably don't need to eat very much for a regular O meet if you ate well the day before.

I generally eat the same thing every morning, whether racing or not (currently kefir and muesli with berries), though I also find that toast with peanut butter or a yogurt and a banana are light but filling (and vegetarian-friendly) options that settle well and ensure that I don't feel hungry later in the morning.

I've been told that we should eat our last pre-race meal at least 3 hrs before - although I find that I can get away with a light breakfast 2 hrs before. After my last pre-race meal, I snack on easy-to-digest carb snacks like gels or juice.

As Cristina says, the important thing is to find out what your body feels comfortable with. Some of the worst food-related incidents in races happen when people try a fantastic new sports drink or energy bar for the first time, or they eat a "power breakfast" of foods that they aren't accustomed to, at a different time from usual.

Really good article about the pre-race meal:
http://www.e-caps.com/za/ECP?PAGE=ARTICLE&ARTICLE....

But aside from the science, you need to test the approach you choose to follow.

For an orienteering race (unless it is a long-o) it is really unlikely that your energy stores will be a limiting factor on your perfomance. All you really need to worry about is avoiding stomach problms from eating too close to the race.

thanks nikolay - very helpful web page - in general, i mean. i'm not going to rush out & buy all the advertised products, but i think there is a bunch of useful info anyway. thanks to all who wrote.

Definitely personal as to what your digestive system can deal with. I can't eat anything heavy within 5 hours of a hard or long run.

For me, kefir or yougurt smoothie and a bananna for breakfast (2-3 hours pre-start). More yougurt drink 30-60 minutes pre-start works for me.

I'm always a little sceptical when I see articles prescribing what to eat based on "expert's" opinions, and then go on to recommend specific brand name foods. What is the evidence? Is there a published double blind study in a peer reviewed journal? Too much information is published based on unreliable or nonexistent data and then presented as fact. The information published in the article may be true, but I would base my feelings about how much and when to eat on how I feel, rather than unproven articles like this. Even in the medical literature, one has to be extremely cautious of the best thing to do based on what one reads, and carefully examine how these recommendations were based. Much of the time it is poor data based on small uncontrolled studies frequently sponsored by a drug company rather than good double blind controlled studies.

Cake! Cake! I have scads of anecdotal evidence to prove that chowing down on cake the morning of a race is a sure path to success. Don't deny it until you've tried it.

Whole grain cereal with banana & milk about 7 or so; small bagel mid-morning, perhaps with a little topping (cream cheese? PB? jelly?). During the run, if you find your energy flagging, perhaps a gel pack (Gu is one brand) after 45 min to an hour--if you'll be out more than 75 minutes or so. Works for me. :-)

I generally agree with Evan's comments, although my own experience suggests that most of the article is sound advice. Of course, Hammer Nutrition is in the business of selling their products to athletes, and one way they drive business to their website is by providing useful information that, while lacking the references to studies that a scientist would insist upon, appears authoritative to the average person. Their products are convenient and effective but not cheap (100-200 kCal/USD for their energy foods, versus 400-1000 kCal/USD for normal foods, like bread, fruit, etc.); you could easily spend a large portion of your paycheck on them, if you follow all their recommendations.

I routinely eat much more than the 200-400 calories the article mentions. 200-400 calories would do little to keep my hunger at bay, so I usually eat around 1000. This is usually fine, as long as I eat enough in advance.

It's interesting that the article ignores glycemic index (ease with which a food raises blood glucose) in its food recommendations. Skinless baked potatoes are higher glycemic than table sugar. Unless you have a sensitive digestive system, I bet a bit of additional fiber/fat/protein to lower the glycemic index might do more good (lessen the insulin response) than harm (gastrointestinal distress), especially for those early morning races when it's hard to eat earlier than the 3-hour window.

I'm with JJ. Cake, waffles, muffins, and other "bad" baked goods work great on race day. I wouldn't recommend it without making sure that your own constitution can handle it, but most people have no trouble as long as they have a couple hours to let it settle.

I've never understood this talk of not eating too close to the race. How common is the problem for people? I don't eat heavy or greasy food right before, and I like about 40 minutes for things to settle. But I seem to know a lot of people who won't eat anything 2 or 3 hours out!

I've never had trouble from eating a bowl of oatmeal or some yogurt about 1 hour before start. Although I generally like to eat earlier, so I have time to warmup and tape. And I generally like to finish some green tea about 45 minutes before (hydrates and cleans out the digestive system), and then grab a small orange or some other fruit about 15 minutes before.

Ok, so maybe I'm just strange. I don't know how scientifically sound my approach is. I'm not 100% sure if the fruit helps, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't hurt. I generally hit a small bonk after about 80 minutes. If the course is a normal length and I run clean, no problem. But in case I'm out longer, I'm hoping that the fruit will buy a few extra minutes of strong running. I like fruit over gels cause it's cheap, natural, tasty, and doesn't seem to have a blood sugar spike.

It is possible to eat close to the event...
I'm diabetic, so I have to plan what I eat carefully. Luckily I don't have a problem eating before a race because my schedule usually goes: breakfast as usual; test sugar about an hour before the race and maybe eat a bit depending on that result; eat a low GI energy bar 15 min before the race; eat a large banana on the start line. That'll fuel me for about an hour of high intensity activity. I obviously change the amount I eat depending on the length and intensity.

Always the same: Dunkin' Donuts. A Boston Creme, a Glazed, and another selection based on my mood. Oh, and a Large Coffee. Anytime before heading to the start.

Although consistent, and easy to find, it might also explain why I'm a marginal athlete...

Mm, Dunkin Donuts!

Yes, but he's talking about actual donuts, Barb. They have more there than just corn muffins and coffee.

"Cake, waffles, muffins, and other "bad" baked goods work great on race day."

anyone that subscribes to this isn't enabling themselves to race at full potential. simple sugars, trans fats, spiking insulin right before racing with foods you don't normally eat!!... are you serious?

please go read some of the literature on this topic. here is a good one - Nutrition Periodization for Endurance Athletes

I tend to prepare the same way for all races from 5k to 50. Oatmeal and coffee at least two hours before along with 1 to 1.5 litres of water (I drink eLoad) over the course of the morning. During I eat clif blocks (organic) and eload. I also take eCaps and tums (for the calcium). I'd pretty much kill someone for a cheeseburger in the middle/end portion of most races though.

anyone that subscribes to this isn't enabling themselves to race at full potential. simple sugars, trans fats, spiking insulin right before racing with foods you don't normally eat!!... are you serious?

Hm, to me those foods just pack a lot of calories in a small space, with a good mix of simple and complex carbs as well as fats... stuff that will make sure you don't feel hungry and provide you with a good source of blood glucose for a moderate period. If your stomach can handle it and it works for you, seems fine to me...

I've heard of much stranger habits from very talented athletes. Everyone's different. A muffin isn't going to make the difference between winning or losing an O race.

Exactly. When your navigational skills and base training levels are internationally competitive, then you can start worrying about what to eat. (Hint: nobody in the US is there).

Until then, I recommend that when you're thinking about what to eat, you should definitely consider eating food and not, say, rocks, plastic, or dirt, which are nutritionally inferior. Also, more than zero and less than 2kg of breakfast also works well in my experience. That's probably close enough to optimal for most orienteers reading this. And if you're not in that category (eg you are Swisscheese), you probably already know what works for you.

Cake, waffles, muffins...

spiking insulin right before racing with foods you don't normally eat!!... are you serious?

Who said anything about foods that I don't normally eat?

I'm pretty sure my insulin levels stabilize in a lot less than 2 hours. At any rate, I've raced on no food, some food, lots of food, different kinds of food, and really haven't been able to detect any kind of trend. This is over a pretty big sample size (roughly 1500 starts, in 30 years of competition with a good chunk of it at the professional level). I eat yummy stuff on race day because it puts me in a good frame of mind. I've found that mental attitude has a much bigger effect on performance than what's in your gut.

I eat yummy stuff because if the total experience isn't fun, why bother?

And one thing I love about going to Quantico meets is that there is a very convienent place on I95 to load up on a pre-race Cinnabon :)

And yes, I'm of the unscientific opionion that a little fat before a race (at least longer ones, and at my pace, they are all long), is a good thing.

oh boy ... here we go again. i think because i'm not a true orienteer that i am out of touch with you guys. we're talking about what to eat before a meet or race to have optimum energy.

cristine says it "seems fine", and "i've seen stranger". sure, it's not going make you dnf, but if as you say your goal is to make sure you don't feel hungry in the race - optimum energy.. well that cake/pastry/muffin isn't going to be the best choice. in my experience complex carbs give you longer lasting energy and stay with you longer. try this: wake up and have a snickers bar for breakfast. then note when you feel hungry again. eating the same dinner that night as the previous night wake up the following day and have old fashioned oats for breakfast (trying to match the total calories)... please report back on what one causes you to feel hungry first, as well as your overall energy level. i think you will find complex carbs give you that full feeling longer than garbage simple sugars. report back here with your results.

feet makes the great point that we are all not good enough to worry about what we eat, and that rocks/plastic and dirt aren't that good... nuff said.

ebuckley - yes after a super sugar/trans fat bomb if you give yourself 2 hours your insulin will level out - but does that make it the best thing to eat to optimize energy during a race? on that logic you could eat anything... a bag of sugar, because yes your insulin will level out if you give it long enough - you will get that nice spike of sugar buzz and a crash. but for optimum energy during an event i don't want a sugar spike and crash.

maybe i'm on another planet because i race ultra-distance. i've never before seen so many athletes lobby for cakes, pastries and cookies as food that will product optimum energy.

well that cake/pastry/muffin isn't going to be the best choice

It's not my choice, I just don't think there's anything wrong with it if other people say it works for them. I can't argue with their experiences...

Orienteering races are not that long, and they're not usually run at the same kind of continuous intensity as, say, a road race. As long as you're mentally sharp and have eaten sufficiently in the days leading up to an event, I don't think breakfast is going to make much difference to your performance. ebuckley's point about a good frame of mind is right on - if what you ate is going to distract you (because you're too full or too hungry or whatever), that's going to be way more detrimental than any of the possible slight physical effects.

What I actually do that seems to help a lot is to drink about 16 oz of a maltodextrin sports drink right before the race (i.e. while I'm warming up). This seems to help my overall performance, in which I include how well I navigate, which is another factor in orienteering in addition to how energetic one is. I'll also note that although I've often heard people talk about a "sugar buzz and a crash", I don't know from personal experience what either of these things is. I've never experienced either one. But then, caffeine doesn't particularly keep me awake, either. I often suck down a can of Coke and immediately hop into bed with no trouble, even though other people can't drink any after 6 PM or they'll lie awake all night. People react to foods differently.

But there is some nice anecdotal evidence for post-cake triumphs.

Long races (e.g. Rogaines) are a different matter. In my case, the challenge is figuring out how to keep jamming as many calories into my body as possible, until my appetite finally just fades away and trouble starts looming.

I pointed to the Hammer Nutrition article as an 'easy to digest' pun intended article related to the discussion.
The discusison makes sense when we are talking about long distance events 80-90 + minutes. Any person on a normal diet would have enough muscle glycogen to complete 50 - 60 minute race without much consideration of pre race meals.
And I would go with not eating much in that case just for the sake of being lighter during the race. Since the muscle glicogen depletes around 90 - 120 minutes depending on excercise intensity and weather conditions, these are the races where pre race meam becomes important.

For the science inclined here (aren't we all) 'Lore of Running' by Tim Noakes will be more satisfying reading than a Hammer Nutrition article.... :)

I think it will keep the 'give-me-independent-research-done-and-results-not-influenced-by-the-industry' folks busy for a while. :)

I actually do not eat in the morining before sprint races or middle distance events. (buth then that might explain my poor -used here relatively- running performances)

maybe i'm on another planet because i race ultra-distance. i've never before seen so many athletes lobby for cakes, pastries and cookies as food that will product optimum energy.

At least in this particular part of the planet, the ultrarunners are the most eager to jam down the sort of thing you're lobbying against - before, during, and after. They drink a lot of beer, too, but that's usually just after. It's the marathon crowd that seems to get the most worked up about nutrition. That makes sense since the marathon is right on the edge of the distance where liver glycogen can be maintained. That is, do it right and you have near VO2Max for the whole race. Screw it up and you bonk somewhere between 18 and 26 miles. My pre-marathon eating (both the night before and the day of) is done much more carefully for that reason.

However, that was not the question put to this thread. The question was what to eat before running a Green course. I would argue that the answer to that is, "whatever you want." Nutrition is simply not that big of a deal for an event that only burns around 1000 Kcal at significantly less than VO2Max. For ultra events, the pre-race meal is also less important because you're going to be supplementing it during the event (this is also true for most pro-length bicycle races, which is why I never noticed much difference).

Marathon runners are quite unique in their metabolic needs due to the coincidence liver glycogen depletion and the finish of their event. To enter a marathon and not respect this is foolish. To assume that the same lessons apply equally to everything else is equally foolish.

ebuckley wrote: I've raced on no food, some food, lots of food, different kinds of food, and really haven't been able to detect any kind of trend.

In fact ebuckley goes to great lengths to let no variable go untested. Why I remember once when he raced on a bike that had no lubricant on the chain. It was like eatting in a fancy restaraunt where somebody is running their finger around the rim of their crystal glass. Everybody is looking around wondering where in the world that friggin noise is coming from. We finally tracked it down to ebuckley's chain! :-)

mphart wrote: try this: wake up and have a snickers bar for breakfast. then note when you feel hungry again. eating the same dinner that night as the previous night wake up the following day and have old fashioned oats for breakfast (trying to match the total calories)... please report back on what one causes you to feel hungry first, as well as your overall energy level. i think you will find complex carbs give you that full feeling longer than garbage simple sugars. report back here with your results.

I haven't done exactly that experiment, but I have noted over a significant number of trials that if I eat just old fashioned oatmeal with brown sugar for breakfast, I get hungry incredibly soon afterward. Especially compared to the breakfast I more often ate for many years, which was a large bowl of my favorite breakfast cereal at the time plus milk.

Now after having firmly established the longevity comparison between those, I more recently discovered in the past couple years (since my then kindergarten age son last year decided that oatmeal is his favorite food of all) that if I add a generous quantity of milk to a simple oatmeal breakfast, it, too, will get me through a respectable part of the day before ravaging hunger strikes. So milk seems to me to be the critical piece to a long-lasting breakfast.

Nowadays the breakfast that leaves me starving only an hour or two later is scrambled eggs with cheese and (a little bit of) milk, canadian bacon, and an english muffin. I'm the breakfast cook in our house and I make this a couple times a week for the kids because my wife insists they need to get PROTEIN. I try not to argue with her too much about such things since her mom has a masters degree in nutrition. :-)

Wow--fossil, I'd expect such a high fat, high protein breakfast as scrambled eggs with cheese, etc. to satiate you better than hot or cold cereal with milk. Are you eating fewer calories of the egg breakfast?

I forgot to mention in my previous post that I've had good results eating Pop Tarts pre-race. They're highly processed for easy digestion, and they have a decent mix of fat, complex carbs and sugar (in a similar proportion to that found in many energy bars). I've used them for races from 3k to 50k. I usually start out with a handful of peanuts and/or some milk or yogurt, though, to lower the glycemic index of the meal.

Why I remember once when he raced on a bike that had no lubricant on the chain.

No, no! It was the pulley. Recall we raced in the rain the day before and I lubed the chain, but somehow forgot to get the pulleys. Yeah, that was really annoying, especially since it was a relatively flat course so we just rode around in a big bunch for three hours. Everybody hated me by the end.

Back on thread, I eat 1 cup (uncooked) of oatmeal most mornings and don't find it particularly satiating. That's not too suprising as it's only 300 calories. I usually am in the mood for a snack an hour or two later.

ebuckley: "I eat 1 cup (uncooked) of oatmeal most mornings"

I must say that puts to rest any notion I ever had that my breakfasts were relatively simple/spartan.

well, i'm glad to see that we're all agreed.........

would somebody please just eat something just less than 2K of yogurt smootie, bananas, cake milk PB&j, cream chease, waffles, muffins,cinibons, and dunkin donuts less than one hour before a meet. i would like to watch you running around with all that junk sloshing around in your gut.

I am not sure that i know any serious ultrarunner who who is eager to jam anything down their gut including beer. Except the ones that dnf because of serious stomach distress.

You orienteers are all nuts I tell you NUTS!!!!

Crazy nuts

From some other planet nutz

Go back to your coffee, donutz and math textbook nutz

Can the ultrarunners go play somewhere else? Nobody is disputing that if you are an ultrarunner, it probably matters what you eat.

My point was that there aren't any orienteers in the US that are serious athletes, as far as I know.

You appear to be mistaking orienteering as practiced in the US for something you need to train for. You also appear to be mistaking short races for something much longer. If you are in the US and going orienteering, likely you can eat what you want when you want and it won't make any important difference to your performance, since you either can't navigate or can't run, or both, and you might want to fix those first before worrying about this.

You might also want to go look up 'sarcasm' somewhere. And possibly spend some time becoming literate in the English language as well.

Go back to your coffee, donutz and math textbook nutz

Well, that was a positive, insightful post to start the morning's reading with.

Is the Beyond Yummyfoodz brigade with the Beyond Carbon birgade and Beyond Beef brigade?

Do you think if I locked myself in a closet, didn't eat, drink, move, or breathe, I would offend the Beyond Taking Up Space brigade?

would somebody please just eat something just less than 2K of yogurt smootie, bananas, cake milk PB&j, cream chease, waffles, muffins,cinibons, and dunkin donuts less than one hour before a meet. i would like to watch you running around with all that junk sloshing around in your gut.


Dean Karnazes does it. Sure, the guy has a crazy disciplined diet when he's *not* racing, but when he is...

You wouldn't believe the stuff Karnazes consumes on a run. He carries a cell phone and regularly orders an extra-large Hawaiian pizza. The delivery car waits for him at an intersection, and when he gets there he grabs the pie and rams the whole thing down his gullet on the go. The trick: Roll it up for easy scarfing. He'll chase the pizza with cheesecake, cinnamon buns, chocolate éclairs, and all-natural cookies. The high-fat pig-out fuels Karnazes' long jaunts, which can burn more than 9,000 calories a day. What he needs is massive amounts of energy, and fat contains roughly twice as many calories per gram as carbohydrates. Hence, pizza and éclairs.

This post has no relevancy to the original question asked, it's just fun to read about what that guy eats on the run.

BTW, I do cook the oatmeal before eating it; I just measure it before cooking it.

feet, some latin is most appropriate right now :)

A few comments:
1. My orienteering races often resemble cross-country races in effort. (For instance, my average HR during a 30-minute cross-country race might be 175 and average HR during a 30+minute orienteering race might be 165.) Since most orienteering races I run do not extend past 80 minutes (and many are around 60 minutes), as long as I eat plenty of carbs the previous couple of nights and eat breakfast on the day, I feel good. Breakfast for me usually means two pieces of toast with jam, some green tea, and fruit. (I used to eat muesli/cereal with milk, but would occasionally experience stomach problems during higher-intensity workouts, which seemed to diminish once I cut out the dairy.)

In general, I agree that what one eats right before a typical orienteering race will probably not affect performance by a significant amount unless it was a *lot* of food or if the food causes an upset stomach. However, for competitive/elite orienteers, I think that they do not (and should not) eat anything before an orienteering race that they wouldn't eat before a running race, because of the similarity in physical effort.

2. For long runs of 1.5-3 hours, I eat breakfast as usual and take a couple of energy gels with me, possibly my Camelbak (in hot weather or for runs of over 2 hours), and possibly a Powerbar to eat right after finishing.
3. For even longer runs (which I have not yet done), I think it would be appropriate to eat pizza, chocolate, etc. When running for many hours non-stop, the body burns a lot of calories and over time the runner starts to crave real food and not just energy bars/gels/drinks. Trying to replenish these calories by eating healthy foods would require eating a ton and this is probably why quite a few ultrarunners eat high-calorie "junk" during ultras.

Me thinks that orienteers take themselves very seriously.

I hope that I am not banned from orienteering for my feeble attempt at humor... or was it sarcasm.

Yes its true that i do some ultra running but I am not any better at that than i am at orienteering so let the feast begin.

I had great english

now feet that was really uncalled for.

Dean runs alot and is very successfull at promoting himself but in the ultra world, i don't think that he is taken too seriously as a top competitor. Perhaps if he changed his race diet to match his training diet he would win more races. Given what Cristina posted about what he eats, i would no sooner ask him for nutrition advice than i would ask JP Patches for orienteering advice from his ICU2 TV set.

I hope that this made you smile a little.

Lard.

It works every time!

Chocolate covered lard!

It actually exists as one of the Ukranian treats :)

"BTW, I do cook the oatmeal before eating it;"

That's good. I envisioned you downing a cup of dry uncooked oatmeal... :)

"Poptarts" - Excellent AR food, as are hostess fruit pies!

"muesli/cereal with milk" - My typical breakfast as well, and also prone to causing me stomach problems before long or high intensity runs. Hadn't considered that it might be the dairy.

Hadn't considered that it might be the dairy.

I have a problem with milk before exercise, but not with cultured milk options like yogurt or kefir. I always envisioned that dairy stuff that sloshed was somehow much worse because of all the... sloshing... but it's probably more complex than that. ;-)

BTW, I do cook the oatmeal before eating it

Well, now that's where Swampfox has you: he doesn't cook his. Seriously! Adds some brown sugar, raisins, and cold water, if memory serves.

i usually eat something like en energy bar or something with high calories about 1 to 2 hours before the race. I also drink sips ( to avoid cramps make sure you drink sips ) of water 20 minutes before i go out.

Hmm, I recall watching Rick Oliver chowing down on uncooked oatmeal with one hand while driving to a meet with the other. Nothing added whatsoever, just grabbing handfuls out of the cardboard box.

Has anyone seen him lately? I don't think I've seen or heard of him since he moved out west many years ago.

Yes!

Wow, that's wierd. I invoked his name only 2 days after someone actually saw him. A most interesting update, too. Sounds like he's got his hands full. I wouldn't mind being 2 years from retirement. And I'm only a year older than Rick, IIRC.

My general rules of thumb are:

1) It is better to eat too much than too little. I'd rather feel bloated than bonk.
2) Whenever I can, I eat the same breakfast as during the work week, because that's what my stomach is used to.
3) If I feel hungry within the last 60 minutes before my start, I eat a half or whole banana.
4) At a multi-day event, I try to eat something as quickly as possible after I finish a race. I generally find that sugar/carbs are not sufficient - I need some protein and fat after a race to stop feeling hungry.

Hm... all this talk of food is making me hungry.