Carb Loading!
This blog post is dedicated to nutrition of runners, especially marathon and half marathon participants.
Since I'm an amateur runner and my longest run was half, I find it interesting to google around and discover some more info about this lovely activity.
What athletes do know?
All the athletes, whether they are amateur or professional runners, know about the term "carb loading". They know that the key to their great performance is fueling themselves with carbohydrates. After all carbs are a great source of energy, and you need it a lot for running marathon or a half. But many runners are far less clear on how many carbs they should eat. I'm not nutritionist nor a doctor so I wont be posting and giving advice's how much carbs one should eat. This topic was interesting to me as an amateur runner so I decided to explore it a bit.
Carb Sience
According to science most of the carbs are stored as a glycogen in our muscles and liver. Glycogen is the most accessible form of energy, but is not the only source. During half or full marathon we burn both carbs and fats. But the process is not that easy which means our bodies have to work harder to convert it into fuel. When you run out of glycogen during long races you "hit the wall", that means that our body is slowing down to turn fat info energy. Proper carb loading won't make you faster, but instead you will avoid to hit the wall, and if you run smartly will allow to run your best!
What food is good for You?
So, reviewing different sites it turns out that you can eat rice for breakfast, lunch, dinner... But athletes don't have to be that restrictive...tortillas, oat-meals, pasta, bread, potatoes, pancakes, waffles are easy to digest. Many fruit are high in carbs, but are also high in fiber, and to much of it can also make you a stomach pain. It turns out that bananas are low in fiber and high in carbs. This wonderful fruit is exactly what I grab before my morning run and after my coffee.
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