Our top Nutrition Tips for ultra runners
By Rebecca Dent, Team Sports Dietitian
Having supported many recreational to elite ultra runners, these are the most common mistakes ultra runners make in their nutrition and hydration practices for races:
‣ Not practicing your race nutrition strategy enough! (once or twice is not enough).
‣ Not training your stomach to absorb and digest carbohydrate during training.
‣ Waiting until you are hungry to start eating during a race.
‣ Not having a drinking plan for your race.
‣ Not having a sodium intake plan for your race.
‣ Choosing foods at aid stations that you’ve not tested before.
‣ Avoiding using gels and sports products because they’ve once caused you stomach issues.
‣ Avoiding using the gels and sports drink during your training that you are going to use in your race because of how much they cost!
3 Top Race Nutrition Tips for Ultra Runners
Practice your race nutrition strategy in training (over and over and over and over…..)
Train your gut to absorb carbohydrate and reduce the risk of stomach issues during a race. This can be done simply by fuelling all your training sessions with carbohydrate in the weeks leading up to your race.
Get used to your own hydration and sodium needs for each race. Start by knowing how much you drink per hour during training/race and add up how much sodium you currently take on board during training or a race per hour (make sure you check your gels, bars, sports drinks and of course any electrolytes or salt sticks you are already consuming).
How to Fuel Your Ultra
‣ Research shows faster finishers consume more calories. If you are consuming on average less than 200 calories per hour during a race, you are more likely to DNF (30g carbohydrate = 120 calories so 1 x gel will only give you between 100-120 calories!).
‣ Research shows the best ultra runners are consuming approx. 80g -120g carbohydrate per hour. Recreational runners on average carry 60g worth of carbohydrate as fuel but only consume 30g carbohydrate per hour.
‣ It’s important to find fuelling options that you can tolerate and will go down, but there is also a point, especially if you want to be competitive, that you need to get used to fuelling regularly and become robotic about fuelling during a race (regardless if you like the taste or if you don’t feel like it or you are not feeling hungry).
‣ Those that finish an ultra race have been shown to eat the most and drink to the minimum hydration recommendations.
How to Hydrate Your Ultra
‣ On average, ultra runners drink around 500 ml per hour during a race.
‣ It’s important to get used to your own fluid requirements.
‣ Monitor how much you drink at the moment in a long training run and check your daily hydration status.
‣ We recommend aiming for 450 ml-750 ml per hour. Or 500 ml per hour in temperate conditions and up to as much as 1000 ml per hour in hot conditions.
‣ Start where you are at and build up incrementally: if drinking only 200 ml, increase to 350 ml per hour in training; train the gut to be able to tolerate a greater volume of fluid.
Drink to thirst or drink to a plan?
‣ During shorter races, it may be ok to drink to thirst, but this depends on race conditions and availability of water throughout the race. It's always better to have a plan!
‣ For longer races, self supported races, racing in hot weather/humid conditions, you definitely need a plan!
‣ Our recommendations would be to always make a plan and get used to your own fluid needs in varying temperatures, at different running intensities and over different terrain, and know where you are going to get your top-up of fluid from during all races.
How much Sodium do You need during an Ultra?
‣ Add up your existing sodium intake from foods, fluids and sports products.
‣ Then focus on getting any additional sodium requirements from one or two sources of electrolytes; be specific and strategic with sodium supplementation.
‣ Aim for 500 mg sodium/L in temperate conditions and you could need up to 1000 mg sodium/L+ in hot & humid environments. This will vary with temperature, individual sweat rates, sweat rates over time and individual sodium losses.
‣ These guidelines will vary for everyone - consider sweat testing.
How to Resolve Your Stomach Issues?
‣ Elite runners are used to racing and fuelling on the go, so are well practiced with their race nutrition strategy. As a result, elite runners tend to experience fewer stomach issues.
‣ You can use the gut training strategies below to help resolve and/or prevent your stomach issues. We’ve mentioned it above but it bears repeating: the most common mistake seen with ultra runners (at all levels) is not planning your race nutrition and hydration and not practising these enough in training, in the weeks before a race.
These gut training strategies should help you get used to fuelling with carbohydrate:
1) Practise your race nutrition strategy in your long training runs.
2) Practise your race nutrition strategy in long runs at race pace and get used to eating when 'you don't feel like it' - it just has to go down (without causing any stomach issues).
3) Fuelling your higher-intensity sessions will help train your stomach to get used to consuming carbohydrates at higher intensities, stressing your stomach so it’s able to accept fuel while running at race pace.
4) If you want to increase your hourly carbohydrate intake, practise fuelling your weekday low-intensity training runs e.g. Eat 1 x gel at 0 mins, 1 x gel at 20 mins and 1 x gel at 40 min every hour and increase hourly carbohydrate to desired grams/hr (60g-90g ideally - check your gel carbohydrate content!).
5) Experiment with a variety of different sports products (gels, chews, bars, drinks) and real foods (sticky rice balls, oat /rice krispie bars, cooked potatoes, purée pouches), moving into the more solid real food options (pasta /noodles, freeze dried meals, sandwiches, hot meals, rice pudding/custard pots etc) as race duration extends.
A well planned (with the ability to problem solve in race) and practised race nutrition and hydration strategy will go a long way to alleviating /eliminating your stomach issues come race day.
Find out more
Watch Rebecca being interviewed by The North Face in Chamonix on her top tips for ultra runners: