Malaga Marathon

Pre-race Fueling:

When Lucy first reached out to Precision Fuel & Hydration, like a lot of elite runners focusing on shorter distance races, she hadn’t given much consideration to the impact of fueling on her training. But, by introducing some race-specific fueling during longer training sessions, she immediately noticed an uplift in her energy levels both within sessions and afterwards. Most notably, Lucy mentioned significantly less muscle fatigue (or DOMS), even after hard track workouts, when she’d consumed 60-90g of carbs. A study by Aitor Viribay and colleagues actually concluded that blood markers associated with muscle damage were significantly reduced in athletes consuming large amounts of carbohydrates, meaning athletes could bounce-back from workouts quicker than their under-fueled counterparts.

Race Fueling:

Lucy had access to the elite athlete drinks stations during her debut marathon, meaning every 5km she could pick up a bottle of her own nutrition. She filled each of these bottles with ~200ml of PF Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix, and each bottle also had a PF 30 Gel attached to it with a rubber band. This gave her the freedom to choose whether she preferred liquid or semi-solid carbs as the race went on, and as it happens this was crucial as her fluid intake was a bit lower than expected. Lucy felt a bit sick in the final 5-6km so struggled to get her gels down, and thus fell short of her pre-race plan of ~75g/h, but still did a solid job.

Lucy’s fluid intake may appear very low, but given she was only running for less than two-and-a-half hours in low temperatures, it’s likely that she wasn’t sweating very much, and stayed hydrated enough to avoid a negative impact on her performance. Her lower-than-planned fluid intake likely, however, contributed to her feeling of nausea towards the end of the race, possibly as her carbs were struggling to be absorbed with the absence of water in her gut. Drinking regularly during high-intensity, longer workouts is something Lucy should look to implement into her training sessions, as it’s something lots of marathon runners neglect due to the logistical challenges of implementing this in training, but it can pay dividends on race day.