Help.... fuelling for a marathon

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Feb 2019
3:07pm, 18 Feb 2019
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geordiegirl
you could be wright Wriggling Snake, I ran with a friend for the first half, she's much faster than me so my first 4 laps were quicker, I also didn't drink a lot... there is more to this than I can cope with, maybe I should stick to shorter distances, lol.

larkim, yes I'm not fast by any means and this is partly why I wondered if fuelling was adding to my slowness. I don't have a big appetite but made a conscious effort last week to eat plenty of good carbs (veggies) and not so many of the pasta/rice/bread carbs.

I'll keep playing with it, I have 4 weeks until Kielder.
Feb 2019
5:02pm, 18 Feb 2019
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larkim
Don't think of yourself as slow, that's unfair! Obviously if you think you can go faster, that's one thing, but I have a theory that broadly the time taken to complete an event dictates the rate at which we all progress heart rate - I know I couldn't keep up my 3:15 marathon heart rate for 6 hours, so when I have done a couple of ultras that means I manage my heart rate differently. By the end it might have got close to the rate that I experience at the end of a marathon, but for large proportions of an ultra it will be much lower, so I'll be much more into that fat burning mode.

My mantra though for both a marathon and an ultra was to eat and drink well from very early on, and to understand some of the broad ins and outs that a body can cope with, and to recognise that if your body is relatively unstressed (i.e. early on in the race) the whole eat / digesting / drinking thing is much easier. So don't wait until you are feeling fatigued, get that replacement food in early (but only so much as your body can actually digest). As for drinking, definitely drink to thirst - no point in risking harming yourself by drinking too much. But if you don't think you drink "a lot", then perhaps try measuring how much you do actually drink in a race and seeing if that seems reasonable or not. If it seems much too little, perhaps just focus on increasing that a little bit.
Feb 2019
9:09pm, 18 Feb 2019
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geordiegirl
very interesting I don’t run massively different paces that I’m aware of and one of the areas I’m trying to focus on is different training sessions rather than just running. I will be trying to fit more interval and hill sessions in over the next few weeks and see what it can do for me.

Fluid wise I had a small cup of water after each lap I neither felt thirsty or over hydrated so maybe I was close to what I need I rarely run with water unless it’s very hot or I’m doing a long (over 8-10m run)

I will also try to get my body used to having a few calories on a run I’ll take the cals out if my next meal. The date oat and nut bars I make are so full of good stuff I am trying freezing them to see how they are once defrosted.

Really appreciate the suggestions from you all and esp larkim - here’s hoping I get another PB soon!

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Maintained by geordiegirl
Hi all, I am officially rubbish at fuelling for and during a marathon.

I struggle to eat and run,...

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