Fueling for Ultra Endurance

Register Dietitian, Briana asked me to write a guest post for her blog on New England Nutrition & Exercise.. You can check it out on her site here or keep reading.

My name is Justin Miner and I’m a strength and conditioning coach. I’ve been coaching since 2011, and founded my gym, GAIN Strength and Conditioning in Portsmouth, NH in 2014. As a college athlete, I always hated running. But in 2016 I was in a training slump. I wanted to get outside and out of the gym more, so I started running. Running on the road wasn’t for me and I quickly found that trails gave me everything I was looking for. Solitude, nature, a new challenge, and time I could spend developing fitness while not confined in the walls of my gym. I could take my dog Clementine too, which was a huge bonus.

In 2017 I needed a challenge way outside of my comfort zone. I wanted to take on something scary, and the scariest thing I could think of was an Ultramarathon. An ultra is anything that’s longer than a marathon. The most common distance is 50k, or 31 miles. Since my first 50k in 2017 I’ve run 16 50k’s, 2 50-milers and done a backyard ultra. Amongst those stats I’ve taken on all the popular ultra distance routes in the White Mountains like the Pemi Loop and Hut Traverse, plus a dozen other routes that are 20-25 miles in distance with over 8000 feet of elevation gain like the Presidential Traverse and the Kilkenny Traverse; all-day adventures that require careful planning and self-sufficiency.

Relying on yourself makes packing a difficult job. Taking the right foods and the right amounts can be the difference between a fun day out and a pure suffer fest.  During a regular ultra race, you have options at the aid station, and if the thing you’re carrying with you isn’t appealing, no big deal. However, out in the mountains you don’t always have options (but you can buy an ice cream at the top of Mount Washington, just saying.) Because of my experiences in the mountains, and in actual races, I’ve tinkered a lot with nutrition and fueling. I’ve found things that work for me and don’t work for me. Hopefully you can learn from my experiences whether you want to try to race fast or enjoy long endurance pursuits. 

Not Enough Water 

This one is so obvious I was hesitant to start the list with it. When I was starting out, and still sometimes today calculating how much water I need can be tricky. At first, I would always carry too much. I’d get back to the trailhead realizing I lugged an extra liter around that I didn’t touch. After doing that a couple times I swung too hard the other way and would take off with far less than I needed. Leaving myself thirsty and dehydrated and considering slurping out of a muddy puddle on a rock. 

I learned it’s always better to have more than you need, rather than less. Some things are impossible to predict, like will the stream have flowing water I can filter? Will I come across a place where I can fill up or buy water? How hot is it going to be? How long between aid stations? How long am I going to be out? Am I flying solo? Or with a friend or my dog? All these factors must be considered when choosing how much water to haul along. Lean more toward the heavy side, but don’t take so much that you have a sloshy pack to lug around all day.

No Gels

As I started getting into the ultra scene I noticed gastrointestinal issues were common. Every YouTube documentary I watched about ultra running seemed to feature at least one scene of someone pulling over into the woods to throw up. Which leads to them not eating or drinking for hours and hours on end. Knowing I wanted to avoid this I looked at the commonalities amongst the people this was happening to. The common denominator seemed to be runner fuel, or gels.

Consuming only sugar as the main fuel source seemed to do more harm than good. I decided to lean more on regular food and shy away from these stomach churning slime packs.

Normal Food 

Since I was avoiding runner fuel, I needed to practice with a lot of different foods to see what I could eat while running. Growing up an athlete and being a total gym rat, pre and post workout nutrition was nothing new to me, but consuming food while exercising was a new concept. I tried all kinds of bars, pouches, candy, sandwiches and dried fruit. Cliff bars, dried mango and good old fashioned peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are my go to. I usually pack some candy too. Sometimes you just need something palatable, and some Swedish Fish or Sour Patch Kids are always easy and enjoyable to eat. And if it’s not too hot a Snickers really hits the spot. I try to save this for when I really need it, later in the day. Mostly as an attempt to avoid the GI issues from consuming just sugar all day.

Electrolytes

A lot of runners are familiar with electrolytes, much more so than the general public. Where I, and a lot of runners, miss the point is taking electrolytes during the run is kind of late. Now, especially when it’s really hot, I try to load up on electrolytes in my water for a few days before an event. This helps me get hydrated and stay hydrated instead of trying to play catch up while sweating all the good stuff out. I monitor my hydration the most simple way there is, monitor my pee color. 

No More Fasting 

Although its popularity has skyrocketed recently, I started intermittent fasting in 2012. Training for ultras, or anything really, is incredibly demanding on the body. I couldn’t maintain my muscle mass, and prevent unwanted weight loss without getting in extra calories every morning with breakfast.

For a while, if I was running before noon, I would skip breakfast too. While I thought I felt okay, once I started eating some oatmeal a couple hours beforehand, my performance and mood improved drastically. Now when planning a daily training run or an epic adventure, I consider what I’m eating at what time of the day in relation to the event. This way I’m best fueled and setting up for the best performance.

Experiment 

You’ve got to play around. I have developed a good system for myself through trial and error. I’ve underfed a lot of runs, ran fasted, without fuel, drank grimly pond water and so much more. All those experiences allowed me to figure out what works though, and that’s what you’ve got to do too. Maybe gels work great for you, you’ll never know until you test it out. 

Avoid experimenting during a race. I would make sure to practice fueling, trying different foods on my regular old training runs, where I probably didn’t need to fuel, but did just so I could see what works and what doesn’t. Too many people don’t fuel while training, and get to race day and try something totally new. Test it out and leave no doubt on race day. Of course, you can have the perfect plan and it could still all fall apart, but more data is better. 

Half the battle with long endurance events like ultras is fueling. It’s incredibly demeaning on the body, and not a task that should be taken lightly. Learning how to fuel yourself will improve your performance, but also will increase your enjoyment of the activity. Being properly fueled with a good plan makes the day go by much faster. When you demand so much from your body, it’s hard to predict how the day will play out. 

I hope you were able to find these tips useful, and if you want to train for an ultramarathon this summer and need a coach, you can contact me here: justin@gainsc.com

Justin Miner

@justinminergain