With just eight days of training left, two rookie marathoners fine-tune their race-day nutrition strategies and feel the effects of properly fueling before, during, and after their runs.
In Pursuit of 26.2 is a series following two Equinox members as they train for the New York City Marathon, from their first long-distance runs to the finish line. Since early August, our athletes have been following a new personalized training program created by an Equinox Personal Run Coach, powered by Precision Run, and utilizing Equinox services to strengthen, stretch, and stabilize. Check back each week for a new installment.
Any everyday athlete knows the importance of filling up on energizing, carb-rich meals before a workout, wolfing down muscle-building, revitalizing protein after, and swigging plenty of water in between. But during the marathon training cycle, the emphasis on nutrition is heightened.
“Most runners underestimate how important their fueling strategy is for optimal performance and recovery,” says Equinox Personal Run Coach Corky, who’s guiding members Aurora Straus and Luis Colón as they train for the New York City Marathon for the first time. “The amount of carbohydrates needed and the frequency during long runs and marathon day make all the difference. Many marathoners would benefit from fueling more frequently than they do — or believe they need to.”
Noshing on carbs with reckless abandon may not be as easy as it sounds, as was the case for Aurora. “The biggest time commitment, I would say, isn't physically working out — it's the nutritional component behind it,” Aurora said in early August. “The amount that running physically demands from your body, in terms of resources and fuel, it's shocking. It's way more than you expect it to be. And I have found that eating consistently is very hard for me.”
Her day job as a management consultant leaves her with little time for planning and prepping the roughly five balanced meals she needs to eat to support her activity level each day, Aurora says. And the guidance to eat calorie-dense foods goes against what’s taught by high school nutrition classes and further instilled, particularly in women, by diet culture.
“I think that has been simultaneously a very empowering and very confusing part of this process,” Aurora adds. “I think it's actually easy to fall into the excuse of, ‘You're not eating enough because you just have too many other things on your plate.’ [But] there's this particular milestone that I really want to hit in terms of my fitness, an actual race that I want to be able to finish. And I cannot get there without eating — not an exaggeration — about 50 to 100 percent more in terms of calories than I usually do. Having the desire to accomplish that goal win out over the desire to eat less has been an ongoing point of growth.”
As the training cycle progressed, Aurora became more comfortable with this high-calorie approach to fueling. And her Italian getaway at the end of September helped seal the deal. While on the vacation, Aurora says she ate “way more” than she usually does, and she noticed major improvements in her energy levels while training. During six-mile runs, Aurora typically begins to feel fatigued by mile four. But thanks to her pasta-heavy diet, she felt energized until the final steps of her short run in Italy, despite the hilly landscape. “There's no shot that I'll ever eat the quantity or quality of food that I was eating there, but, honestly, just feeling the difference that it made in my performance — even within a matter of days — was a big, big mental unlock for me,” says Aurora. “I'm trying to make sure I'm really focusing on it here.”
She’s also been playing around with her mid-run fueling strategy. Initially, Aurora turned to electrolyte-packed gels for energy as the miles dragged on. But she quickly learned that method wasn’t working in her — or her stomach’s — favor. About halfway through a 16-mile hilly run in upstate New York, “I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s going to come out of one end — I don't know which end — and I'm by myself in the woods with nothing to assist with the situation, and I'm eight miles from the only bathroom that I know of,’” she recalls with a laugh. “I made it through, thankfully, without having any sort of disaster situation, but it definitely was humbling.”
Now in the final few weeks of training, Aurora is testing out energy chews — a much better option than the slimy gels, she says. The 25-year-old is also experimenting with the timing of her fueling practice. Munching on a chew every 45 minutes of a recent 20-mile run left her feeling “pretty zonked” and sore the following day. But having a chew every 30 minutes of the same run a week later left her energized and largely ache-free, so much so that she was able to run another six miles the next day, she says.
Similarly, Luis has picked up on improvements in his performance attributable to his fueling practices. In early September, Luis knocked out a 16-mile run with an 8:32 pace. He gulped down roughly 16 ounces of water every 20 minutes, and he snacked on an entire pack of SiS energy gels throughout the run. At no point did he feel like he was hitting a wall. “Every time I had [a gel], I could feel a little spike, like, 20 minutes later — my energy returning to the baseline,” he recalls.
During a trip to Tampa, the 32-year-old relied on those gels — plus a hydration vest and two water bottles — to carry him through a 16-mile run in the 90-degree heat and humidity. “The pace was about a minute behind my typical pace — it was almost impossible,” he said shortly after the run. “It felt like I was on Survivor, but now I feel great.”
Luis’ main sticking point throughout the training program has been figuring out a mid-run hydration plan that doesn’t involve carrying a water bottle. “There's something about holding an object in my hand — it's all I can focus on,” he says. “I loathe having to carry it and, going back and forth, I can feel the water swishing, and my one arm feels heavier afterward.” And he isn’t alone: Aurora says she’s not a fan of lugging around a water bottle, and she’s phased out of using her hydration vest, as they aren’t allowed on race day.
The good news is that the NYC Marathon has more fueling stations than any other marathon in the world, with a site nearly every mile of the course, says Corky. That means neither runner should have to carry a water bottle, so long as they’re comfortable sipping cups of water, she adds.
On the last-minute agenda for Aurora is a few trial runs with a mid-way caffeine boost, which Corky generally says needs to be tested a few weeks before the marathon in order to determine how well your body reacts. Luis, on the other hand, will be concentrating on maximizing recovery, which means paying closer attention to and optimizing his eating throughout the day. With just over a week until race day, every carb-rich snack and meal, glass of water, and moment of recovery matters.