5 last minute nutrition tips for the 2016 City to Bay

1. Start good hydration now if you havn’t already (not the amber coloured type!). Hopefully your day to day hydration habits aren’t leaving you with dark coloured urine. Any concerns, top up now. Downing a litre before you head out the door will only leave you sloshing around and looking for a loo. 3-400ml is often tolerated in the 20-30min prior to event.

2. Stay off the chilli beans tonight! In all seriousness, a meal extra high in fibre, rice sauces or heavy spices may make it difficult to get through 12km without a pit stop. Instead, keep it simple and familiar. There’s no need to ‘carbohydrate load’ as if you were doing an ironman but including some carbohydrate to top up fuel stores is important and even more so if you aren’t into breakfast.

3. Caffeine is a peformance enhancing aid and if you normally like a coffee in the morning you probably will tomorrow too.

4. Eat or drink some carbohydrate tomorrow morning. It would be disappointing to run out of fuel over 12km and no one feesl good running hungry. A final top up such as toast and jam, a banana, yoghurt or milk drink are all ideas I’ve found useful before.

5. Enjoy recovery! Include some protein; baked eggs are a personal favourite but book your table, the bay will be busy!

6. Keep with the tried and tested, this trumps any of the advice above. THere is not one perfect pre-race snack and some people have trained their gut to tolerate larger pre-race meals than others. Don’t try anything new – as tempting as it may be to down the freebie sports product from the expo, it may leave you feeling sick.

If you still feel under prepared, consider a consult with a sports dietitian earlier next year and learn more about optimal fuelling and the latest on nitrates, caffeine and the other 1%ers

 

-Tanya Lewis, Dietitian, Sports Dietitian, Personal Trainer