{"id":5426,"date":"2009-09-29T09:32:05","date_gmt":"2009-09-29T13:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/?p=5426"},"modified":"2020-04-13T15:21:41","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T19:21:41","slug":"eat-week-before-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/eat-week-before-marathon\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Eat the Week Before A Marathon or Half Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of people make the same mistake in how they eat before a marathon &#8212; they wait until the night before the race to eat their big meal.\u00a0 If you&#8217;re only going to eat one big meal before the race, make it lunch instead.\u00a0 This gives your body more time to process the nutrients, lowers the chance of stomach troubles, and might help you sleep more soundly.<\/p>\n<p>Better still, don&#8217;t wait until the day before the race to fuel up.\u00a0 Start topping off your body&#8217;s energy stores by eating a few extra calories in the days leading up to your marathon or half.<\/p>\n<h2>What You Should Eat the Week Before A Marathon or Half<\/h2>\n<p>So what should you be eating to maximize the energy you&#8217;ll have available on the big day?\u00a0 According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B000BNPFYC?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=nomeaath-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B000BNPFYC\">Chris Carmichael<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=nomeaath-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B000BNPFYC\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" \/>, Lance Armstrong&#8217;s coach, carbohydrates are most important, followed by protein, followed by fat, which is of little use before a race.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Carbohydrates<\/strong> &#8211; There&#8217;s some truth to the &#8220;pasta party&#8221; idea, just not the night before the big day.\u00a0 Starting a race with full stores of carbs has been shown to improve performance and endurance.\u00a0 So fill up on those grains, starchy vegetables, and fruits the week before the race.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Protein<\/strong> &#8211;\u00a0 Since you&#8217;ll be eating more food during this time, your protein levels should increase naturally as you increase portion sizes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fat <\/strong>&#8211; The nutrient you need least in the week prior to the race is fat.\u00a0 It just doesn&#8217;t do much to help you on race day, so it&#8217;s not worth filling up on fat calories.\u00a0 True, your goal in training is to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/burning-fat-for-fuel\/\">get your body to burn fat stores<\/a> before it has to burn carbohydrates, but you have plenty of fat for this in your body, regardless of how skinny you are.\u00a0 I sincerely hope you&#8217;re not still stuck in the low-fat diet craze, but this is one time when slightly reducing intake of even healthy fats is beneficial.<\/p>\n<p>What you eat the day of the race is equally important as what you&#8217;re eating the week before.\u00a0 See my post about race day eating for more.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">For more posts (and recipes) on natural sports nutrition, check out the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/post-workout-recovery\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Running Fuel<\/a> page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of people make the same mistake in how they eat before a marathon &#8212; they wait until the night before the race to eat their big meal.\u00a0 If you&#8217;re only going to eat one big meal before the race, make it lunch instead.\u00a0 This gives your body more time to process the nutrients, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What to Eat the Week Before a Marathon or Half Marathon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A few guidelines for how to eat in the week leading up to 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