Posted Mar 13, 2012
When the irresistible prerace pasta dinner meets the immovable low-carb diet craze, something has to give.
One of Northeast Florida’s leading dietitians says it’s an easy choice: Keeping pace in the long run takes carbohydrates.
Registered dietitian Sherry Mahoney, the director of the Department of Nutrition at Mayo Clinic, says there’s strong scientific backing for a well-planned prerace diet featuring carbohydrates.
Runners who avoid carbs before Saturday’s Gate River Run are likely headed for trouble.
“They will be the ones that say ‘I hate running,’ ” said Mahoney, a seasoned triathlete who has run the 26.2 with Donna Half Marathon five years in a row. “Your performance will be related to your carbohydrate intake.”
Mahoney, who will participate in the 9.3-mile Gate River Run, suggests eating 85-90 percent of your calories from carbohydrates the two days before a race longer than 3 miles.
But pasta isn’t the only option for a prerace dinner. Mahoney said a baked chicken breast with two cups of rice or a chicken burrito with rice will do the job just as well. Protein is also important, but needs to be treated “like a garnish.”
Those carbohydrates will build glycogen stores, which will be used during the race. The human body will typically use up the energy from the glucose in the blood after 25-30 minutes of running.
“Then, your body will go to your glycogen stores to get energy,” she said.
Mahoney said 150-pound runners should try to eat about 4 grams of carbs for every pound they weigh or 600 grams on the day before a long race.
Gate River Run race director Doug Alred stresses the “don’t list” more than the “do” after decades of watching runners make the right and wrong choices before race day.
Alred knows some are obvious: Don’t eat spicy food. Others might not be. He said runners should avoid orange juice, soda, salads and mayonnaise the night before the race. But Alred says his best tip is sticking with what you know.
“Don’t do anything you haven’t tested,” Alred said. “If you’re going to carbo-load the day before a race, you better carbo-load when you train.”
So runners shouldn’t try a new meal the day before the Gate River Run.
“The risk of disaster is too high,” Alred said. “Your worst nightmare on race day is to get to the start line and not have used the bathroom.”
Alred said the idea of eating a pasta dinner the night before might be a little overhyped, but he admits to having followed the regimen before virtually every marathon he’s run.
A spaghetti dinner before the River Run has become a staple of the Runners Expo on Friday night at the Jacksonville Fairgrounds.
Mahoney says a small breakfast with carbohydrates, like a bagel with peanut butter, a few hours before the race will also help. For runners who aren’t breakfast eaters, she even suggests getting up in “the wee hours of the morning” to eat something, then going back to sleep.
Mahoney doesn’t believe runners on low-carb diets are setting themselves up for a personal record at the Gate River Run.
“They’re not going to have optimum performance,” she said. “They may not finish.”
David Johnson: (904) 359-4491
©2012 The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, Fla.)
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