Eat like an Olympian – 5 elite nutrition tips to improve your running
Plan ahead
Work on an Olympic or Paralympic cycle starts 18 months to two years ahead, and sometimes even before that. As soon as a host city is known, you start to think about factors such as climate, humidity and venue location in relation to the Olympic Village. When preparing for the 2016 Rio Paralympics, it became clear that the athletes’ quarters were situated furthest away from the food hall. Preserving energy is key when preparing for competition, so we chose to take some dehydrated food and provisions to reduce the need for multiple trips to and fro via wheelchair.
Practice makes perfect
When I’m working with a new athlete, we work back from the A race and plan in a couple of simulation weekends or weeks that mimic the environment, schedule and nutrition plan of competition day as closely as possible. This helps on two fronts. It offers feedback so we can fine-tune nutrition strategies, but also helps the athlete feel confident of
their race-day plan. In the build- up to Rio we planned in a number of practice weekends like this, including athletes sitting in makeshift call rooms so they could practise what it would feel like in the moments ahead of competing.
Fuel well
The key focus in the lead-up to a major race or competition is ensuring carbohydrate and recovery availability. This isn’t just about having carbohydrates in a snack or meal just before a training session, but rather ensuring regular and sufficient intake to prevent your glycogen stores becoming too depleted across a whole training cycle, as this can lead to higher risk of injury and illness.
For elite athletes who train four to six hours a day over multiple sessions, the requirements are 8g to 12g of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight throughout the day. For those exercising one to three hours a day, this would be 6g to 10g of carbohydrate per kilogram throughout the course of the day.
Ideally, the carbohydrate will be a complex source such as potato, rice, pasta, bread
and grains at meals, and then more easily digestible forms such as milk, fruit yoghurts, flapjacks and crumpets as snacks.
For recovery, the focus is on getting both carbs and protein. We work on a principle of 1.2g of carbohydrate and 0.4g of protein per kilogram of body weight within 30 minutes of finishing a training session. This should be something that’s easily digestible such as flavoured milk with a banana or bar, followed up with a balanced meal such as eggs on toast, chicken and rice or a baked potato with beans and cheese.
Check yourself
To understand how athletes respond to training, we track their recovery, immune, hormonal and stress biomarkers and adjust their nutritional strategy accordingly. I do this regularly, usually after high training volume blocks or events in the lead-up to an A race.
I suggest an annual MOT as a minimum to check markers such as vitamin D, ferritin, thyroid function, creatine phosphokinase, cortisol and reproductive hormones. Giving yourself a daily rating on fatigue level and how a training session felt will ensure that you’re managing your training load appropriately.
Stay healthy
Avoiding illness is important, but balancing that with training and travel is challenging. Washing your hands and carrying anti-bacterial gel are good ideas. I aim to keep vitamin D levels above 90nmol/L and ensure adequate iron levels, including ferritin stores of
above 50mcg/L – as both support immune health. Finally, starting a course of probiotics 12 weeks before competition is encouraged, as it has shown to reduce the risk of upper respiratory tract infections in athletes*.
Renee McGregor is a leading sports dietitian with over 20 years’ experience; reneemcgregor.com
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