Nutrition on race day is key.
Good nutrition won’t necessarily win you the race but it can definitely lose it for you.
I’ve worked with so many people who have had big problems on race day, especially on the longer events.
An upset tummy is the most common.
This is usually as a result of nerves, doing new things on race day and an over reliance on gels and over sugary, processed, convenient snacks.
So what should you do?
Firstly you need to practice your race day food, in the same way you practice things like transition.
Familiarity will ease any anxiety and you will learn what works and perhaps more importantly what doesn’t.
You don’t necessarily need to replicate race circumstances exactly – you won’t be able to.
You can just use your hardest, or longest session of the week to experiment.
That experimentation should begin with your nutrition on the days leading up to the race, not just race day.
Depending on the length of your event, this may be up to 3 days prior to race day.
Aside from this, I am a fan of upping your carb intake a little on race day and the days leading up to it.
A little bit along the lines of:
Train Low, Race High.
For this that don’t know, that simply means to train with a relatively lower carbohydrate intake and then to race with a higher carbohydrate intake.
The theory being:
You train your body to become more efficient at fat burning by restricting carbs which will help with race day.
You then consume carbs as well on race day as a bit of insurance.
This is a strategy which works well for an awful lot of people.
Both in terms of performance and fat loss.
The problem with nutrition is that whilst it is the most simple thing in the world it can almost fell like the most complicated.
If you don’t know where to start, it would help you to join my private coaching group – The Total Triathlete:
You get a FREE copy of my book.
A monthly email magazine.
Membership to the private Facebook group where you can have me personally review your diet as often as you post it.
For £10 ($14 approx) you’d be a fool not to, especially as you can unsubscribe at any time.
Watch this video for more info:
Jamie “Race Fast” Leighton