The Race Day Plan You Need For Your Fastest Race Yet

Finally, race days are here it's approaching fast you've done all the hard work on your training, you've tapered and given yourself some time off to relax, you planned all your eating, and you've done your carb loading now it comes down to how can you best fuel yourself and your unique physiology on the day. To maximise your performance to hit those times you’re after.

In this blog post today I'm going to share with you exactly how you can create a race day fuelling plan exactly like the elite professionals do. I'm going to show you how I do it with my athletes in my elite performance coaching program which has been battlefield-tested season after season with hundreds of athletes.

By the end of this blog you will;

1. Know the exact amount of carbs to consume per hour, without suffering from any GI issues
2. Know exactly what to eat before your race to maximize your performance on the day.
3. Know step by step how to plan/prepare/execute as the elites do on race day

If you'd like to learn more about how to set yourself up during race week while you are tapering to be best prepared to perform at your peak on race day. Knowing how to apply the elite carb-loading strategies of the pros. Have a look at one of my previous blogs;

How to carb load like the elites do

Read more

When it comes to planning your fuelling strategy for race day, we break it down into three windows a pre-race window we have the during our race window and we have our post-race window. The post-race window is something you might not consider too important, and this is what I typically see with most athletes. However, if you're looking at making sure you are recovering at your best so you can perform again in close succession, or if you're trying to avoid getting an injury or getting sick then I'd highly recommend that you focus on your post-race attrition as this is crucial if you want to stay in peak physical condition.

Pre-Race

 I use this with my athletes the rule of thirds when it comes to fuelling prerace. We break down the time before competing into 3 fuelling opportunities. Opportunity 1 180 minutes out from start time. Opportunity 2 90min out from the start time, and Opportunity 3 30min our from the start time.

The main aim of fuelling your pre-race is to replenish your glycogen stores that get depleted during overnight sleep, making sure you’re not lining up in a glycogen deficit (carb stores not fully topped up) we also want to elevate blood glucose levels to make sure there lots of fuel readily available for your working muscles.

 For example -a typical pre-race day could look like this

• Start time 10 am
• Opp1: 7 am – high-carb meal (toast, banana, almond butter, honey)
• Opp 2: 8:30 am – high-carb snack (carb drink, fruit, dates)
• Opp 3: 9:30am – high carb snack + caffeine (caffeinated carb gel)

During the Race

Getting your during the race nutrition right can be the difference between hitting a podium finish hitting a PB or having to pull over race early due to hitting the wall bonking or dealing with nausea vomiting or diarrhoea. When it comes to fuelling during the race this is all going to be dictated by how you've trained your gut and how you've tested out your race day plans in the past.

 However, as a rule of thumb, it's recommended to consume anywhere between 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour from fast absorbing easy digestible sources. Higher amounts of up to 120 grams per hour have been seen in the research and can be utilized by athletes however you do need to train the gut to allow the body to consume this amount during an event without causing GI distress.

 The principle that I use in my athletes and recommend is the 30/30/30 principle. That means 30% of your carb intake comes from gels, 30% of your carb intake comes from liquids and 30% of your carb intake comes from solid sources. The reasoning behind this allows for high amounts of carbs to be ingested without causing issues in the GI tract. It also helps to avoid any of those negative associations with drinking too much fluid or having too many gels, if you did this in the past you know exactly what I'm on about.

 I like to break up fuelling with carbohydrates into 20-minute blocks within an hour so we have three feeding opportunities happening every 20 minutes therefore we aim to consume our overall carbohydrate intake per hour, so for example if we're aiming to have 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour every 20 minutes we need to have 20 grams of carbohydrates coming from solid liquid or gel sources.

For example – Race Plan

• target aim of 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour
• consume 30 grams every 20 minutes cycling from gel, solids, and liquids.
• Feed 1: 30 grams for a solid carbohydrate source
• Feed 2: 30 grams from a liquid carbohydrate source
• Feed 3: 30 grams from a gel carbohydrate source

Post Race

The post-race recovery window is vital for you as an athlete if you're looking to recover as fast as possible from your event. Especially if you're competing again quite close or if you're trying to avoid developing an injury or a sickness that is typically associated when completing endurance events.

 The focus of fueling during this window is to start replenishing the glycogen stores that you have depleted By eating carbohydrates, repair the skeletal muscle damage that has occurred during your exercise therefore we need to prioritize protein, and we also need to reduce the inflammation that's associated with competing, therefore, we need to get good quality healthy fats in your diet to reduce this inflammation. lastly, we need to make sure that you're rehydrating because most athletes will dehydrate during an event therefore you want to rehydrate to make sure that your body has the necessary liquid and fuel to do its job in repairing itself so you're fresh as possible in the days to come after the event.

 For example – Post race plan

• 30min postrace - high protein-carbohydrate snack (protein shake made on milk)
• 30min postrace - tart cherry juice 35ml mixed in 200ml water
• 60min post - get in 1 liter of water
• 120min post ace - recovery meal (steak, potatoes, broccolini, and flaked almonds)
• 180min+ - drink water till your pee is clear again

Supplements for Race Day

 Supplements that I recommend for race day and also should be taken in the days leading up to the race as some of these supplements require a loading phase that you can do during race week.

Check out one of my previous blogs where I tell you the exact dosages, timing, and days needed to load with these performance-enhancing supplements.

 Read more

However, here is a list of the main supplements I recommend athletes consider using on race itself;

• sodium bicarbonate
• caffeine
• Beet it nitrate shots
• salt tablets
• pickle juice (as a backup in case a cramp occurs)
• tart cherry juice (post-event to aid in recovery)

What you can do now

1. Don't try any new supplements or any new foods today of the race stick with what you know and what you've tried and tested in the past, if in doubt leave it out.

2. The golden ratio of carbohydrates to consume per hour when racing is 60 to 90 grams, so make sure you're consuming at least 60 grams and aim for 90 grams. Try this out well in advance before race day.

3. Test out your race day plan at least three times well in advance to give you a chance to adapt any components of your plan and then you can retest and adapt further if needed.

4. Make sure your carbohydrate supplements are a 2:1 glucose: fructose ratio as this is the optimal ratio for the best absorption and delivery of carbohydrates to working muscles while also preventing stress on the GI tract.

5. Add performance-enhancing supplements such as pomegranate juice extract sodium bicarbonate and beat reduce alongside caffeine to maximize your Physiology and performance on the day.

Are you looking for a way to enhance your performance and get the most out of your training?

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Reference’s

•  Burke, L.M. et al. (2018) “Toward a common understanding of diet–exercise strategies to manipulate fuel availability for training and competition preparation in Endurance Sport,” International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism,28(5), pp. 451–463. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2018-0289. 
• Eberle, S.G. (2014) Endurance Sports Nutrition: Fuel your body for optimalperformance. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. 
• Impey, S.G. et al. (2018) “Fuel for the work required: A theoretical framework for carbohydrate periodization and the glycogen threshold hypothesis,” Sports Medicine,48(5), pp. 1031–1048. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-018-0867-7. 
• Jeukendrup, A.E. (2017) “Periodized nutrition for athletes,” Sports Medicine, 47(S1), pp. 51–63. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-017-0694-2. 
• Podlogar, T. and Wallis, G.A. (2022) “New horizons in carbohydrate research and application for endurance athletes,” Sports Medicine, 52(S1), pp. 5–23. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-022-01757-1. 
• Sedlock, D.A. (2008) “The latest on carbohydrate loading,” Current Sports Medicine Reports, 7(4), pp. 209–213. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1249/jsr.0b013e31817ef9cb.