Pre race breakfast

As is the case with your Pre Race Dinner - practice in training to make sure you won’t run in to difficulties on race day.  It’s extremely hard (impossible actually) to simulate the nervous stomach and anxiety of race day in training.  But finding a simple breakfast that sits extremely well with you on a day to day basis will help ease those race morning nerves.  Ultimately, it will come down to trying a few different things on race day before you dial it in perfectly.

Keep it simple.  Your aim on race morning is not to pack back a ton of hard to digest calories.  The less you have to digest, the better.  But you’ve got to try and take in some food to top up your reserves.

What works for us? We’ve recently modified our race morning routine and ditched our old standby – Ensure plus.  Going in to 2010 we’ve sat down with some nutritionists (PT Performance Training) and talked to the folks at First Endurance. We have yet to race with the following plan, but it’s worth noting that race simulations with this breakfast have been amazing.

Bowl of Rice/corn Cereal with Almond Breeze (Gluten free, on race week at least, is a good idea)
Ultragen shake (320 calories, some of that from protein)
Banana
300 calories of dark chocolate (contains a high proportion of calories from fat)
Multi-Vitamine & Optygen Combo (we’ve started taking this daily)
2 x sodium capsules (300mg)
Coffee after 30 minutes.  But, drink adaquet hydration product or water/electrolytes on their own.
EFS bars as needed for more solid food (stop solid food intake 1.5hrs before IM or 1/2 IM race start)

From there you may have time to go lie in bed for 30 minutes.  Do something relaxing so you can get a start on the digestion.  Then you’re quite literally off to the races.