If train, eat, sleep, repeat sounds familiar, you’re likely an endurance athlete. If we’re not training, we’re thinking about training, and a big part of a successful training program is your nutrition! This article answers the very important question of what to eat for breakfast on race day.
This is especially important for race day. If you’ve found yourself – like many triathletes – with race season approaching, then now is the time to start planning your pre-race breakfast.
Let’s start with the most important breakfast on race day rule: this should be the same breakfast you are fueling with on your long bike or run day during your building blocks toward your goal event. We say this because we need to train our gut to take in the food we are feeding it and so our body knows what to do with it.
Think of this as a ‘dress rehearsal’ run and it gives you the opportunity to experiment with different foods and how best to time your eating and swimming, biking, or running.
Some athletes can eat and immediately go run with no problems, others need to eat 1 – 3 hours before running to avoid gastro-intestinal issues, so find what works best for you.
All the research in the world, can’t match good old real-world experience and practice. Your race-day performance is affected by many factors, and so the perfect pre-race meal is only as good as your ability to control your nerves, pace, and fueling yourself properly.
– Coach Carly
Although athletes do take in additional calories during long-distance races, it is impossible to absorb race nutrition quickly enough to balance what is being lost. Thus, breakfast serves as the nutritional cornerstone. Unsurprisingly, pre-race favorites include foods that are both carbohydrate-rich and easily digested.
1. A nervous belly (low fiber/low residue)
2. A sensitive belly (gluten-free, IBS-friendly, heartburn, food sensitivities)
3. An iron stomach (tolerable of most foods, little stress/nerves affecting digestion)
4. International eats (keep it simple overseas)
There are endless options, this is why experimenting during training is so important. You need to know which foods, and in what amounts, work best for you. My personal race day breakfast before an Ironman includes ½ cup oatmeal, 1 small banana, 1 chocolate chip Clif bar, and some applesauce. For a shorter race, I would cut down the number of calories but stick with the same foods.
Depending on the length of the race you will eat breakfast at different times.
For longer endurance races like Ironmans, Ultramarathon, and Marathons you will want to aim at eating breakfast 3-4 hours before your race start.
For mid-distance races such as Half Ironmans and Half Marathon eating breakfast 2-3 hours before the start of the race is usually acceptable.
The bottom line is, what you eat for breakfast on race day needs to be tried and tested (by you!), using the guidelines above. Race morning can be hectic, I recommend setting your alarm, getting up, eating breakfast, and relaxing. This gives your body time to absorb everything and let your breakfast settle before making your way down to the race start.
-Coach Carly
Read more: “How To Properly Fuel For Your Morning Workout”
Carly and Tyler Guggemos built Organic Coaching in 2014 with a simple philosophy that works. The idea is to take what you have and grow it to get faster, fitter and stronger. And to do it with the time you have – not the time you wish you had.
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