How to Nail Your Fuel and Hydration on an Ultra?
When it comes to smashing your ultra-marathon event, hydrating and fuelling appropriately is just as important as doing all the training in the months before race day. If you want to get the most from your body on race day check out these tips from XNRG’s official technical partner VOOM Nutrition.
Essential Pre-Race Nutrition Tips for Ultra-Marathons
Here are some pre-race nutrition tips:
- Try to get a good carbohydrate-rich breakfast 2-3 hours before the allocated start time. Toast or bagels with jam, porridge with honey or other cereals are great options here.
- Don’t forget hydration. Most people typically dehydrate slightly through the night and you don’t want to hit the start line in a dehydrated state. Aim to sip 500ml of water or an electrolyte drink a couple of hours before you start – it can be easy to forget this in the buzz of the pre-event period!
- A final carb top-up around 30 minutes before the go will make sure your glycogen stores and blood glucose levels are ready to feed the muscles right from the start. Ideal options would be a banana or half of a VOOM Pocket Rocket, both of which offer around 23g of carbs.
Best Carbohydrate Sources for Endurance Events
Taking on carbohydrates during any exercise lasting over about 1.5 hours has repeatedly been shown to aid endurance performance. This is because the body can only store enough carbs, in the form of glycogen, for around 2 hours of exercise. After around 2 hours glycogen stores become depleted and blood glucose levels begin to drop – the dreaded bonk (hitting the wall).
Consuming carbs will maintain blood glucose levels and in turn, provide a steady stream of glucose to the working muscles to ensure you can maintain contractions, and therefore forward movement – no bonking here!
Carb-rich foods include items like bananas, flapjacks, cereal bars and even jam sandwiches. The VOOM range aims to happily supplement these real food carb sources with easy-to-consume, easy-to-digest options.
Sports physiology research suggests taking on 60-90 grams of carbs per hour in events lasting longer than around 3 hours is optimal. However, the body can only absorb around 60g of glucose per hour, so to comfortably take on more than 60g of carbs a secondary carb source is necessary – this is where fructose comes in.
VOOM Fusion Fuel uses a combination of three carb sources: maltodextrin (glucose), cluster dextrin and fructose, to ensure maximal carb delivery of 90g per serving, in a stomach-friendly way. You could feasibly run an ultra with Fusion Fuel as your only real energy source.
The VOOM Pow® Plant range has a blend of both slow-release carbs from oats, and faster-release carbs from fruit juice concentrate with 33g. The bars also utilise the benefits of beetroot and its naturally occurring nitrates (visit this blog from Voom Nutrition on the Importance Of Nitrates Athletic Performance) which aid blood flow and boost endurance.
The flagship Pocket Rocket range offers unashamedly fast-acting energy in easy-to-consume chunks with 45 grams of carbs per bar – roughly twice the energy of a gel! Find out how Pocket Rockets can give more energy, faster, and which Rocket is right for you.
Balancing Water and Electrolyte Intake During an Ultra-Marathon
As you exercise, the body sweats to cool itself, which unfortunately depletes the body’s water balance – losses that need replacing.
Water alone is not enough – electrolytes (often called salts) are lost in sweat and they play important roles in maintaining fluid balance, nervous function, muscle contractions and more functions. Learn more about the importance of electrolytes here.
Additionally, electrolytes speed up the rate of absorption of water which means you hydrate yourself faster and minimise the time the water sits in the stomach where it can risk GI discomfort.
On an ultra, we recommend carrying one flask with water and a second with an electrolyte drink such as VOOM Hydrate which contains 460mg of electrolytes per 500ml serve. This way you can sip your way through both fluids and have a plain option if you want to rinse the mouth etc.
The final tip from us is simply to practise taking in your hydration and nutrition in training. This will help you find what foods and supplements work for you, which you enjoy most, and get the body used to absorbing these levels of fluid and carbs whilst on the go.
Join the Tring Ultra Challenge to Support Humanity Direct
Our next XNRG fundraiser event is the Tring Ultra on September 21st. Set in Hertfordshire, the Tring Ultra Challenge helps fund life-changing operations for children in developing countries and is the ideal 50km introduction to ultra marathon running. It’s FREE to run if you commit to raising funds for Humanity Direct.
New this year you have the option of the full 50km ultra marathon, a 25km half ultra or run the full ultra as part of a team of up to 5 people!
