Back in the late 80s/early 90s when I got a bit serious about running, there were no gels (as far as I know), fuel belts, etc. 'Sports drinks' meant 'Gatorade'; 'sports nutrition' meant Powerbars.
Based on casual reading in running books & magazines, I trained for marathons on a nutrition theory that went something like this...
(i) glycogen stores only last a couple of hours; hence the 'wall'
(ii) to compete past 2 hours, you needed to 'train' your body to convert to using fat as an energy source; this was the main point of long training runs
(iii) I recall controversey about whether it was better to drink water or sports drink for hydration; one theory being that giving the body 'easy' sugars impaired its ability to recruit fat as the energy source ncessary to get you to the finish.
Does anybody else remember these notions?
Training & racing under this model, I had my best marathon performance in '92 (sub 3 hour) eating nothing and drinking nothing but water from start to finish. So, it seemed to work to at least some extent.
Fast foward. With the proliferation of sports nutrition products, I assume very few, if any, train/race this way anymore. Are the old ideas long since discredited? Or, have they simply been overwhelmed by marketing? I don't do marathons any more, but in olympic tris I'm drinking Gatorade on the bike and eating a couple of gels during the race. Is this 'better' or have I simply become a wimp? (I don't perform anywhere close to the level I used to, but this is much more likely the result of 15 years and ~ 25 pounds than anything to do with nutrition.)
Obviously at some point (e.g. events going 5 or 10+ hours) my old notions about nutrition would have to have broken down. But, were they fundamentally deficient at the marathon level? That is, could salt tablets & GU gotten me down to 2:50 back in the day?
Thoughts/comments welcome!
Wes
Based on casual reading in running books & magazines, I trained for marathons on a nutrition theory that went something like this...
(i) glycogen stores only last a couple of hours; hence the 'wall'
(ii) to compete past 2 hours, you needed to 'train' your body to convert to using fat as an energy source; this was the main point of long training runs
(iii) I recall controversey about whether it was better to drink water or sports drink for hydration; one theory being that giving the body 'easy' sugars impaired its ability to recruit fat as the energy source ncessary to get you to the finish.
Does anybody else remember these notions?
Training & racing under this model, I had my best marathon performance in '92 (sub 3 hour) eating nothing and drinking nothing but water from start to finish. So, it seemed to work to at least some extent.
Fast foward. With the proliferation of sports nutrition products, I assume very few, if any, train/race this way anymore. Are the old ideas long since discredited? Or, have they simply been overwhelmed by marketing? I don't do marathons any more, but in olympic tris I'm drinking Gatorade on the bike and eating a couple of gels during the race. Is this 'better' or have I simply become a wimp? (I don't perform anywhere close to the level I used to, but this is much more likely the result of 15 years and ~ 25 pounds than anything to do with nutrition.)
Obviously at some point (e.g. events going 5 or 10+ hours) my old notions about nutrition would have to have broken down. But, were they fundamentally deficient at the marathon level? That is, could salt tablets & GU gotten me down to 2:50 back in the day?
Thoughts/comments welcome!
Wes