Several people I’ve talked to have told me that for an IM race they get up at 4 AM and eat 400-600 calories for breakfast. If you had a half-iron race with a 7 AM start, would you follow the same wake-up time and food intake?
A lot of people do a lot of goofy stuff. What do you normally do? The closer you can hew to that, the happier your body will be.
step one) wake up 3 hours prior to the race and eat (depending on yer size) 4-700 cals… none of it fat.
step two) have a great day
For a 7:00 a.m. we would get up at 5:00 a.m. and have 400 - 500 calories, head to the start line and have 100 - 150 calories in the last hour. Most of it would be liquid calories, save for a banana.
I prefer to get up early as well…I like to have a stress-free morning with a minimum of time pressure.
Wake-up at 3:30 or 4:00 depending on travel time to race start. Shower, dress.
Breakfast is what I eat normally: granola or cereal, yogurt, a piece of fruit and coffee. Water. I have an extra large serving of carbs, but that’s the only change from my daily routine. I
Arrive in transition at around 5:30 for a 7am start. Get my gear ready, sip on diluted sports drink, usually Gatorade fruit punch flavor (its my favorite)…maybe a GU before heading to the swim start.
Forget the start, you got NOTHING to do with the start, what time does the transition close? If it is an assigned transition I will be there about 30 minutes to the transition close, becareful! being in there is different and actually leaving the hotel room is different. Calculate traffic, PARKING etc.
If you need to brigde the gap of hydration between breakfast and race, you should END the eating thing 3 hours before, cause the intake of liquids afterwards will slow down digestion. If you think your hydration is close to perfect, you can stop eating a little later.
The goal - I think - should be to start the race without feeling ANY hunger and the breakfast still kicking on the stomache.
In an ideal world…
Wake: 4:30
Leave Hotel: 5:00
Arrive at Race: 5:30-6:00 (depending on travel/traffic)
Food: Powerbar/banana at 5:00
WATER
Gel 15 min. before start
I eat nothing when I get up, just black coffee to help clean the system. Then 5 min. before start one gel. Food in the stomach on race morning doesn’t work for me. Just normal amount and type of food the night before. This is also how I train with all of my early morning workouts.
I will get up at 4:45 or so for a 7am start and maybe eat a small bowl of cereal w/banana and a peanut butter/banana bagel.
Thanks to all for the input. Since I’m doing IMC in a few weeks (gulp!) I’ll make this weekend @ the Troika HIM a race rehearsal. Good night’s sleep on Friday, to bed @ 9 on Saturday, and Sunday get up at 4 AM, then eat about 500 calories + fluid.
If you eat 3 hours or more before the start of the event, you will give your blood sugars and insulin levels time to stabilize.
I eat a similar breakfast for both IM and IM 70.3 races.
I drink nothing but water on race morning. If you have not fueled up your muscles then race morning is a little late. I know people who wake up early before IM and that makes a little more sense to me when you need every bit of fuel possible, but for shorter races I have never found it necessary. I ate a solid day of meals on Saturday before World’s Toughest half and then just water on race morning. One gel coming into transition, seven gels during three hours of riding–dissolved in a water bottle–and one more gel on the run.
For a 7 am start I would definately not wake up early or eat anything. If you do, eat it three hours before race start or 10 minutes. Otherwise you screw up your body’s glycogen usage during the race.
Chad
I started drinking ensure instead of solid food on raceday morning. The regular stuff, not the plus version with protein. Wake up and have two bottles 3 hours before start along with my daily vitamins, then I go back to bed. I’ll drink a bottle of heed about a half hour before start.