My Normal Pre-Race Meal

It's funny. I see a few people have made it to this site by way of my post titled The Best Pre-Run Meal". While I was completely honest about it and have done it again since then, I don't know that it's the best advice to be giving people. I've brought the idea up with friends and have had some others agree with me. I don't think you will read any advice any where that suggests it's a good idea, even beneficial, to eat 1/2 of a large pepperoni pizza before a long run. I have had good results with it, but I've got to believe that I'm in the minority with that view. With what I'll be writing below, you'll see that I don't believe it to be the best, because I never eat anything like that before a race. When it comes to preparing for race day, I usually follow along the lines of what most others think.

Most people suggest a pasta dinner the night before a race. I've found that I have the best results when I do pasta 2 nights before a race. The night before a race, I like to do a simple, small to average sized portions of plain chicken breast, brown rice and a vegetable. That's almost 180 degrees different than my pizza meal suggested earlier. Maybe one of these races I don't plan on taking too seriously I'll do the pizza meal before a marathon. It would be interesting to see if I'm able to push the wall out a couple miles.

For me, this advice is definitely for those longer workout/races. When it comes to half marathons as I have coming up on Sunday, pretty much anything goes. As I plan on taking this race seriously and going for a PR, I will be eating a light meal with protein and carbs.

So for those of you that come here looking for food advice, you may want to lean towards this post rather than my earlier post.