It really doesn’t seem that long since Team Scrambled Legs began talking about completing the London Marathon for the National Autistic Society. But in just a few weeks, five enthusiastic runners from Artizian Catering will join the start line all aiming to complete the gruelling 26.2 mile course.
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Team Scrambled Legs includes Tracey, Chris, Rob, Sonia and Julian who since January have taken part in a series of half marathons including the Richmond Half Marathon in February, Brooklands Half Marathon in March and, more recently, the Northampton Half Marathon.
Whilst the team understood the huge task ahead in terms of exercise they turned to Artizian’s very own nutrition expert Catherine Attfield, Artizian Manager – Nutrition & Wellbeing, to help them get the most from their food. What they didn’t appreciate at the start of this journey was how much this would benefit others and what an overwhelming response their marathon menu would get from clients and customers.
Getting the right advice
There’s so much conflicting advice out there when it comes to nutrition and the team didn’t know which source to trust. Hours were spent trawling the Internet and looking for every piece of information required to make this journey a little easier. But it didn’t take Catherine long to put a plan together that was relevant and valuable for all. When she presented her marathon menu to the Scrambled Legs team, everything suddenly made sense and it gave them a new found confidence on how to condition their bodies to cope with the intense training programme.
Catherine was excited to create her marathon nutrition plan because she understands how critical food intake is to maximise performance. She wanted to devise a plan that was easy to follow, whether someone was an experienced runner or just starting out. By providing a daily check list and bite sized steps, anyone could pick it up, follow and most importantly stick to it. Another aspect she really wanted to make clear is that recovery nutrition is as important as performance nutrition and this is a big feature of her activity.
When concentrating on getting mileage up and keeping fit without injury, feeding ourselves correctly is often quite far down on people’s priorities but it’s something that the Scrambled Legs team recognise is essential to their success. Catherine has also had to overcome some of the myths around food and exercise, including that of ‘carb-loading’. Many people think marathon runners must do this, when in fact you really only need about 30-60g of carbohydrate per running hour, most of which needs to be already stored as glycogen in your muscles.
The Marathon Menu
Catherine’s plan features key advice on how to avoid ‘hitting the wall’ as well as ideas for ‘fit fridge fuel’ and plenty of useful training tips. Having already spotted its value for customers, commercial director, Tracey Fairclough knew they had to make this resource available for all. Daily blog posts featuring advice from the Marathon Menu are being shared right up to the day of the marathon on 26th April, giving anyone in training instant access to Artizian’s practical nutritional resource. You can view the blogs which started on 1st April at http://artizianmarathonmenu.tumblr.com/. There will also be regular tweets from @artiziancaters and posts via the company Facebook and LinkedIn channels.
The response to the daily blogs so far has been amazing with lots of positive feedback from managers, clients and customers, many of whom have actually printed the menu out to keep close to hand each day.
Ten takeaways from Artizian’s Marathon Menu
To give you a little flavour of what to expect on our daily blog here are some of Catherine’s thoughts on how to get the best out of your training – before, during and after each run!
- It’s important to note carbohydrates are the main fuel for training. This is stored in the muscles and liver as glycogen, which the body draws upon for energy.
- The body is only able to store a relatively small amount of carbohydrate, which is why eating it regularly this month is so important.
- Rest days are as important as any run – so give yourself time to recover. Build up your mileage slowly. Increase your miles by no more than 10% week on week, remembering to increase distance before intensity.
- Recovery nutrition is vitally important if you want to perform at your optimum and ensure a speedy recovery after your runs.
- Experimenting with foods before and after a run and finding recipes you like is important – the last thing you need during the race is an unhappy stomach.
- Protein helps to rebuild muscle, so is particularly important after a long run to repair damaged tissue and stimulate the development of new tissue. Good protein foods to eat after a run include milk, cheese and yoghurt, white meats and eggs.
- For those runners who really can’t cope with solid food before a long run try a fruit smoothie instead.
- The final week is the time for real carb-loading, so make pasta and porridge your friend. Be wary of gas-inducing carbs, however, such as broccoli, cabbage, beans or too much fruit, or it could make for an uncomfortable run on the day!
- Aim to drink 5-7ml of fluid per kilogram of body weight between three and four hours before the race (i.e. 350 – 490ml or roughly one bottle of sports drink).
- What and when you eat after a long run also affects your performance and recovery so it is important to replenish high GI carbs and protein at a ratio of 3:1 within 30 minutes of completing your run.
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