Supplements for Marathon

• Correct planning of Volume and Intensity of Training Loads.
• Assimilation of Training Loads and Rhythms.
• Periodisation of Nutrition and Supplementation in the different phases of the process.
• Optimal and healthy weight for the test.
• Correct rest and control of stress factors.
• Avoiding Injuries.

Obviously, training for a marathon is a process that can take months.

Limiting factors of a marathon

That said, we must also mention the LIMITING FACTORS or problems that can and do occur in endurance tests:

Do you know why and how to prevent «the Wall»? Visit this link.

What does performance in the Marathon depend on?

On the other hand, we also need to take into account which variables are the decisive factors in the marathon:

With Carbohydrates, you will succeed

It’s worth remembering that it’s important to teach the body how to maximise the efficiency of fat oxidation in order to delay the glycolytic metabolic pathway and thus improve the metabolic efficiency of this type of test.

Let’s remember that the rhythms and training zone of a marathon are fundamentally those in which we work on aerobic zones, with a predominant metabolic pathway of fat oxidation.

So, the more efficient this metabolic pathway is, the less glycogen dependent it is.

Although it is a metabolic route that plays an important role in the marathon.

This is what we’re getting at in this article!

Nutritional strategies

Here are some of the strategies aimed at optimising energy efficiency in long-distance events such as the marathon.

Always take into account the time of season with the loads – intensity of the training.

Training Low, Compete High

Low training in CHO and some competition in CHO.

There is currently a lot of research related to this strategy being followed by many professional long distance runners and triathletes.

But what does it involve?

Changes that will be modulated as a result of the expression of certain genes that optimise the metabolism of fatty acids.

Knowing that, one of the responsible ones at a metabolic level is related to an increase of protein kines activity regulated by AMP (AMPK).

There is a known correlation between low availability of glycogen and increased activity of this metabolic pathway.

There are different nutritional strategies for this purpose, and they may or may not be combined. We’ll not go into this in detail, but it’s always necessary for these strategies to be supervised and controlled by a sports nutritionist and trainer..

We would find: training while fasting, training with high levels of HCO but sleeping with low levels, low carbohydrate diet etc.

Training High

High Carbohydrates

The other approach, bearing in mind that it’s also necessary to optimise the availability of carbohydrates in order to efficiently maintain a training program with high workloads and intensities.

This strategy can also be carried out at another time in the training programme with high volumes of kilometres and demanding intensities.

The idea is also to achieve adaptations to the assimilation of HCO, in order to avoid gastrointestinal problems that can occur in long term events (> 2’5 hours), if the body has not been “taught” to efficiently absorb HCO under a situation that involves high physical stress such as a marathon.

Marathon Nutrition

Apart from the above, and thinking about the day of the event.

There are several VERY IMPORTANT aspects that should be considered when considering the nutritional strategy of the marathon:

• Weather conditions: temperature on the day of the event and humidity level (these are factors that directly affect sweating levels, and therefore maintain a water and salt balance in accordance with the athlete’s sweating rate).
• Diet in the days leading up to the test as well as hydration levels
• Estimated rhythms of the athlete to program the intakes as well as the amounts they will need, taking into account the estimated time.
• Location of provision points as well as knowing what the athlete can find in each one of them.
• Time of the competition to schedule the breakfast with enough time for correct digestion (it would be convenient to introduce HCO with low glycemic index, to avoid a peak of insulin that slows down the rate of fat oxidation).