Hi folks,
I decided to start a new topic on this so it wouldn't get lost in my other marathon thread.  I am signed up to run my first marathon on October 2 of this year.  I've done a lot of running, but no long running.  I am looking for info on where to start with food & drink options in getting ready for this.  My specific questions are:

1. How do you carry it?  
2. What to look for in gels/snacks/other foods
3. How often will I need to eat or drink something during a long run?  
4. What should I consider eating or drinking immediately before and after?
5. What should I consider eating or drinking the day/night before a long run?  

I normally stick to 6 miles or less, so have never needed to think about it.  Thanks in advance for any advice on this.

I leaned to not count on the event organizers to set out water spots as they claim.

You should probably run a couple of marathon distances before deciding, when you hit that wall you won't want to be carrying an ounce of extra weight.

Yeah, I get that.  I'm looking for suggestions on where to start.

First, this should be something that you work out in training, during your long runs.  Don't wait until race day.

Second, what is a realistic marathon time for you?  How much do you weigh?  That will help set consumption rate.

I wouldn't get too wrapped up in pre/post workout nutrition concerns.  Studies show that muscle glycogen is the same regardless of whether you do a post-workout carb reload or just eat normally unless your next workout is within 12 hours of your previous workout. If you aren't doing two-a-days, just eat normally.

Before a long run, you might find eating some simple carbs helps and eliminates the need to carry gels or sports drink. Personal preference matters, but gels, sports bars, fig newtons, or bananas are standbys. Test this in training.

Stay hydrated, which means drink to thirst. No need to force-chug fluids. During exercise, your body absorbs moderate carb containing fluids a little faster than plain water - Gatorade has about the right carb content per volume. Test this in training to find what works for you.

For me, water works well out to at least an hour, maybe 90 minutes depending on intensity. Higher intensity means maybe some calories.

Much more than 90 minutes and I am looking for maybe 100 calories per full hour run, so 90 minutes = 100 cal, 2h15m = 200 calories.  This can be gels or sports drink.  Experiment with this during your long training runs.

You don't have to consume equal amounts of liquid that you sweat off. You just have to slow the rate of dehydration.  The fastest runners (those who win or place highly) also tend to be the most dehydrated. Again, what is a realistic time you expect to be on the course.

For a large marathon, it's probably safe to count on fluids, but maybe not calories, especially if you aren't in the first third to half of runners. Gels are compact and easily digestible, though some prefer gummies.

Those calorie numbers were for a 190lb man. Scale up or down for your size and experiment during training.

Bottom line, for extended duration events, training includes figuring out nutrition as much as it does pacing and fitness.

That's good info, thanks.  I am definitely not planning to wait until race day to figure this out.  The race is 6 months out, and I plan to start on my "official" 16-week training program in mid-June.  I think that a sub-4:30 finish is doable, but I'll be ready to adjust that expectation after I get deeper into it.  I typically run about 8-minute miles now, and an all-out 1-mile would be in the 6:30 neighborhood.  Based on that I am thinking that I can maintain under a 10-minute mile average.  I'll find out relatively soon if that's realistic.  I am 5'10" and currently 170#, but I plan on getting down to 160 or less for this.  

"The wall" is really a pacing problem. People run faster than their fitness, burn more glycogen than they can restore, and bonk.

Otherwise people couldn't run ultras or Ironmans.

Agree that marathon are run mainly on fat.

Disagree that novices looking at 4h30m marathon times need to run 3x 20 mile runs. That is inviting injury. Lots of weekly miles. Typical weekly long run no more than 25-30% of weekly total and run as many days/week as possible. At least 5 and 6 or 7 is better for most.

Do NOT do this.


Edit: for storing water I have a hand held soft water flask from ultimate direction. I think it’s called a clutch now. It has a bottle, inside a holder that has a strap that goes around you hand.
I’ve done belts and vests. Belts work as long as you adjust them properly, and the lessons I learned were from poorly adjusted belts.
Gels I shove in my hand held or in pockets. You’ll want to practice using them for race day.


Pacing is important. Hitting the wall sucks. You don’t need to run 75 miles to comfortably run a marathon. Trust me.

See if you can find a half marathon race. If you can then race it and double the time then add 10 minutes to get an idea of where you’re are for marathon pace. If you can do a 10k then do that. The internet is filled with marathon predictors. Look at them if you want but they might not be accurate, or consistent.

Don't take this the wrong way, but SLOW THE EFF DOWN. I'm focusing mostly on 5k/10k fitness right now, but with a little more emphasis on my long runs I could probably throw down a ~2:55 marathon (~6:40/mi) and exactly ZERO of my easy runs are 8 min/mi. I typically cruise around in the 8:15-30/mi range (largely the slower end of that), with recovery runs at about 9 min/mi.
Running any pace that starts with "8" is way too fast for your fitness and current ability level and you're short-changing your aerobic development. Having the biggest aerobic engine possible is what gets anyone through a marathon. Run slow to race fast.

@erud

Thanks, but I think you may have misunderstood that post.  The times I run now and have run in the past have absolutely nothing to do with running a marathon, that was just to give you guys an idea of where I am at.  Historically, I run 4-6 miles 4 or 5 times per week.  I used to be quite a bit faster when I was quite a bit younger, but 8 minutes is a comfortable pace for me now for those kinds of distances.  I have no illusion that that transfers to an 8 minute/mile marathon pace.  I think I mentioned that I was guessing/expecting to be in the 10-minute/mile neighborhood, which would be 25% slower than my normal short-distance pace.  I plan to more or less continue doing what I’m doing from now until mid-June, at which point I’ll start the “official” training plan leading up to the race in October.  Thanks for the input.

It's different for everyone. Hopefully there is a half marathon or two in the schedule before his first full. Way back when I did my first full I did a half a couple of months prior. Did the half at and 8 minute pace, finishing in 1:45, then went on to do the full at an 8 minute pace finishing in 3:30:20.

As far as the original question. Use a Nathan pack for a bottle, carry 2-3 goos and you should be fine for a standard flat-land marathon.
Before I always did the usual pasta 2 days prior. Most of the time I'd even had a beer or two the night before with no ill effects, but I wouldn't recommend that until you've done one or two fulls.
Afterwards chocolate milk was always one of my favorites.

It's great that you have a running background because fitness  returns much faster than it is gained in the first place.
But your training efforts/paces should be based upon where your fitness is now rather than closer to where it was or where you'd like it to be.

I really don’t know what to make of your comment.  That’s where my fitness is now, and that’s what I’m basing everything on.

Not taking sides, but Jack Daniels uses a system called Vdot. It's a performance based system that sets training paces based on best efforts. It also predicts race time.  

It works well if your current training volume/intensity is targeted at your goal race distance. In other words, even a mile time trial gives you pretty accurate results and predictions for a marathon if you're doing marathon training,  A mike time trial off of 5 K training, not so much

Link to an online calculator. https://runsmartproject.com/calculator/

Beat me to it. Though as someone who has successfully done multiple Daniels-style training plans I'd say his "easy" paces are a bit fast and the predictions for longer races rely on pretty high mileage - 65+ mpw or so for months or years.

It's simply not possible for easy/everyday runs to be done "comfortably" at around 8 min/mi when marathon pace would be a bit slower than 10 min/mi. All the people I know who run about 8 min/mi flat for easy runs are 2:40 or faster marathoners.
Easy pace is, by definition, easier (slower) than marathon pace.

It's been a few years, but I remember my "easy" paces being like 60-90 sec per mile slower than marathon pace.

When you tell most people to do most of their running at that pace, the universal reaction is "I can't run that slow!".  I had good results in the half marathon on about 3 months of 40 miles/week, but was coming off a base of 25-30 with another 75-100 mpw cycling.

Quoted for truth.  Also the “I can’t run that slow” very quickly becomes enjoyable for those who actually try it.


Edit: unsure if mentioned above. Whatever gel you’re going to use train like you race. If you’re going to take a gel every 5 miles do it on a long run, plus one at the start, because things change after three or four gels. I know a guy who hit the wall at a marathon last year, actually two, and it was mostly due to fueling inexperience.  One guy slammed two gels about 5 minutes apart then waited hours to eat again, another I think carried them and ate when he felt like it which was just a lack of experience, neither trained like they raced.

Everyday runs at 60-90 (closer to 90) seconds per mile slower than marathon pace is right about where I'm at.

I will say that this (the "I can't run that slowly" thing) can come about because of an underdeveloped aerobic system. Everyone always burns a mix of sugars and fats no matter what they do, including running. Running easily/slowly should skew heavily towards fat-based, while running hard/fast will skew towards using sugars. A person can be so used to using that "faster" gear that their metabolism simply can't convert fats quickly enough and so they speed up to use a fuel substrate mixture that's more "comfortable". It just takes time to develop that aerobic/fat burning engine.

I'm massively faster than I was when I started running almost 7 years ago, but I can actually run slower more comfortably now (the same absolute paces, not speaking relatively) than I could back when I first started.

I find slowing down to be more enjoyable.  It just comes down to time. ‘If I run this ONE MINUTE SLOW it’s only X minutes of life.’ Well…except for marathons.  26 extra minutes is a lot.  For a 15 mile long run….it’s already 2 hours long so another 15 minutes won’t kill you at that point. Crossing over 100 minutes just kinda rounds up to me.  


‘Yay I saved 10 minutes and feel so exhausted.  I need 10 minutes to recover.’  Mm hmm.

Save fast running for actually running fast...when it counts.

She said nutrition isn't typically needed until she gets to 70min or longer runs. She will usually do loops when training and stop for water/food as needed. Don't rely on the race to have what you need. Some of those supplements the race may provide could cause major gastric issues if you haven't tested them before. Nothin new on race day!

Spring brand gels taste like lots of banana. They’re not disgusting. I’ve eaten them for ultras.  


Today was 3.5 miles of running and hiking.  I took a 1.5 L bladder of water mixed with 2 tailwind packs. I drank just about 500mL/16oz of it based on ‘fill it the whole way then empty what is left into bottles and measure’ accuracy. This was about 133 (400 total divided by 3) calories for the run/hike. Strava/Garmin said I burned over 2,000.


Edit: I had homemade boboli pizza last night. 2 eggs and coffee for breakfast about an hour before the run/hike. No stomach issues and I drank by time for most of it.  Mostly at mile ‘beeps’ on my watch or when I was walking uphill because it’s less to mess with. For a road marathon I would absolutely practice eating at race pace and opening the wrapper.  You’ll never forget the time you DIDNT eat all that syrup GU and it smeared all inside your shorts pocket.