Before going to bed, if you feel peckish, two slices of toast and jam or a cup of hot semi-skim milk with two low fat biscuits.

What you eat on the day of competition depends on the time and length of the race as well as personal issues, such as what you can stomach, and what is convenient. If the race is scheduled for first thing in the morning, it is unlikely that you are going to feel like getting up at 3 or 4 am to eat a carbohydrate-rich meal.

On the morning of competition, the aims of your final feeding are to:

Choose a small snack first thing in the morning that is densely packed with carbohydrates but contains little in the way of fat, protein or fibre. To reduce fibre content, choose ‘white’ carbohydrate sources over ‘brown’. Some ideal breakfast choices include:

For competitions later in the day, your pre-event meal will contribute to the fuel available during exercise. This meal will provide carbohydrates for oxidation during the later stages of the competition, helping you to maintain your pace for longer. An example of a suitable breakfast is:

You have eaten your high-carbohydrate, low-fat meal four hours before competition, and there is just one hour to go. Do you have a quick sugar fix now? Many athletes believe a high-carbohydrate snack just prior to exercise will lead to reduced exercise performance; this misconception arose from a single study carried out in the 1970s that showed a reduction in performance time following ingestion of glucose 30 minutes before exercise. But this study has not been backed up by any further research, and the theory that a sugary snack immediately prior to exercise will impair performance is not widely accepted today. The theory was based on the idea that the glucose would raise insulin levels, and therefore reliance on muscle glycogen, during the early stages of exercise. Many subsequent studies do back up this theory, but nevertheless fail to show any detrimental effect on exercise performance, since the effect is short lived. In other words, the pros of an extra supply of carbohydrate just before you begin exercise far outweigh any cons.

If you choose to eat do so 30 minutes to 1 hour beforehand. The should be a palatable and rapidly-absorbed snack containing around 50g carbohydrate, such as:

The best way to find out what suits you is to experiment during training. Don’t wait until race day to find out the hard way that you can’t cope with fluids 30 minutes beforehand!

After a hard training session or race, whether it was an interval session involving short intense bursts of exercise that rapidly depleted your glycogen stores, or a prolonged endurance session, your goal is to get those muscles re-synthesising glycogen again as soon as possible for fast recovery. There is an abundance of evidence showing that by rapidly replenishing muscle glycogen stores you can reduce the time needed to recover before the next hard training session and enhance subsequent performance. By ingesting carbohydrate-rich foods immediately after exercise, when muscles are most receptive, you will put yourself in a good position to recover as fast as possible. The first two hours post-exercise, muscle re-synthesis rates are maximal and you should take advantage of this by eating as soon as you can. Recovery from lower-intensity sessions does not require as high a carbohydrate intake as hard or prolonged sessions, but make it a habit to eat a high-carbohydrate snack or meal straight after training. Post-exercise is not the time to restrict your calorie intake. A high-carbohydrate feeding now will mean you are ready for the next session sooner.

You should aim to consume 50g of carbohydrate within the first two hours and approx 500 – 600 gms over the next 20 hours ( your normal meals should account for the latter). The food immediately after the race should have a high glycaemic index, examples are given in the table :