What Should I Eat The Night Before A Race?

One question I get a lot from clients who have recently taken up running is: What should I eat the night before a race?

While the answer can vary from person to person, a few constants that always stay the same are to choose something you know sits well in your stomach, and make it a carb heavy meal. It’s important to note that while it should be a carb heavy, that doesn’t your meal itself should be heavy/gigantic. It means that your meal should be primarily carbohydrates. You certainly don’t want to over eat the night before a half or full (or ultra) marathon!

I should also mention that not all races require a carb load. If you will be competing for less than 90 minutes, you can stick to your regular eating style – but again choose foods you know won’t upset your digestion for a few days leading up to a race.

This past weekend I found myself gearing up for an 18km running event which meant I spent a few days leading up to run increasing my carbohydrate intake. Carb loading shouldn’t be done in just one sitting at your “final meal”, it should start almost a week out from race day. Because my run was a fun run versus a timed, competitive race, I started carb loading two days pre-race as I really wasn’t worried about my time.

On Saturday night, I like many other runners, dove into a delicious plate of pasta to finish the carb load for the next morning’s run!

While pasta isn’t your only choice for your last pre-race meal, it is normally my go-to and I decided to put my own twist on one of the recipes in Catelli®”s Pasta Boost Cookbook found on their Facebook page. These recipes were developed by local athletes and top chefs in Canada, and are part of Catelli®’s Feed the Hope Campaign. Each time someone likes this post on the Catelli® Facebook page or shares the cookbook, Catelli® gives one serving of pasta to a Canadian family in need.

I chose to make the Easy Homemade Catelli® Fusilli with Oven Baked Chicken (pictured above). While most endurance runners don’t require a lot of protein the days leading up to a race, my situation is a bit different as I don’t get to taper my activity level before a race (teaching fitness classes for a living will do that 😉 ). So while many may have omitted the chicken from this recipe as a pre-race meal I knew I could use a little extra muscle repair and left it in.

Since I was only feeding myself, I cut the recipe down in volume and because it was gorgeous outside decided to barbecue the chicken instead of baking it. I seasoned my chicken breast with salt & pepper and some Sun-Dried Tomato seasoning from Epicure before tossing it on the grill. Since garlic and onion both bother my stomach, I omitted the garlic entirely and swapped the onion with shallots (which are more mild), and used avocado oil instead of olive oil. The recipe called for fresh spinach but I freeze my spinach after I buy it, so instead of adding it as the last-minute as directed, I tossed my frozen spinach in at the same time I put the halved tomatoes in the pan to give it time to thaw and cook.

The recipe came together really quickly, by the time the chicken was finished cooking everything else was ready to go. I love it when meals come together quickly!

Remember that tip above about not over-eating the night before a race? Well……..I may have failed there. But in my defence, this recipe was so delicious I couldn’t stop myself! And my race didn’t start until 11am, so I had a full 18 hours to let my food digest. 😀

As for my run, I’ll be writing a re-cap on that later this week, but in the meantime you can watch my vlog from the race.

If you want to read up more on carb loading and the right and wrong way to do it you can check out these articles:

• http://www.runnersworld.com/nutrition-for-runners/the-right-way-to-carbo-load-before-a-race
• http://dailyburn.com/life/health/carb-loading-running-tips/

Disclosure: This post has been generously sponsored by Catelli®. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.