Keep healthy snacks on hand

Sometimes finding time to run around a hectic work and life schedule can often feel like a challenge in itself. Similarly, how do you ensure you prepare nourishing meals and snacks that support your running, rather than grabbing something that might be quick and convenient but doesn’t deliver sufficient nutrition? Here’s my advice.

The key components for meal prep

Carbohydrate availability is key when it comes to ensuring adaptation and optimal performance in running. That doesn’t mean just eating a banana before your interval session, it means ensuring that you have good carbohydrate stores – that is, glycogen – in your muscles to support a high-intensity session. The same applies for long runs of over 90 minutes. It requires 500g of carbohydrate to fill your stores and this needs to be done by eating good quantities of carbs for the 48-72 hours ahead of the session. Similarly, recovery nutrition is also important to enable the restoration of muscle and glycogen stores to ensure consistency and injury prevention.

Plan out your running week

When I work with a new runner, one of the first things I ask them is what a typical week of training looks like and/or what they are training for. This helps us to identify the key runs, such as higher-intensity sessions and long runs. We then look at other life and work commitments and when those runs are. In this way, you can think about the meals and snacks you need to support your running. For example:

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Think about fuelling for this at least 24-36 hours before. I’d recommend good choices of carbohydrate at regular intervals from Tuesday morning, ideally three meals and three snacks.

Scenario 1: Wednesday lunchtime interval session

Consume good choices of carbohydrate at regular intervals from Wednesday lunchtime onwards as well as ensuring you take on some fuel immediately beforehand, like a banana or a sports gel, and then continuing to fuel on the run, following it with a recovery breakfast.

How to meal prep your week

With this in mind, it’s worth carving out a small amount of time once a week (Sundays are good) to plan meals and snacks for the week ahead. This helps to provide structure and means you stick to a shopping list. If budget is not a limiting factor, investing in recipe boxes or even freshly-prepared meals can be a game-changer. One further time-saving tip is to try online shopping, which reduces time and waste and helps you stick to your list.

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Most runners will find it difficult to meet their nutritional requirements with just three meals a day, so additional snacks will be necessary to keep energy levels topped up. Having suitable options in your kit/work bag or office draw can help. Good ones include trail mix, oatcakes (plain, seeded, fruit or chocolate), malt loaf bars and cereal bars such as Trek, Eat Natural or Nature Valley.

Slow cook

Slow cookers are a really useful addition to your kitchen. You can prepare meals in minutes, turn the slow cooker on before you leave for work and when you come home you have a nourishing and wholesome meal waiting for you. Good suggestions include casseroles, chilli, curries and bolognese. If you make larger quantities, this can also double up as lunch the next day or dinner on another night of the week.

Stock your cupboard well

I ensure I have certain ingredients in my kitchen cupboard and freezer which make pulling together a meal easier, even when short of time and energy. Some of my go-tos are frozen fruit and veg, tinned beans and pulses, eggs, tinned fish, pasta, rice, oats and pittas, bagels or wholegrain bread in the freezer. A quick and nutritious example is a vegetable omelette made with eggs and frozen veg, topped with cheese and served with bread or pitta.

Health & Injuries. Reneemcgregor.com