Subject: RE: Race day nutrition plan From what I've seen, lots of people eat "real food" but it's not often turkey or chicken sandwich. Along with gels and bars and blocks and other high glucose, calorie and energy dense foods, people supplement with real food that's also calorie / energy dense.
Peanut butter & jelly seems to be popular; I've seen many people eating those at bike special needs. I've seen lots of people eating cookies, usually fig newtons or peanut butter sandwich cookies or the like.
I've eaten lots of fruit on the run at the aid stations - grapes, watermelon, cantelope. I had an apple once in my run special needs and it was great. But I shudder at the thought of gagging down a full sandwich. Ugh. The whole point of food during the event is to fulfill energy needs later in the race. I think if I ate a sandwich, my digestive system would not be able to process it and I'd have lots of GI distress two or three hours later.
I'll go out on a limb and say the closer to the FOP you get, the less "real food" you see; conversely at the back it's a potluck. At IMAZ which is a three loop bike, three loop affair, I would indeed see people eating just about anything, but I'd be on my third loop and they'd be at bike special needs eating away. Or I'd be on my third run loop, and see walkers eating sandwiches as they walked. |