Pre-event breakfast

Endurance and especially ultra-endurance events are very popular among recreational athletes. While many are satisfied with accomplishments of completing the event, other strive to finish in the fastest possible time without sustaining an injury.  To achieve this goal they need to manage the decline in performance, as the event progress power production will decrease, rating of fatigue and pain will increase, while skill and cognitive ability also goes down.  Many of the decrements in performance can be countered by optimizing nutrition.

What you eat or drink before an event can reduce or delay the onset of specific factors which can acutely reduce performance.

One nutrition practice would be the pre-event meal. The goal of the pre-event meal would be to strike a balance between adequate sleep (morning events), sufficient fueling and a comfortable gut. Breakfast is important because your liver glycogen will be low, the body uses the carbohydrate stored in the liver during sleep. The liver provides carbohydrate to maintain blood sugar levels during your race, and therefore its essential to ensure you replenish liver glycogen.

With that said the most important nutrient during breakfast are carbohydrates. What you have for breakfast will mostly depend on the timing available, the type of event and what your stomach can tolerate. The recommendations are to consume 1-4 grams of carbohydrates 1-4 hours before the start of the event. This will differ from person to person and maybe even form event to event. If you have a 7am start you may prefer to a smaller breakfast at 6:00 to ensure you get enough sleep before your event. But for a later start and if you don’t enjoy eating to close to your event you will prefer a bigger breakfast 4 hours before the start. This will come down to personal preference and what you can tolerate. If you tend to struggle with stomach discomfort when you eat to close to the race, opt for the 3-4 hours pre-event meal option. You can also try a liquid meal such as a smoothie. Solid and liquid forms of carbohydrate will work equally as well to refill your liver glycogen stores.

Certain foods are best to avoid or limit with breakfast to reduce the risk of stomach issues.

The last thing you want during the race is stomach discomfort, and therefore it would be wise to limit certain foods during your pre-race breakfast, in particular fibre. Fibre takes longer to digest, which mean it may still sit in your stomach when you are on the start line. Reducing low GI carbohydrates such as wholegrain bread, bran flakes, rolled oats, muesli and rye bread may keep these symptoms at bay. But if you have no issues digesting these foods, you can continue having them for breakfast. Too much fat during breakfast should also be avoided as it slows down the rate at which food is emptied from your stomach. High-fat breakfast items that should be limited include bacon, sausages, cheese and pastries. The more time you have for breakfast before the start of the race, the less important this becomes. With severe stomach distrubance, rather avoid milk with breakfast.

Breakfast options: