Running to Think

Long story short: everything, just in the right amount

CARBOHYDRATES

Most endurance athletes and coaches know how important it is to maintain the body's carbohydrate (glycogen) stores. They are also aware that, despite the fact that the depletion of glycogen may be delayed to a degree, by consuming carbs during activity, the body's stock capacity can only provide enough energy for about 90 to 180 minutes before fatigue sets in. 
It is when these stores are exhausted that runners 'hit the wall', cyclists 'bonk' and everybody is doomed to slow down. Some even to quit.

It comes without saying that prolonged exercise forces athletes to get the energy they need from additional sources. The basic rule is to load low glycemic index carbs 3 or 4 days before the race (will digest slowly) and high glycemic carbs during the race so that the body can absorb fast and efficiently.
Here is a table that you better remember by heart.

When?	How much?	Why?
3-4 hours before	2-4 g/kg bodyweight  = ± 210g = 840 Kcal	·   Liver glycogen will be filled ·   Blood sugar will be maintained ·   No hunger feeling
1 hour before	1-2 g/kg bodyweight = ± 140g = 560 Kcal	·   Keep the glycogen reserves high
During	0,7 g/kg bodyweight every hour of sport in intervals of 15-20 min = ± 49g =196Kcal/ hour è 50 kcal every 15 min NB: You can go until 70-75 g/hour = 280- 300 kcal / hour è 70- 75 kcal every 15 min	·   Keep blood sugar high ·   Increase carbohydrate oxidation ·   Delaying fatigue
Recovery (until 2 hours after race)	1,1-1,2g/kg bodyweight (preference for high GI) = ± 84 g = 336 kcal	·   Recover the blood sugar value ·   Resynthesis of muscle glycogen ·   Restore muscle tissue

Main sources:  Whole grain, apples, bananas, peaches, asparagus, carrots, rice milk, lentils, just to name a few.

PROTEINS

Proteins alone do not provide energy unless glycogen and fat are depleted and like fat, they can slow down your metabolism. You will typically get enough protein for race day if you eat high quality proteins, such as whey, egg whites, milk, soy, as part of your daily intake. Small amounts of protein during a race may reduce muscle damage. Recovery, however, requires protein. The recommended ratio is of 3 carbs to 1 protein.

Main sources:  Eggs, meat, fish, chicken, cheese, beans... But you probably don't want to go for meat ;)

FATS

Another good source of energy during exercise is fat. Fat has several advantages over carbohydrates. As a matter of fact, it yields over twice as much energy as carbohydrate (9 kcal v 4 kcal). Add the fact that our body is usually loaded with a good supply of fat and you get a consistent amount of calories and energy. Typically, the body has approximately 50-60.000 kcal of energy stored as fat compared to about 1500 kcal of glycogen. 
One of the effects of endurance training is to make the body a more efficient fat burning machine. Fat is not the enemy, if your body knows how to deal with it.
However, despite the abundant store of this substrate, it is not totally clear where the fat used in exercise comes from. Most fat in the body is stored in the form of triglycerides in adipose tissue. Some fat, known as intramuscular triglyceride, is stored directly within the muscle fibres. It is now believed that the greater utilisation of fat by trained endurance athletes comes from this source. This has a very important implication, because the amount of energy which can be derived from intramuscular triglyceride is thought to amount to only 2000-3000 kcal.

Depletion of the intramuscular triglyceride stores is now thought to limit endurance performance in much the same way as glycogen depletion. It has been shown that the replenishment of glycogen stores alone is not enough to restore maximum work capacity. Therefore, it may be just as important to restore, or strive to spare, the body's intramuscular triglyceride. 

Although fats are vital for physical activity, most individuals have enough body fat stored for energy during prolonged workouts. 
However, increasing the fat intake will only lead to less consumption of carbohydrates impeding glycogen stores (glycogen being the immediate source of fuel for physical activity). Moreover, fats have the tendency to slow down metabolism in general. Consider fats as a reserve tank of fuel, but keep them to a minimum during training and racing (20-30%).

Main sources:  Fatty fish such as salmon, nuts, cheese, avocado, …

Last but not least (and not to forget)

1.    Fibers: prevent gastrointestinal distress, they are difficult to digest, especially during high intensity training. Avoid whole grains and fruits with skin. In general, keep fibers to a minimum, at least on race day.

2.    Maintain proper fluid balance. This is vital for an optimal performance

Have a nice race!

The title of this post is a bit pretentious. I know. The less gadgets I run with the better.
These are the tools I use the most before, during and after my running sessions. Because, you know, running is not only about running.

I really cannot start without a Garmin watch. Even for slow pace runs. The list of watches is huge. After the Forerunner 410 - awful watch ever - things changed at Garmin and their devices became more reliable since then.

After running I usually upload my training session to Strava. Some followers will see my tracks and performance. And I will see them. It's nice to get inspired about many things, such as mileage per week or training strategy. I mostly use it to find new courses whenever I run abroad and I really have no time to explore myself.
Sometimes I bring my mobile phone with me, especially when I run to work with a urban hydration pack I convert to all-in-one backpack. These times I switch on the Strava app from Android.

Twitter is the App I use the most. For everything. News, updates about nutrition, sports and if you ever check my Twitter you might find something interesting. Although this is not guaranteed.

The new entry is MyFitnessPal that is helping me keeping track of how many calories I eat and how many I should (not) according to the daily training schedule.

One app that seems to be interesting but I honestly never used is Rock my Run that plays music at a pace that follows your running. Quite fun. But I prefer to adapt my pace to the music, which is usually at a high pace. The most efficient running technique is at 90 bpm (or 180, depending on how you count). I prefer the old good mp3 player.

Run long!

The period in which I don't run due to an injury is usually dedicated to, well... eating. I love eating. More specifically I love to spend time in the kitchen and experiment new recipes or just make those I remember from my mum, when I was living in southern Italy. Today I want to write about one italian recipe that is easy to make, healthy and really delicious. It's called "zucchine ripiene" which literally means "stuffed courgette".
You can stuff courgettes with many things such as rice, meat, tomato sauce, fish etcetera etcetera. Since we are vegetarians here I will stuff them with vegetables of course. This is my attempt to "genetically" modify a courgette and fill it with aubergines :)

So go to the market, the second place I spend more time after the kitchen, and buy yourself some round courgettes. Boil them for 5 minutes just to soften them a bit and chop the top without throwing it away. Then empty them with a tea spoon. Keep the flesh and blend it with some salt and pepper and 1 egg.



In the mean time prepare the aubergine, chop it and pan-fry it with some olive oil, red onion, some mushrooms. Add salt, cumin and pepper.



Here is the flesh of the courgette in the blender with the egg and salt and pepper. Add a slice of toasted bread if it appears too juicy.



Mix the aubergine with the cream obtained from the flesh of the courgettes and mix with a spoon. This will be the new flesh of our "enhanced" courgettes.


Stuff the courgettes with the mix and place them into the oven at 230 C for about 30 minutes. Only in the last 5 minutes add some cheese on top and you can leave the hat on ;)

Bon appétit!

Don't misunderstand us: we don't miss meat. Actually we're doing great without since a long time. All this started as an experiment. This time I didn't get much help from the Internet. The purpose of messing around in the kitchen was to bite a juicy hamburger while staying vegetarian on my ID.
Here is a delicious recipe to make some at home.

Ingredients:
400 gr lentils
1 red onion
5 slices of bread (guts and crumbs included)
1 egg
salt, pepper, cumin, garlic
mustard and, if you really wanna feel american ketchup and mayo (for one time you can) :)


Preparation:
Boil the lentils with the onion chopped in small pieces, add salt and drain almost all the water when finished.
Put the lentils in a blender together with the egg, cumin, garlic powder and pepper. Process for about 2 minutes. Add the slices of bread chopped in smaller pieces and process for other 2 minutes. The mix will look a bit drier and that's a good thing so that we can manipulate it later. It should look like the one in the picture below.




Shape it in the pan before it gets too cooked. I was impressed of how similar to meet it looked.
Once you get there, slice your bread and grill it a bit, slice some tomato and add a large leave of salad to your wonderful hamburger like in the picture.


A slice of cheese that will melt on the "meat" will make it even more delicious and real.
Enjoy!

ATTENTION: No animal has been killed to provide the pictures above :)