Have you seen the term fart lick wandering around the internet when you're trying to figure out about different running workouts and you're wondering what the hell is that? Well, I'm Jesse Funk and on today's episode of Runner’s High, and I'm going to share with you what a fart lick is and how you can use it in your training.
So, you’ve got a 5K coming up and you're trying to figure out what am I supposed to eat the night before the 5K. Well, I'm Jesse Funk and on today's episode of Runner's High, I'm going to share with you a few tips on picking up food before your race as well as what my prerace meal is.'
In another video here on this whole Pre-YouTube channel I've talked about eating before and after races before, as well as before and after workouts and I’ve even given you some suggestions of specific recipes that you can eat. And those come from our Registered Dietitian here at Solpri. You can find those on the blog, Solpri.com/blog.
But I’ve talked about a few of these guidelines before. So, if you want a little bit more in-depth information about these guidelines, subscribe to the channel, stay tuned, and go check those out here in a minute. But stay with me for the moment, as we talk about what to eat the night before your race.
The short version is you want to eat something that doesn't give you any kind of GI distress. You don't want to, you know, be having any kind of stomach trouble in the morning. You've already probably gonna have some prerace jitters, and you don't want to worry about any kind of food causing extra issues.
Now, that means low fat, low fiber and that kind of route, stay away from grease that's fat, anything that you know is going to cause you issues. If caffeine causes you an issue, don't drink a soda the night before. Some of these things are going to be personal to you, and if you keep a food diary that's helpful. But in general, low fat, low fiber and you know, stay away from caffeine, high sugar, those kinds of things will avoid GI distress.
Now, there's also this idea about carbo-loading right before a race. I'm not particularly a fan of carbo-loading the night before. It was really fun in high school, that pasta parties and go to people's houses and kind of do that thing as a part of running culture. But I don't know that it's actually practical if you have to eat a bunch of pasta, trying to do it two nights before.
My recommendation for that is just because you want to have digested all of that, utilize all that food, turn it into glycogen, you know, gotten all of that through your system to effectively get the carbo-loading versus doing it the night before and then potentially having too much food in your stomach and becoming an issue.
So, what do I actually eat before 5K? Well, it doesn't really matter whether I'm doing a 5K or whether I’m doing a half Iron Man, my go-to meal the night before a race is always going to be the same because I know it doesn't give me any problems and I digest it fine, I'm full, I can sleep well on it, all those kind of things. So, I like that rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes and applesauce.
I used to go to Texas Roadhouse to get this meal. But unfortunately, they've taken it off their menu. So, Texas Roadhouse, you suck. I know, it's actually a little bit of sacrilege to go to a steakhouse and order chicken, but this is the kind of sacrifice that I'm willing to make for a good race performance.
The trick here with this meal, at least for me, is that there is a lot of protein so I'm going to be full, which means I'm not going to go to bed hungry. And then there's some relatively easily digestible starches and then sugars in the applesauce. Plus, with applesauce, it keeps everything together in your digestion because you don't want to have the ?? 3:40> in the morning when you're going to race with your prerace jitters or prerace meal. It’s going to be something probably pretty personal to you.
I know that my friend, Olympic triathlete Barb Lindquist, she shares that her prerace meal when she was racing professionally, was a pepperoni pizza without the cheese. Again, a little bit of sacrilege, taking the cheese off of a pizza. But that was something that she could eat, and reliably get almost no matter where she was in the world that she could have the night before a race.
So, pick something that's going to work for you that you know doesn't cause you GI distress. And then hopefully, something that's common enough that you can pick it up no matter where you're racing. Whether you just race locally, nationally or like Barb, and travel globally for your race. So, I'll see you next time on the next episode of Runner's High.