• Question: Do you eat before competing if it's early in the morning :)

    Asked by 264sprg52 to Andrew, Dan, Emilia, Helen, Katy, LauraAnne, Stephanie on 7 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Katy Griggs

      Katy Griggs answered on 7 Nov 2016:

      I tend to eat 2 hours before exercising, especially if I am running. So when I run to work I tend to do a fasted run and then eat breakfast when I get to work. But if you are competing it is best to eat before hand – a meal a couple of hours before. Does depend on the activity though.

    • Photo: Helen Hanstock

      Helen Hanstock answered on 7 Nov 2016:

      Before competition – yes. Definitely a good idea to ‘fuel up’ especially if it’s going to be a long competition!

      Before morning training – there are times when you may want to eat and times when you might not. Not having breakfast (e.g. exercising fasted) can increase the stress of the training session and therefore gives a bigger stimulus for your body to adapt to (and adaptation is the point of training). But if you do this too often you coud become run down and fatigued. So from time to time (e.g 2x per week) it might be a good thing to skip breakfast and do a fasted morning training session, but don’t do it too often!

    • Photo: LauraAnne Furlong

      LauraAnne Furlong answered on 9 Nov 2016:

      yes – got to fuel up your muscles! There will be a certain amount of energy stored in your muscles overnight which will keep you going for a short time, but you really need more than that if you are going to compete. Doing it once or twice before training is fine and might give you a boost, but doing it very frequently will reduce the effect of training, and your ability to perform at your best. Eating properly is a very important part of preparing an athlete for a competition!

    • Photo: Emilia McAllister-Jepps

      Emilia McAllister-Jepps answered on 13 Nov 2016:

      This is a great question! And yes I would absolutely eat before competing even if it was early in the morning. It has taken me lots of practice at getting the formula for what to eat and when correct, but I know that if I do not fuel well for my races then my performance is significantly worse than what I would expect. Normally it would not be the first race of the day that would be unsatisfactory, but as the day goes on I would begin to feel the effects of a poor fuelling strategy.

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