RTTC #208 What Should You Eat When Training for runDisney Races?

In this episode of Running to the Castle, Dr. Ali talks about one of the most common questions runDisney runners ask: what should you eat when training for your races? 

She explains why there is no single “healthy” meal plan that works for every runner. Using personal stories about her own possible food sensitivities and allergic type reactions, she shows how the same food can work well for one person and be a terrible choice for someone else. 

Dr. Ali breaks down how your nutrition should shift depending on your training phase... whether you are building strength, focusing on speed, recovering, carb loading for race week, or fueling long runs. 

The big takeaway is that your nutrition should match both your goals and the foods your body actually tolerates... not just what the internet says is “healthy.”

Learn more about Stronger. Faster. Finisher. !

Ready to cross the finish line stronger, faster, and prouder at your next runDisney race? 

Get personalized support, smarter training, and strategies designed specifically for slow, back-of-the-pack or injury-prone runners who want to build a bigger buffer ahead of the balloon ladies, have time for character photos and energy to enjoy the Disney Parks. Learn more about the Stronger. Faster. Finisher. Program today and be the first to know when doors open!

Free Resources

• Follow me on Instagram @rundisneydpt
• Join the Facebook Community to get training support
• Check out FREE training plans for injury-prone runDisney runners on my website. 
• Book a Free 30 minute Call with me if you're wondering how you should train and if working together makes sense.
  
  Hi, I'm Dr. Ali
  I've been running for 15+ years and been in the rehab space since 2012 when I earned my Doctor of Physical Therapy Degree. I get injury prone runDisney runners across the finish line without feeling broken.

Transcript

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Hey, how's it going? Today I'm talking about what should you eat when training for Run Disney races. This is Running to the Castle, a podcast for injury-prone Run Disney runners on a journey to running magical miles. Join me, Dr. Alley, as I share the secrets I've gathered as a runner, doctor of physical therapy, and coach. You'll learn the exact ways I get my clients to the castle strong without feeling broken or held together with KT tape as they cross the finish line. I'm talking about this because this is another question that comes up often. What should I be eating? And a lot of times, I'd say the majority of the time, runners are asking me this because they want to know what to fuel with on their long runs, before, during, and after their long runs, and then before, during, and after races. That's when they're most thinking of, most often thinking of it. But what you should be eating is affected your entire year, your entire training season, all five phases of a successful running journey. And whether you're tapering, whether you're in race week, whether you're trying to get stronger or faster, or be able to run for longer without taking a rest break or with fit taking fewer or shorter rest breaks. So I'm talking about this mainly because of that, but also, little background, this was prompted, like it's it's at the forefront of my mind because of something that happened to me this weekend. And I see on the internet all of the time, and I will even hear my clients in Stronger, Faster Finish, or my group training program to get you across the finish line as a stronger, faster, and a Run Disney finisher, right? Stronger, faster finisher. I have to put that in there because somebody asked me what that name was. So anyway, I many runners on the internet in my group will say things like, Well, I eat healthy. And then I even listened to my strength coach's podcast the other day. And she said something about like people saying that they eat pretty healthy. And hers was in reference to not losing weight or not making the physique gains that they wanted. So it's been on top of my mind. And then today really just kicked it over the edge. So I ate, let me back up. It was Royal's birthday a couple of weeks ago, and we were going to celebrate by having his parents over and then his sister, uh, her fiance, and our nephew over. And we were going to celebrate that. We're very lucky that they all live relatively close. I mean, within 45 minutes of us, we all live in Las Vegas. If you don't know, Las Vegas is actually pretty big. And so they live within the 45-minute range. So we had, we were supposed to celebrate the birthday a couple of weeks ago. That didn't work out. And then so we were supposed to celebrate it this past weekend, but our nephew was sick. And so, with Royal's health concerns and Royal's dad's health concerns, having a sick four-year-old running around was not an option. And so we didn't really celebrate the birthday. I mean, we kind of, I don't know. I wouldn't say it was a full celebration, but we still had his parents come over. And so I bought blueberry muffins, coffee cake muffins, both from Costco. And then I went to this gluten-free bakery in town for Royal's pastry items. And we just, we had a a light little snack. And I, I love Costco. I love blueberry muffins. I love coffee cake, coffee cake muffins. So I was like, oh, this is perfect. I'll have two of these muffins. I'll have one blueberry, one coffee cake. I got some fruit. It was gonna be lovely. It was lovely. And so I took a bite. I probably ate a third of the blueberry muffin. And the roof of my mouth, like the soft palate. So in your mouth, you have a hard palate and a soft palate. The hard palate is like the part right behind your the top of your teeth. Excuse me. The hard palate is behind your top teeth. The soft palate is behind that as you get closer to your throat. So the soft palate of my mouth was tightening, it was constricting, it was getting smaller, it was burning, and it was starting to feel scratchy. And then my throat was starting to feel scratchy. And then I got a headache. And I was like, huh, this is weird. So I had only eaten the blueberry muffin at this point. I immediately stopped eating that, switched to the coffee cake muffin, had some water and some coffee, and these symptoms had come on within one to two minutes of eating this blueberry muffin. They went away within 10. So I was like, okay, that was weird, but not gonna finish that blueberry muffin. Had the coffee cake muffin, that was fine. Had the fruit, which was grapes, strawberries, and blueberries. All that was fine. And then after Royal's parents left, I go, well, I I told Royal, I said, Well, you know, I had something weird happen. And he was like, what? And I told him what happened when I was eating the blueberry muffin. And he was like, huh. And I go, that is a similar, but not exactly the same reaction I had in October. In October, I went to the emergency department. I thought I was having an allergic reaction because my throat was closing up after I had eaten something. Underneath my tongue was red, hot, swollen, and painful. And the back of my throat was scratchy and tight. So we went to the ER thinking it was uh an allergic reaction. And they said it wasn't. I said, okay, but they still wanted me to follow up with the allergist, followed up with the allergist, they said it wasn't, and I still asked for some food allergy testing. So they did it. All that came back normal. And so it's it's interesting that it seemed like an allergic reaction. Yeah, seemed like an allergic reaction. So what I decided to do with this blueberry is so that was Saturday. Today's Monday. Yesterday I ate just plain blueberries to see if that reaction happened. It did not. Royal and I researched it. I I looked at the ingredient list of both of the food items and the blueberry muffin and the coffee cake muffin, took pictures of it because they looked the same. I couldn't quite pick out what was different, put it into Chat GPT and was like, list out the things that are different. So they listed them out. And the only differences were really that the blueberry muffin had sour cream and active cultures in it, blueberries, and then used like corn oil or something. And then the other one had cinnamon, nutmeg, and something, one other thing that was different, brown sugar, I think. So I was like, okay, what of these could cause these symptoms? And so it said, uncommon, less likely, blueberries. You could have oral allergy syndrome. And then it said, more likely, especially with the fact that you had a headache, this um histamine intolerance to fermented foods. It's like, yeah, that's interesting. So I've heard of these things before. As I'm talking about this stuff, I'm scratching my head. So I've heard about these things before. And so yesterday I did the blueberries alone. And then today, this morning, I did yogurt alone because I've been getting similar, but not as significant, not as much of a reaction drinking my smoothie every morning. Now, my smoothie is blueberries, bananas, spinach, yogurt, water, protein powder, and collagen peptides. And my smoothie instead of yogurt used to have avocado, but it became increasingly harder for me to get avocado that was, or I, or just remember to get avocado because one of the Costco's, we have the business Costco here, and I can actually buy frozen halved avocado. And I would put a quarter of that in my smoothie, and that would be a good amount of fat for me. And I just, it's further away than the Costco I like to go to. And so I kind of got out of the habit of going there, but I'm gonna start going there again because I switched it for full fat yogurt, Greek God's brand honey vanilla. It's delicious. I ate some just the yogurt today, and I had that reaction in my mouth. And then I was itchy all over. And I was like, huh, okay. Well, guess it's the yogurt. Guess it's the fermented food. Now, of course, maybe it's not all fermented food, but I'm gonna be mindful. But then I was thinking, well, what did I have in October that could have been similar? So when I had this happen in October, it was sushi. It was a sushi bar. Now, I don't typically like sushi. I usually do vegetable sushi. So carrots, avocado, cucumber, sweet potato, a sweet potato roll is delicious, but not many places make it. It is so good. Not many places make it. So I asked Chat GPT, well, what in this would be similar? Friend, I didn't even know. Soy sauce is fermented. Rice vinegar, which is used in the in the rice, is fermented. And it said a couple other things like pickled ginger, but I don't really have that. And one other thing that I can't remember if I had, and honestly, I don't remember what it was right now. Can't remember if I had it then or not, but I definitely had soy sauce and I definitely had the rice vinegar because of the rice. So I was like, huh, okay. Well, now things are starting to add up. And so if you don't know me, um, or haven't been along long enough, in 2021, like this hasn't always always been a problem. In 2021, I had an allergic, I had a legit allergic reaction to a medication I was taking. And it was a birth control, not a pill. It was the Nuva ring. And I had been using it for 10 years and it I had had no problems. Then October 2021, I excuse me, November 10th, 2021, I vividly remember it because I had come home from a work trip with Royal and broke out in hives. At first, I thought it was bed bugs. I thought I was like covered in bites from bed bed bugs. And then the spots kept changing position. First they were on my neck, then they were in my groin, then they were in my armpits, and then they were on my hands, and then they were on my feet. If you followed me in 2021, you may or may not remember my plea of what to do for hives. My hands were so itchy. And I went to a, I called my primary care, got steroids, got prescription strength, Hepsid, Zyrtech, Allegra, Benadryl, got it all. And it helped. And then I went to a dermatologist because that's what my primary said I needed, a dermatologist because it was hives. Dermatologist said, no, I'm not the right person. Um, I'll refrill your prescription for all of this stuff, specifically the steroids, but you need to go see an allergist. So then I saw an allergist, and by that time it took a while. So I had started thinking back, like, what could this be? And I started thinking, oh, I think it's my medication because in October they had changed my brand name medication to generic. If you don't know, the difference between brand name and generic is the inactive ingredients. So the primary ingredient is going to be the same, but the inactive ingredients are the things that are different. That's how they can make it again and it still worked the same. And so the allergist didn't believe me. He said it was not possible to be allergic to this medication. Okay. And then went through all of these different options for me. So we were going to test for food allergies and different things. And in order to test for it, you have to come off the medication. So I came off of the steroids, the Zertec, the Allegra, the Pepsid, the Benadryl, came off all of it. Within hours, I was one big hive again. And so I called and I was like, hey, is there anything I can do now in order to like survive these next three days before I can get this test? And the doctor got on the phone and he goes, Oh, well, you can't do the test. I was like, why? He's like, because you're having an allergic reaction. Oh, okay. So what do I do? And so he was like, go back on it, and then we'll try and take you off it again in XYZ time. By this time, it's like January of 2022. I have figured out it's likely the medication, and I just stopped using it. It happens to be a medication. You just stop it. I did not need to taper, I don't need, I just stopped using it. People do it all the time. Usually people who are trying to get pregnant, that was not my case, but did it, stopped. And within, I think 10 days, seven to 10 days, I could stop steroids, I could stop Zertec, I could stop pepsid, everything. I was good. So I told the doctor, I was like, yeah, I really think it's this medication. He's like, hmm, not possible. It's not possible to be allergic to that one. I said, okay. And he was like, but if you think it is, do you still want to do the food allergy test? And I said, no. And so we left it. But ever since then, I have been like low-key allergic to something. And it's kind of like allergic to life. You may notice, and now that I'm saying this, you're going to pick it up every time you see a video of me. I look like I'm constantly touching my nose, scratching my head, like doing different things. And it's because I'm low-grade itchy almost all of the time. And there's this thing that can happen after you've had an allergic reaction where your body is just hyped up at kind of thing. And so you just, I mean, it's like if if having all of the hives and that allergic reaction was 100%, I'm like 5%, right? Like it's, it's low enough. I don't even notice me like touching my face and you know being itchy that much anymore. As I literally just scratched my head. For the most part, I'm not aware of it. But I'm definitely doing it. And so I've tried researching all these different things. When the problem happened on in October, I got allergy testing. All of the allergy tests came back negative. The food allergy tests came back negative. And I just noticed that when I am excessively stressed out, I start breaking out in hives. And I'll just, I'll take a Zertec. And, or if it's during the day, I take an Allegra. If it's at night, I take a Zertec. And I'm usually fine. But I wonder if me having this fermented food is contributing. So now I'm going to pay attention and see if this helps my low-key itchy. That is a long story to say or to start this point of. And it frustrates some people and other people love it. The reason I won't tell you what you should eat, because I don't know what you can eat with so many food allergies that exist, food sensitivities that exist, I don't know what you can tolerate. I don't know if you have Crohn's, IBS, ulcerative colitis, celiac disease. Maybe you have MCAS, which is the thing that I'm talking about. I'm undiagnosed with it, but I treat myself as if I have it because no doctor will diagnose me with it. I've asked a couple of different ones, primary care. I've tried to get in to see somebody at Mayo Clinic when Royal goes there, and the registration team said that nobody treats that. And I was like, I I don't, I don't think that's true. At the Mayo Clinic, I don't think that's true, but whatever. That was a bad day. I did not like that. And so these different foods, going back to like talking about healthy versus not healthy, that's not like a thing that I will say. Like these healthy foods. Foods are not good or bad and healthy, unhealthy. For, you know, there are healthy your foods, right? And when talking about healthy your, we really have to look at like what is the makeup of the food? And then we have to look at what's the purpose of you having this food, right? Like somebody might say McDonald's is incredibly unhealthy. Okay, but what about to the unhoused person who doesn't have money to go and buy food, but they get a gift card to McDonald's. That cheeseburger that they're eating at McDonald's is healthier than starving, right? You may or may not agree with that. That is my opinion. That is how I think in relation to food. And so, you know, talking about this yogurt that I threw out today, looking at that, that's healthy, right? Quote unquote healthy. Because I'm using the term that somebody else, the lay person, would be saying yogurt is healthy. That particular yogurt is healthy. It has few ingredients, it has organic ingredients, it talks about all these different live cultures. Well, for me, that yogurt is not healthy because I'm having an allergic, allergic-like reaction to it. My throat is closing up and it's itchy and it's scratchy. Itchy and scratchy. What show was that where itchy and scratchy were? Is that Simpsons? Never watched it very much, but I itchy and scratchy, that just like unlocked memory, right? But for you, yogurt might be a very healthy breakfast or snack. For Royal, who has celiac disease, eating a burrito with organic free-range grilled chicken, organic fajita veggies, organic salsa, organic avocado, but on a flour tortilla is not healthy for him because he has celiac disease and his body cannot tolerate gluten and he will have bad side effects from that. But that burrito might be very healthy for me. See why I don't want to say healthy, unhealthy? Because it's relative. It's the same food, it's the same meal, and for one person it's healthy, and for one person it's not. So that's why I say there's no healthy, unhealthy by just talking about a food. We need to talk about what the person can tolerate as well. And so I won't tell you exactly you have to have two eggs and bacon and a piece of toast with orange juice for breakfast. I won't tell you that. What instead I will do is, okay, what phase of the running journey are you in? What is your goal? And what foods do you like? Some people really like that I lead with the what foods do you like? Because I will manipulate the foods that you like into helping you succeed with your goal. I won't tell you how many calories you should be eating, and I won't tell you exactly how much protein, fats, and carbs you should be having. That's not my role. But if you want to be building muscle, like right now, I am heavy on strength training. Yes, I am currently training for springtime surprise, but I'm just looking to finish and I know I can finish springtime surprise. And this is when my strength coach was running her program. So I'm starting it. And I will just modify once I get to the taper phase for springtime surprise. But right now, my goal is to get stronger. That means I need to build muscle. In order to build muscle, I need to be eating more protein than I would during race week, as an example. And maybe I need to eat fewer carbs and fewer fats, but I do need to balance out the carbs with for my long runs. So it all depends on what your goal is and where you are in that running journey. And then we take the same foods that you like to eat and address it. So, as an example today, after my walk, I walked Levi, I did cross training, which was a walk for me because um, with me being itchy today, I should not raise up my heart rate, my body temperature, or anything like that too high. So instead of doing a speed workout today, I did a not super leisurely walk, but it was more leisurely than doing a speed workout. And then I did strength training. Well, while I was stretching, is when I start eating. So I had my protein shake and then I had a half, half of a turkey sandwich. So I did half so that I only had one piece of bread. Oh, and I had an apple. I did half, so I only had one piece of bread. So that my full serving of turkey on one slide. Of bread was more protein heavy compared to a meal that had two slices of bread. If I were in race week where I need more carbs, I would have decreased the amount of turkey and had it on two slices of bread. It's still a turkey sandwich. And I'm really boring with my turkey sandwiches. I literally have turkey, sometimes cheese, but that's rare. I'm not a huge cheese eater. Turkey and honey Dijon mustard. That's it. That's my turkey sandwich. You're probably thinking, Allie, that is so boring. That does not sound good. Great. That's okay. You don't need to eat it. I like that very much. But see the difference. So full serving or more of turkey on a single slice of bread when I am trying to decrease my carb intake a little bit. I can't do no carbs because I'm going to have no energy to work out. But since I want to be more protein-oriented, that's serving size or a little bit more of turkey. I also had my protein shake as my drink instead of just plain water, instead of a diet coke. Now I'm drinking a diet coke as we're doing this, but I made a purposeful effort to have that protein shake then. And it's still a turkey sandwich. Eating it during my build phase where I want more protein, I do one slice of bread and more turkey. If I were in race phase, I would do two slices of bread, less turkey. See how I manipulated the same food item? That's how you should manage it. Before and during long runs, you're going carb heavy. Race week, you're going carb heavy. The rest of the week during regular training, it can be a normal diet. But the night before a long run, the morning before a long run, during a long run, we're thinking carbs, carbs, carbs. After the long run, 30 grams of protein within half an hour of finishing that long run. That's why I really like to eat or drink my smoothie while I'm stretching. Then when we switch to race phase, that whole, almost that whole week is carb loading, depending on what race distance you're doing. We're thinking carbs. Maybe we're not eating a ton Monday and Tuesday. Let's say dopey, for example. Maybe Monday and Tuesday, we're not eating a ton of carbs, but we're thinking carbs. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, we are carb heavy. I want minimal to no protein. That's because that's just gonna sit in your stomach and it's gonna fill you up, which is why for weight loss, you will hear doctors tell you, you will hear the weight loss advisors tell you go high in protein. So when we're in race week, we don't want to fill up on protein. We don't want our stomach to get full on protein first and then not have room to have 900 grams of carbs per day leading up to race day. That's about how many carbs you're going to have if you weigh 200 pounds and are doing dopey. About 900 grams. You want eight to 12 grams per kilogram body weight. And if I'm remembering my math correctly, 200 pounds is about 90 kilograms. Yep, 200 pounds, 90 kilograms. And you want eight to 12 grams of carbs per kilogram. So split the difference, just add a zero at the end of how many kilograms you weigh. So 90 kilograms, add a zero. That's 900 grams of carbs. Aim for 900 grams of carbs, because that's the middle between eight and 12. That's how many carbs you want to have. But then in the rest and recovery phase, we're going a little bit more protein heavy, fewer carbs. In the build phase, if you're looking to build strength and speed, we need to go heavier on the protein. So, like what I'm doing right now, talking about that turkey sandwich, one slice of bread. I'm not cutting out carbs completely because we need carbs for energy, but I'm doing it more protein heavy. So I'm having a little bit more than a serving of turkey, one slice of bread instead, or compared to race week, if I'm having a turkey sandwich, I'm having less turkey, two slices of bread. And then I probably would have had a full soda coke, full soda coke, full sugar coke instead of the protein shake. If this was race week, or an orange juice, or an apple juice, or a Gatorade, because those are carb heavy as opposed to the protein shake. I specifically chose the protein shake now because I want to be more protein heavy. So it doesn't matter really what you're eating. Some things are purposeful for protein, some things are purposeful for fat, some things are purposeful for carbs, and some things are purposeful because you enjoy them. I'll get that every once in a while. I shouldn't have it every day because it's not going to fill me up compared to something else that has the same number of calories. That's what happens with fast food. It gives you a lot of calories, but then you still want to be eating more. And I don't remember, honestly, I don't remember what is causing that. Is it different chemicals in it? I don't know. So I shouldn't have In N Out cheeseburger three times a day every day. But every once in a while, that's fine. But let's look at what you do like to eat. How many grams of protein are in it, how many grams of fat are in it, how many grams of carbs are in it? Do you even like it? Or do you are you eating it just because somebody told you it's healthy? And then, depending on what phase of the running journey you're in, does it match your goals?