Should you eat before you run?

Last time I talked about early morning running and a question I’m often asked is, is it better to eat before running or go out on an empty stomach?

The evidence is inconclusive in terms of which is best for fat burning ( in fact, a recent study found that men and women differ in their metabolic response and that men burn more fat by training on an empty stomach while women’s fat metabolism is increased if they eat before training).

The simple answer though is, do what works best for you.

As I mentioned last time, a short easy run can safely be done on an empty stomach and this will give you some precious extra minutes in bed.

However if you’re going out for any more than an hour, you’d be best to have at least a small snack.

There are several ways to do this; you can either get up 10 mins earlier and eat something which is quick to digest, or you can head out the door and take an energy drink or snack to eat on the run ( if you can stomach this).

I had a friend who used to set his alarm for a couple of hours before his run – down a smoothie – then go back to sleep until it was time to get up and train.

One thing I will say is that, if you’re training for a morning race, you must get into the habit of eating early in the morning.

When I was Marathon training I would do most of my morning runs on an empty stomach, however I would use my long run on a Sunday to practice my race day routine of getting up, eating my race- day breakfast, going through my pre- race routine then heading out for my long run.

It meant getting up a wee bit earlier but also meant that come race day,

I wasn’t doing anything that wasn’t familiar and I knew that my fuelling strategy was one which was tried and tested.

You’ll notice us runners all have our own routines which we like to keep to, and each one of us is different.

Mo Farah claims to start his day with Frosties and coffee, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the best fuelling strategy for you. It’s important that if you want to do your best in races, you use training runs to work out exactly what works for you and what doesn’t. Control as many variables as you can and hopefully the race will look after itself.

Jog on.