Sport Nutritionist Gives His Top Four 10km Race Tips: Pacing and Fuel Strategy
Whether you’re a complete beginner or an experienced runner looking for a new personal best, 10km is a tough distance to complete. Needless to say, you’re going to need all the help you can get.
In this article, I’m going to run through the best nutrition principles for a 10km so you can at least feel confident you’ve nailed this aspect of it.
Take a look at some of the best 10k race tips that’ll boost you to the finish line on your next go!
What Is a 10k Run?
The “K” actually stands for kilometers in a 10k, so a 10k run is a long-distance running event that consists of 10 kilometers. That’s right about 6.2 miles.
Nutrition can totally make or break a 10k. That’s why I’m going to go through 3 of the best nutrition tips for you. I’m also going to cover one thing you don’t need to do, which may surprise you!
How To Run a 10k
But, right before you get the nutritional aspect of nailing this run down, there are some general tips and tricks to adopt that’ll help you ace your next run.
This is not just some 10k running plan for beginners, these rules could help even the most experienced runners gain a new best. You should:
Include some race-pace workouts in your training sessions and follow a 10km plan
Improve your core strength for better running strength and posture
Have a race strategy in place (I’ve got you covered!)
Start with a warm-up before the race
Know what to eat before a 10k
Keep these main pointers in mind and let’s delve into some more specific advice!
4 Tips for Running Your Best 10k
1. Know What To Eat Before a 10k Run
Picture starting a long road trip with the right balance of fuel; you wouldn’t want to fill your car with the wrong type. If you do, it’s probably not going to work right - it might feel clunky, it might stop and start or it might break down altogether.
You wouldn’t want that now, would you?
Your body before a 10km race is similar; it needs the right kind of fuel to run efficiently and minimize the risk of any problems happening. This is one of the best 10k tip for race day.
There are 3 main problems when it comes to breakfast or any meal before a 10k race:
Not eating anything
Eating too much
Eating the wrong foods.
To put things simply, you should eat before 10km if you want to run it as well as possible. It’s a demanding race (even for veterans!) that will require effort, which means carbohydrates are a must because they show clear performance benefits.
However, because it’s hard, a good tip is not to eat too much before a 10km race because you’ll increase the risk of tummy upset like stitches and bloating during the race.
You can imagine your breakfast before 10k or the meal before is just a top-up of your energy stores and it’s not actually the thing that’s going to power you through the race.
Knowing what to eat before a 10km race is super important and this should give you some guidance:
One important 10k race day tip is to avoid “heavy” foods, which are typically high fat, high protein and high fiber foods for breakfast. All these take longer and are harder to digest.
This is also a general rule for knowing what to eat before running in the morning because the same principles apply!
They’re not worth it as seen in this study detailing how high intensity exercises require more carbs and less fat and vice versa.
Have your breakfast a minimum of 2 hours before your race or even up to about 4 hours before the run.
I would also suggest you practice during training to make sure it’s okay, including intervals at race pace.
To optimize hydration, I’d suggest 500ml of water with 250mg of sodium with your breakfast. You can use a sport-specific electrolyte tablet for this to make it easy - check the label for the amounts!
If it only gives the value as “salt” then you’re looking for about 0.6g of salt per electrolyte tablet.
Table salt is made up of 40% sodium and 60% chloride, which means you can take 40% of the “salt” value to work out the sodium content.
2. Pacing Yourself: The Tortoise and the Hare Approach
Recall the tale of the tortoise and the hare; starting too quickly, like the hare, can lead to an early burnout. A steady, well-paced start helps manage energy reserves, similar to the tortoise's strategy to win the race.
That’s a really nice story that completely sums up the approach you should take to running a 10k and pacing it.
Besides knowing what to eat the night before a 10k race or anytime close to the run at all, one of the most important 10k race tips is to start slow and get faster over the course of the race.
This is called negative splitting, and there are 2 big advantages to this.
Firstly, it feels bloody amazing to gradually get faster over the race and finish as strong as you can. You can zip past people and feel super smug about feeling so good.
Secondly, there’s a genuine physical benefit to this.
When you go harder than you can sustain, you produce lactate. Lactate itself isn’t bad, but a product of the system is hydrogen ions or protons, and these are what make your muscles feel super heavy and like you have to slow down.
By building into the race you should reduce the risk of this build-up happening too soon and instead be able to get to the finish line feeling like you’ve given it everything
Practice this in training and you’ll see what I mean. You should be able to feel that gradual build of intensity rather than when you run and within a couple of minutes you suddenly realize it feels way too hard because unfortunately that’s only ever going to get worse in a 10k unless you stop.
Before we move on to the next tip, if you want to learn how to recover properly after a 10k you can check out my free recovery guide.
3. Nutrition and Fluid Intake During the Race: Less is More
I have a client whom I started working with not long before running their fastest-ever 10k.
We talked about nutrition strategies for a 10k and they were surprised at one of my suggestions, which seemed counterintuitive to them.
They were used to taking nutrition on during a 10k, having previously used gels to help give them an energy boost during the race.
However, my advice to them was not to consume anything during it, and for most, this is the same advice I would give.
A lot of runners line up with a pocket full of sweets or several gels ready to slurp as they go, but this isn’t necessary.
10km is a relatively short duration in terms of time, and what you consume during it isn’t going to have much effect by the end.
The caveat here is that if it’s going to take more than about 90 minutes, you probably would benefit from consuming nutrition during it.
But realistically, if you’re doing it under that time, it’s just going to increase the risk of stomach upset and you wouldn’t want to be worrying about that while you run.
This is what I told the client I was working with. We talked about the lack of need for nutrition during the 10km and they ran it safe in the knowledge that they didn’t actually require it.
The same principle goes for water.
4. The Myth of Carb Loading: Not Required for the Short Haul
Think of preparing a small fire for a short, warm glow versus a bonfire for hours of heat. Carb loading for a marathon is like building that bonfire, but for a 10km race, you only need a small, efficient fire.
If you imagine you’re trying to heat a little room then you just need a small, steady fire that starts from a small collection of wood.
But if you’re trying to create a bonfire, you’ll need a lot more fuel for it and a much more dedicated approach.
One of the best 10k race day tips is that when you’re running 10km, you don’t need to carb load, unlike for a half marathon or above
Now it won’t strictly do any harm, but it’s not required unless you’re expecting it to take longer than about 90 minutes
Carb loading aims to maximize glycogen stores, which is incredibly useful for long-distance events.
As detailed in the what to eat before a 10km race section above, you really don’t need heavy foods.
What to eat the day before a race, I’d say, is a good portion of carbs with every main meal, and about 1.5x the amount of carbs compared to what you would normally have for that meal.
It is still worth following the core concepts of carb loading and race prep, which is to transition to a lower fibre diet 2-3 days before, as well as having less fat and protein the day before your race too.
If you’d want more guidance on that, here’s a carb loading plan that’s sure to help.
FAQs
What To Eat Before a 10k Run?
One important part of a 10k running plan for beginners is figuring out the right thing to eat before a 10k run. You want to avoid any kind of meal that will make you feel bloated as that’ll definitely slow you down.
Like I mentioned earlier, carb loading is really not that necessary. What you should take into deeper consideration instead as breakfast before a 10k or any meal before the race for that matter is one of a moderate portion size.
Opt for foods that digest easily at least an hour before the race, like an almond butter toast or sweet potatoes. Besides what to eat, it’s also important you remember to hydrate sufficiently before the race as well.
What To Eat Before Running in The Morning?
What you have as a meal before running in the morning is slightly different from any regular breakfast.
You’re going to need nutrients that’ll get your muscles ready to go and will provide satiation without making you feel heavy or bloated, like carbs, protein and a bit of fat.
You can never go wrong with some oatmeal, Scotch pancakes, white toast with jam or even a low-fat fruit yoghurt.
What To Eat The Day Before a Race?
Deciding on what to eat the day before a race can be quite influential in propelling you to that finish line much quicker than your competition.
If you expect your race to take more than 90 minutes then carb loading is a must. Otherwise, eating slightly larger carbohydrate portions the day before should be adequate.
Now, improving your nutrition is just one part of the puzzle and these 10k tips for race days will surely help you fit those pieces perfectly.
But, if you want to really up your game then you should work on your daily diet because this will help you to train and recover better.
Be sure to check out this super informative video on the best first 10k race tips to find extra nutritional advice when it comes to running a 10k and this free carbohydrate loading plan.
