What To Eat Before A Half Marathon

Your breakfast can have a significant impact on your ability to run a half marathon.

If you want to run your best half marathon then you need to know what to eat before racing a half marathon. Read on!

If you prefer video content, you can watch a video on what to eat before a half marathon here.

You can also download a carbohydrate loading plan from here

Is breakfast important before running a half marathon?

The short answer is absolutely, yes.

If you get breakfast right then it means you’re less likely to get tummy upset and anything associated with that like a side stitch or the dreaded porta-loo stop and you’re also going to be able to perform better and run to the best of your ability.

Now contrary to popular belief breakfast isn’t the thing that is going to power you round your half marathon. It has an impact, but the more significant influence is actually what you’ve eaten in the days before and what you eat during the half marathon itself, and we’ll go over that later.

But breakfast isn’t about stuffing as much in as you can to get you round that course.

Breakfast is actually about making you feel good and topping up your carbohydrates stores.

You might know this already, but if not you have 2 main sources of fuel when it comes to running, and that’s fats and carbohydrates. When it comes to exercise you have essentially an unlimited amount of fat to use as fuel, but a limited amount of carbohydrates and this store can run out.

If you’ve ever heard of someone hitting the wall, or bonking, that’s the term used when you run out of carbs and have to slow down, and if you’ve ever done it - well, it’s pretty damn horrible and we want to avoid that.

Now when you’re running a half marathon you’re going to predominantly be using carbohydrates so that’s our focus.

We have a store for about 90 minutes of controlled hard exercise, but that’s only if we’re well topped up to start with.

So the first aim of breakfast is to top up our carb stores, and ideally you want a carbohydrate source like bread, rice, pasta or oats along with fruit like a banana.

These combine to help replace your glycogen stores, which is what carbs are stored as in the body, which is going to help you race as fast as possible for as long as possible.

What foods should you eat before your half marathon? (or avoid!)

Along with being carbohydrate focussed, generally your half marathon breakfast should be low in fibre, fat and a low to medium amount of protein.

The reason here is that those nutrients are all harder and slower to digest, and more of these in your breakfast will make you much, much more likely to have tummy upset when you run - think bloating, cramps or the dreaded runners diarrhoea.

Fibre fat and protein also won’t contribute to performance in your race so avoiding them in your race day breakfast is a good idea.

Generally this means that your breakfast before a half marathon should be avoiding anything too ‘heavy’, so by that we’re thinking of things like full fat milks, cheeses, nut butters or wholegrain carbohydrates.

Usually these things fit in a healthy balanced diet but they don’t fit in your race day breakfast in any large quantities.

When should you eat breakfast before a half marathon?

In terms of timeframe I would suggest eating at least 3 hours out from your race if you can. You might need more or less than that but that’s a pretty good timeframe to allow you to digest what you’ve eaten.

This is very personal. Some runners can run about 60 minutes after food, whilst others need about 4 hours. We’ll talk about practice later on but that is the most important thing here - practice in advance!

Half marathon breakfast ideas

So, with all of that out of the way let’s give you some potential race day breakfasts so you’ve got some ideas for your own breakkie.

The current guidance is that your breakfast should be between 1-4 grams of carbohydrates per kg of bodyweight. That’s a little bit confusing for a lot of people, so the following examples are more ‘standard’ options that every runner should be able to understand.

The mantra is enough to feel like you’ve eaten something but not so much that you feel full.

Overnight oats

First up is the classic overnight oats or porridge with fruit.

This is a pretty standard go to breakfast which fits the bill. It’s carbohydrate focussed with fruit without being overly high in fat, fibre or protein.

I would suggest using semi-skimmed milk or something like oat, soya or almond milk rather than full fat milk and I’d avoid anything like nuts or seeds in this.

Some people will actually find oats too fibrous but that’s all trial and error.

Low fat rice pudding with fruit

Now next up, and it’s what I actually eat before any of my races, is rice pudding and fruit.

I find this suits me well, I feel good and it hits what I need.

It also means it’s easily transportable so if you’re racing elsewhere you can take it with you or buy it in a tin wherever you are.

This is a super low fibre option and I think it’s a really good one for a lot of people.

I actually raced at the European Age group triathlon championships in Valencia last year and took a couple of tins of my favourite rice pudding with me as I was scared I wouldn’t be able to get any out there - home comforts!

Banana breaad

Another breakfast you could go for which is slightly more adventurous is a sweet option like banana bread.

Now this one does depend on how arsed you can be to make it and whether you can even make it, but it does fit our nutritional goals.

Use less butter or full fat products when you make it and avoid extra toppings like nuts.

This is a super fun one in my opinion, and for people who struggle with eating early it might be just what they need.

I mean, even if it’s early morning, who can say no to some tasty banana bread?

Other breakfast possibilities:

White baguette with jam

White bread with small amount of nut butter and fruit

Carb based snack bar

White rice and honey

Pancakes

Liquid based carbohydrate drinks

These are all good options and my advice would be to find which you think you will enjoy, especially if you have to eat it early in the morning, and then practice it.

Practice makes a perfect half marathon

Practice well in advance of your half marathon and practice with the same timeframes you’d expect on your race day.

So by that I mean aim to eat breakfast at the same time as you would and then try going out for a run after. If you can do that repeatedly with different intensity sessions and feel ok then you’re onto a winner.

If you get anything like tummy upset then you can try things like reducing how much you’ve eaten or giving it longer before you run, and if all that fails…. then it might be worth trying a different breakfast instead.

And with that, have fun with your training and have an awesome half marathon!