Clyde Wilson was a naval service member who enjoyed weight training and working out, when his doctor on the USS Carl Vinson informed him he was on the verge of needing medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol. After making a transformative change in his nutritional habits, he went on to study chemistry and cell biology at Stanford and now teaches there and the University of California San Francisco Medical School. In addition, he runs The Center for Human Nutrition and Exercise Science in Palo Alto, California.
This month, we asked Dr. Clyde to weigh in about the lethargy many runners struggle through after a long run.
1. When many runners finish a big long run, often they report feeling extremely lethargic and low energy for much of the rest of the day, even after eating. From a nutrition perspective, what may be going on here?
Athletes need to replace their carbohydrate losses from training at a rate that their muscles are willing to absorb those carbohydrates. If you burn 1000 calories in a workout, roughly 800 calories of which are carbohydrate, and attempt to replace all of those carbohydrates at one sitting, the over-flow of calories into your bloodstream will send more than half of it to fat cells, where the carbohydrate will be converted into fat.
Therefore, eating enough calories is not enough.
The calories have to go into lean tissues to actually help you recover. Not eating enough is another way to fall short. So the athlete has to eat enough carbohydrate, but spaced out over time or eaten with vegetables so that the carbohydrate calories enter the body at a rate muscle is willing to absorb them. Protein helps re-build lean tissue but is unrelated to the feelings of lethargy after hard training.
2. What are some best bet tips on things runners can do after the run to avoid that day-long bonky feeling?
The best thing a runner can do to avoid the day-long bonky feeling is to eat 100-200 Cal of carbohydrate, mainly in the form of glucose, every 2-3 hours. You could start with a recovery drink (first ingredient should be maltodextrin) right after training, and then granola, bread, yams, or similar foods an hour later and every 2-3 hours after that.
3. What, if anything, can runners do during the run to help avoid these post-run problems as well?
During running, consume 50-250 calories of glucose per hour (depending on training intensity, how much lean mass you have, and how well you are hydrating).
