The Fuelling Guide · Run a faster half marathon

A faster half marathon costs more energy per hour, and a larger share of it comes from carbohydrate, but you are also out there for less time. Your expected finishing time decides whether you carb load in the days before and how many gels you take during the race: two, three or four. At race pace a gel may sit less well than on an easy run. That is why you also test your gel beforehand in your race-pace session.

This guide follows the steps of the training package “Run a faster half marathon” and of the heart-rate plan with the same goal: your gut training in three steps in your long run, with a gel in your race-pace session, your 10 km tune-up race as a first trial, your dress rehearsal about 3 weeks before and your race plan for your expected finishing time. At each step you can read why it is in your plan and what it means for your body weight and your expected finishing time. The tables follow the calculation rules of the package. You can also use the guide on its own.

In eight chapters, a box (a table in chapter 16) sets out what is well supported, what mostly comes from practice and what is still open, such as whether a gel sits worse at race pace than at an easy pace. For each trial the guide explains, you can read who took part: runners, cyclists or other endurance athletes.

What’s inside

• What your half marathon asks of you: what a faster half marathon costs per hour, what your body carries in its own stores, how many gels that comes to for each finishing time, which side of the loading cut-off you are on, and where an attempt at a faster time can go wrong: a start that is too fast, your stomach at race pace, a loading choice that does not match your finishing time and drinking too little or too much.
• The months before: eating enough for your training, eating around your key sessions, your gut training in three steps (from ± 30–40 to ± 50–60 g of carbohydrate per hour) with a gel in your race-pace session, your 10 km tune-up race as a first trial and your dress rehearsal, with the weigh-in test.
• The final days: one carbohydrate-rich day or two loading days, depending on whether your expected finishing time is under or over ± 1h30, with a table for your body weight, race week day by day and the breakfast that suits your start time.
• Race day: your gel plan for your expected finishing time, with three race plans worked out in full, a lower race plan if your gut training went less smoothly, your gels and the drinks stations, drinking to thirst with an upper limit from your own weigh-in test, salt, caffeine, hot, cold or wet weather, and an emergency plan if things still go wrong.
• After the finish: what you eat and drink in the first hours, and how to get going again gently over the three weeks after.
• Good to know: what research has shown so far about women and older runners, and about 120 g per hour, hydrogel, bicarbonate, ketones and other new products.

With eight worksheets to print (your race plan, your weigh-in test, your gut-training ladder, a loading planner, a breakfast planner, a test log, a supporter card and an emergency plan), a reference list and a glossary.

Who it is for

Anyone who has already run at least one half marathon and now wants to go faster, with or without the training package or the heart-rate plan “Run a faster half marathon”. The tables assume an expected finishing time of ± 1h20 to 2h15.

With the training package

If you buy the training package “Run a faster half marathon” (on Payhip: “Trainingspakket · Halve marathon verbeteren”, with one or two lactate field tests on the track and a tailored training-plan dossier in Dutch), you get this guide free.

Size

130 pages · 21 figures · 23 tables · 8 worksheets · 123 scientific sources (with a DOI where available) · glossary of 32 terms.

This guide gives general information on nutrition for endurance runners. It is not a substitute for advice from a doctor or dietitian.