Eating After the Marathon: A Guide to Quick Recovery
Congratulations, you’ve just finished a marathon and you may be tempted to now finally eat and drink whatever you’ve tried to avoid in the weeks before this event. But you may want to take an minute and consider that eating whatever want may not be your best choice.
Here are the three Rs for a quick and good recovery:
1. Rehydrate
2. Refuel
3. Rebuilt
Rehydrate
Perhaps you don’t feel like it but your body most certainly will need fluids after a marathon. So drink, drink and drink. Of course the amount of liquid we need to replace depends individual factors but as a rule of thumb we recommend to replace 150% the amount of weight you have lost. This means: A person weighing 50 kilos will need to drink 1,5 liters on a day with an average temperature. If you want to know it exactly weigh yourself before and after the race. Sports drinks will generally be better for you than just plain water.
Refuel
Your muscles can only store a certain amount of glycogen and by the time you reach the finish line they will be empty. The best thing to do is eat easily digestable calories from carbohydrates
Rebuilt
During every training session and competition very small parts of your muscle tissue is actually being damaged. That sounds worse than it is. In fact it’s part of a natural process that makes our muscles stronger and perform better. But in order to help repair your muscle tissue you should also eat or drink enough protein. In combination with carbohydrates it even improves your body’s ability to store glycogen.
The recommend amount is 0,8g of carbohydrates and 0,4g of protein per kilo of your body weight per hour for about six hours after the race. You can buy ready-made Recovery Shakes, for example, or make your own with low-fat milk and some cocoa powder.
