5 Dangerous Marathon Myths

5 Dangerous Marathon Myths

It was Groundhog Day this week in the U.S. and I got to thinking about how culturally we make up traditions and myths.  Punxsutawney Phil has no bearing on the weather whatsoever but somehow our Neanderthal brains get some comfort out of shamanistic rituals.

In the same way in our running, stuff that people made up decades ago still hangs around the sport as part of our mythos.  Let’s look at some of these myths and pull ourselves out of our own holes of ignorance and see them for the shadows that they are.

1. You need to carbo-load pasta leading up to your race.

I love this one.  This is a big, fat, whopping lie. 

Every big race has a ‘pasta dinner’ on the night before the race.  This one has probably been around as long as humanity in some form or other.  “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” sounds a lot like carbo-loading for a marathon and that’s at least 2500 years old.

In the context of the marathon this became a popular concept with the first running boom of the 1970’s.  Someone figured that you need energy in a race and that energy came from carbohydrates, and pasta was a good, cheap source of carbohydrates, so hey, eat a bunch of pasta! 

The last thing you want to do the night before a marathon is eat too much of anything.  Where do you think it goes?  Does it magically get sucked up into your leg muscles like a Super Mario power-up? No, your body takes what it can use and the rest of it goes to your colon where it bothers you with a certain urgency and insistence in the morning right before your race. 

Really?  You don’t think you have enough going on and enough stress on race morning that you need to throw a little intestinal expediency into the mix?  Not to put too fine a point on it but the concept of loading up on anything the night before a race is literally ‘a bunch of crap’.

Pasta, depending on your nutritional religious leanings may not be the best either.  Pasta, in our modern world is a highly processed product.  I’d stay away from it in general especially if your have a sensitivity to grains or gluten, etc.  If you must have your pre-race primavera have a normal to small serving. 

Don’t pre-load massive quantities of anything.  Just eat normal, if not lighter than normal, portions of the same healthy whole foods you have been eating throughout your training cycle, (if you’re smart).

2. You need to preload water before the race

This is a fairly easy myth to wrap your head around.  It goes something like “when you run long distance you sweat, sweat is water, therefor you should drink a lot of water to get ready for your race.’  What could possibly be wrong with that?  New runners hear this type of sentiment as ‘make sure you’re well hydrated’ and translate it into ‘Guzzle water for 3 straight days leading up to your race.

Not a good idea.  Where do you think all the water goes?  Do you think that you are the human equivalent of a camel and you can just store up a few gallons in a fatty hump somewhere for later use?

Sorry, that’s not what happens.  What happens if you pound water is you pee a lot.  The other thing that happens is you actually flush electrolytes and other useful stuff out of your system.  That not only puts your body chemistry out of balance it makes you deficit in the exact stuff you are going to need for the race.

What should you do?  Certainly you can stay hydrated, in the sense that you don’t want to be thirsty but don’t overdo it.  How about this for a novel idea…’drink when you’re thirsty’.  I’ve grown rather fond of coconut water recently because it has natural electrolytes and other good stuff in it and I may have one or two of those the night before as I’m relaxing in my hotel room. 

A corollary to this myth is that you should watch your urine color and keep drinking until it’s clear.  Folks, your urine color is as much based on your diet as you hydration.  This is one of those rules of thumb that could get you in trouble if your body chemistry or diet is different.  Just drink healthy, natural stuff when you’re thirsty and you’ll be fine.

3. You need to stay super hydrated during the race

I few years ago race directors realized how dangerous this myth is when back of the packers started dying with Hyponatremia – water poisoning.  The ‘experts’ told these folks that they needed to stay hydrated and these poor folks at the back of the pack drank water until they died! 

You only need to replace the water that you are using through sweat in the race.  Do you know how much that is?  It’s easy to figure out.  Go to a treadmill.  Weigh yourself before you start.  Weigh yourself after.  The difference is your sweat rate. 

Depending on conditions you may not lose that much water.  I ran a 16 mile race last weekend and still had water left in my bottle at the end.  It was just about freezing and my sweat rate at that temperature is not that high.  It is going to be dependent on your physiology, your effort level and the temperature.  Figure it out and know your machine. Don’t just swill water like a psychopath because some nutter in that running magazine said to. 

4. You need to eat gels and goop in a marathon

The myth here is that somehow you are going to be able to eat and process magic energy food during your race that is going to seamlessly replace all the energy you lose by running.  That’s just not true.  Your body can’t absorb all that stuff.  Most of it is processed sugar that will more than likely just make you sick if you eat enough of it.

“So, Chris,” you may ask, “What do you do to have energy during the race?”  My first suggestion would be to train well enough that you don’t need that sugar crutch.  I have nothing against taking in fuel in the race but be moderate and don’t buy the marketing hype. 

I have a friend who was an ironman triathlete who did all his training a racing with bananas and other natural fruit.  You don’t need to cram all kinds of processed goop down your throat to perform well in a race.  It’s a myth.

It cracks me up to see people in the marathon with 12 gels pinned to their outfit like a machine gunner’s bandolier.  Unless you’ve got some sort of metabolic problem there’s no way you need or can absorb more than 90 or so sugar calories an hour.  That’s one gel an hour, max folks.  More than that and you’re just clogging up your system and making it inefficient.

Your body has enough fat in it to run a marathon.  During your training go easy on the sugar and let your body learn how to burn that fat for fuel. That way when you get into a race you won’t feel like you have to pour so much sugar on the fire.

5. Chocolate milk at the end of the race.

So…who do you think came up with the idea that you should drink chocolate milk after a race?  Maybe the dairy industry?  I know it’s a religious war sort of thing but the science says dairy is bad for your heart.  What else is in chocolate milk? Oh yeah, lots of processed sugar.  Which causes inflammation. 

This chocolate milk thing is a marketing coup by someone.  Maybe the same guy who convinced people that smoking was good for them? 

But, seriously, your body is beat up and struggling enough at the end of a race don’t give it more stress by dumping chocolate milk into it.  Have a banana and a bottle of water.  Stay away from the dairy products and processed recovery drink crap they try to hand you at the end of a race. 

Those are my top 5 myths of marathon racing.  What are yours?

Chris,