The FastDay Forum

Hi. Just wondering if anyone has any advice for me about fasting & training for my very first half marathon! I am doing my long runs on Saturday morning after fasting on Friday. I had felt fine with not eating before my run until today!!! Not sure if it was just a hard day or my body is trying to tell me something? (It was a 12km run/crawl!) I have read that people eat bananas before running & jelly beans during long runs & have sports drinks, but I am no whippet & definitely don't need to put on any extra weight, but I am need of some advice because after todays run I feel like giving up! Any advice would be greatly appreciated!http://www.52fastdiet.co.uk/posting.php?mode=post&f=24#

[Betsysgr8]

Welcome to the forum Philippa! Lots of information on running in the Getting Sweaty section of the forum. @Creakypete is a runner and has a lot of experience with running.

Hi, there is a thread on the getting sweaty board which may help. Sorry can't post the link but the title was

Getting food intake right when training

I eat porridge for breakfast every morning (when I'm not fasting) and have come to realise that I run a lot better when I have fuel in the tank, for obvious reasons! When I started C25K back in May and was running shorter distances, I could eat a banana and then go out about 45 mins later, but as I reached 5km I found this wasn't enough.... I'm fortunate that I only work part-time so I can afford to eat my porridge and then wait a couple of hours before hitting the pavement or treadmill, but I do appreciate that this isn't possible for people in full-time work.

My own personal opinion is that you definitely need to have eaten something substantial first, before running long distance following a fasting day. If you want to burn a big fire, you have to use a lot of wood!!!

Also remember that running that kind of distance will burn off way more calories than the breakfast you have eaten.... and your metabolism will continue to burn strongly for a good few hours after you have finished running. (for example, my 50g porridge with 300ml of skimmed milk is around 290 calories and the 8km run I did last weekend burned off 368 calories)

Hi Philippa, CreakyPete here (thanks Betsysgr8!). I would suggest you try running early on a fast day, rather than the day after a fast - I found it much less stressful to do it this way round. You will still have good stocks of glycogen in your liver and muscles so should be able to manage an hour or so of decent running. When it comes to longer distances/times we all have enough fat for hundreds of miles but accessing it takes practice and ultimately fat-burning needs boosting with glucose/glycogen burning for best performance - dual fuel, if you like.
I never used gels/jelly babies etc in road races up to marathons, in fact would not even drink for half-marathons, but for longer events the ability to consume sugary foodstuffs without retching is very useful!
I guess the advice I am giving you is similar to what I said to jmousey - you need to get fat-adapted but that process will not be rushed, try training after a feast day rather than after a fast day and gradually increase the distance. Get something to eat/drink soon after you get back, even on a fast day, to help your muscles rebuild (skimmed milk seems to be a good choice) and see how things go...

Since I tend to run late in the day, I do long runs on non-fast days. As Pete says, the morning of fasts days is fine too. I regularly do runs of less than 10k on fast days.

As for eating while running, I don't know how anyone can do that. Anything with sugar makes me really thirsty, so that's no good. My stomach was pretty upset during the half marathon from about the 15k mark. I take a water every now and then, but usually I dump it over my head.

Thank you everyone for all your advice. I am currently injured, so there is no running for me this week, but I think I will change around the days that I do my long runs so that its not straight after a fast! I do have a glass of milk after a long run so I was pleased to read that its a good thing to do - thanks CreakyPete.

I have trained and completed two half-marathons and on long runs on the weekend I would always try to have a banana or a pieve of toast before I went out, just to give my body a little something to burn before I got going.
I have to admit I have not tried running the longer distances around or with fasting days so I dont know how it works, but running for an hour or so puts some stress on your body and I would not be inclined to increase the stress by not letting my body have any fuel before or after a long run.
Shorter runs in the week on an empty stomach no problems.

Hi Phillipa,

If it's not way to late top respond...

I have been running for ~6 years and on 5:2 for 18 months and don't find that it affects my running too much. When I first started 5:2 I found I had a few more training days where I felt knackered, slow and empty of energy.

Please do not give up, it's an unfortunate fact that when you are training for a half marathon, another race distance or even just running regularly, you will have days like this. Getting through a bad training day is something all runners, even Mo Farah, have to do and when you line up at the start of your first race, it can be helpful to remember these days and remind yourself that you can do it.

Good luck.

LRR