Ragnar Relay: How Do you eat during a 24+hr running relay?

Relay exchange in Vail

27 hours, 12 people, two 15 passenger vans, 189 miles of continuous running at altitude from Breckenridge to Vail to Aspen.  Sound crazy?  It was.  It was also exhilarating, exhausting, amazing, beautiful, and soooo much fun!  I just completed the Ragnar Relay in Colorado with my team, Last Call.  We all had 3 legs of the relay and ran from 8:30am September 7th 2012 to 11:30am September 8th 2012.  Everyone on the team was super awesome, and we ended up getting second place in our division and 18th over all out of at least 160 teams!  

How in the world do you prepare for an event like this?  (You may also be asking WHY you would ever want to do this!  It was an amazing experience, I promise!  The trick is having an awesome team.)  Training depends on the length of your total mileage, as everyone had different amounts of running to do.  I had 20.1 miles total for my 3 legs which was the longest.  It also depends where you are starting at in your fitness level and how long you have to train.

Another question: what do you bring to eat on an event like this?  That is tricky.  Running 3 times within 24 hours makes food/drink intake a lot more complicated than training just one time a day.  What can you eat that can sit in a van or cooler all day and will re-fuel you throughout the relay?  This of course fascinates me since I am a dietitian.  There was probably no 2 people in the entire event that ate or drank the same things.  I know the concepts of sports nutrition and recovery, as well as nutrient timing and metabolic efficiency.  However, maybe much to the shock and dismay of some, I didn't always practice what I preach.

What I went into the race with (knowing I was not going to eat it all but wanted options):

My food stash for the relay

• 2 bananas
• 1/2 cup oatmeal with a scoop of protein powder
• Dried figs
• Nut and berry trail mix
• 2 apples
• Kind nut/protein bars
• 1 Lara bar
• 1 Breeze Bar
• 2 packets of Justin's nut butter
• 1 almond butter and banana sandwich
• 1 container of Greek yogurt
• 1 small scoop of chia seed protein pudding
• 4 no bake peanut butter cookie balls

 I ate regular breakfast and lunch with my food I brought before and after my run at 12pm (8.8 miles).  I also drank about 8oz of sports drink afterwards.  I had a dinner of oatmeal and protein powder mixed together plus a banana and nut butter around 5:30pm.  I ran next at 10pm (suppose to 4.6 but ended up being 3.6 miles).  I snacked a little on bars after my late night run, but I wasn't hungry to eat something substantial after that.  For my 6am run (6.7 miles), I didn't eat much before, but I was hungry a few hours after.  I didn't eat all my food, but I was glad to have all my options.    

The rest of that day and into the next day, I didn't eat much.  I just didn't have an appetite.  I know that is a critical time for muscle recovery, but I couldn't do it.  As another nutritionist on my team and I were talking about this, we decided you just have to do the best you can.  Sometimes it's not perfect or what you know it should be, but it's ok in the end.

We had people on our team that ate almost nothing and drank diet coke, people who ate meals plus good servings of snacks in between runs, some focusing on a paleo foods only and lots of variance in between.  Some people ate gels on their runs, some didn't take anything.  Everyone is so different; yet we all accomplished our goal. 

The human body is fascinating.  It can endure a lot.  Everyone is different.  If your nutrition isn't perfect, you'll still be ok.  Some people were recovering from injuries, some people got lost on their running legs, and some runs it took a lot of mental coaching to get through or get excited about.  I think this experience confirmed running is mostly mental; your body can push through more than what you think it can.  

If you are a runner and haven't done a relay like this before, I'd encourage you to do it!  If you want more information on sports nutrition, I know some awesome sports dietitians that are full of practical advice.  Check out Fuel4mance for more information.  Also, if you're not perfect in something that you are technically "an expert" in, give yourself a break and ENJOY the experience!

Finish Area for the Ragnar Relay in Snowmass