How Many Calories Should You Eat While You Run?
When you run, your body prefers to burn glycogen: a quick fuel source that is stored in the muscles and liver. Your body also burns some fat and, if you're undernourished enough protein.
Glycogen, also known the body's storage form of carbohydrate, is the body’s favorite fuel source
There's a catch: the supply is limited.
Depending on your muscle mass and body size, you can only store between 1400-2000 calories of glycogen to burn – that’s about 1-2 hours worth of running.
What happens when you run out of glycogen? You hit THE WALL.
Aka you bonk. But there’s an easy (and delicious) way to avoid hitting the wall: eat while you run.
You should aim to replenish 25-35% of calories burned per hour, where most – if not, all – calories come from carbohydrates.
Why Energy Gels?
Energy gels are specially formulated to optimize the amount of carbohydrates you can consume while on the move. Too much fat or protein can slow digestion; this leads to slower energy use at best and race-ending digestive distress at worst.
MUIR Energy Fast Burning Gels like Red Raspberry optimize carbohydrate intake while prioritizing ease of digestion--without tasting like it was made in a lab.
Free Running Calorie Calculator
Enter your weight and average running pace to get an estimate of how many calories you should be eating per hour when you run.
NOTE: Make sure to slowly build up over a series of runs to these calorie recommendations to give your GI system time to adjust.
The best place to start is short, easy effort runs, and increase the amount of calories, intensity, and duration from there.
Example Nutrition Strategy:
A 150 pound runner with an average running pace of 10:00 min/mi would be expending roughly 668 calories/hour.
To replenish 25%-35% of calories burned, the runner needs to eat between 167-234 calories per hour.
|
EXAMPLE RUNNER |
|
|
WEIGHT |
150 lbs |
|
PACE |
10:00 min/mi |
|
CALORIES, min |
167 |
|
CALORIES, max |
234 |
|
Hours |
Gels |
Sports Drink |
Water |
Total Calories Consumed |
|
1 |
Red Raspberry |
16 oz |
8-16 oz |
190 calories |
|
2 |
Passion Fruit Pineapple Banana Strawberry |
16 oz |
205 calories |
|
|
3 |
Cacao Almond |
16 oz |
16 oz |
230 calories |
Want to know more about how to create your own running nutrition plan? Get our training guide here.
