What to Eat Before a Run: A Beginner's Guide to Fueling

Key Takeaways

• Carbs are your main fuel. They're your body's preferred energy source, so don't fear them — aim for roughly 4–5g per kg of bodyweight per day as a beginner.
• Have a small, low-fibre snack 30–60 minutes before you run. Think toast with honey, a banana, rice cakes, or a cereal bar — easy-to-digest carbs that give you energy without weighing you down.
• Protein supports recovery, not the run itself. Aim for around 0.7–1g per lb of bodyweight to help your muscles repair and adapt as you build up.
• Fat matters too. Keep it at roughly 20%+ of your diet for brain health, hormones, and steady energy — it's not the enemy.
• You don't need gels or drinks yet. Mid-run fuel only becomes relevant once you're running longer than an hour. For runs under 30 minutes, a normal balanced diet has you covered.
• You don't have to track everything. If counting isn't for you, just make sure you've eaten enough carbs across the day and had a small snack before you run.

I think the best place to start here is to look at the different macronutrients we eat and how they serve us from a performance perspective. Because now you are running my friend, you are entering the 'fuelling' arena and it's a lovely place to be!

Protein is a bit of a buzzword at the moment, and whilst the benefits of it are perhaps a little overplayed I'd still prefer that than be underplayed as it is a vital macronutrient. So vital in fact that its name is derived from the latin word proteios meaning 'first rank' or 'holding first place'.

Every single cell in our body relies on protein. It is responsible for the growth, repair and development of tissue - so in terms of running that looks like all the repair and adaptations of your muscle after you have run or done a workout. Protein is made up of 20 amino acids that are like an alphabet, the body strings the amino acids together to make words - like 'go and repair muscle tissue', or 'go and make digestive enzymes'. Nine of those essential amino acids are not available in our bodies and come entirely from our diet. You can find those 9 (known as complete proteins) in meat, dairy, soy and quinoa. Other 'incomplete' sources of protein such as beans, legumes and grains can be eaten in combination to provide the full spectrum of amino acids.

They are essentially the macronutrient that plays some part in getting carbohydrate into your muscles and a major part in recovery after you have exercised and will help your muscles and other tissues to adapt as you run more and see improvements.

A good place to aim for is 0.7 -1 g/ lb of bodyweight.

Fat gets less coverage in the world of running and exercise, but that's not to say it doesn't have an important place - particularly in energy production, so it should not be neglected. Eating fat in the diet does not automatically mean it sits in our body as fat, at 9 calories per gram it gets some bad PR but it plays a major part in our brain health and our hormone production so it needs to get included in the mix! Good sources of fat would include oils, fish, nuts and seeds. Fat should take up at least 20% of your diet.

‍Carbs are my favourite topic to talk about! I have worked with countless clients - usually women, and usually Gen X or Millennials who were raised on the belief system that carbs are bad and will lead to weight gain. I am now seeing it creep in again with younger generations alongside the cultural shift back into 'skinny' being en vogue and I am here to drop kick this message right back to where it came from!

I've seen active women (who were severely under fuelling) introduce carbs back into their diet and alleviate half of the symptoms they were attributing to perimenopause, I've seen men do it and gain much of the lean muscle mass they had been hopelessly chasing off the back of years of poor training sessions teamed with poor sleep, and most importantly the joy come back into their eyes and their energy levels and recovery look like it always should have done.

So why are carbohydrates so important when you are active? (Hold my beer!)

Carbohydrates are our body's preferential energy source. When we eat carbohydrates, no matter what form they are in - that can be sugar, fruits, vegetables, grains…. they are all broken down into little sugar molecules that are stored in your liver and muscles.

Each muscle has its own glycogen storage - think of it as its own log store to throw logs in the fire when it needs fuel. Once that muscle's log store has run out, it can't borrow logs from another muscle, it has to rely on the emergency back up system which is the glycogen stores in the liver that can be released into the bloodstream and be used where needed. This is quite a short lived system, and eventually the body will resort to other energy pathways like converting energy from your fat stores or converting protein into carbohydrate to fuel your activity.

This is expensive for the body and will impact the intensity that you are able to exercise at. The extreme of this is when you hear the term 'bonking' or hitting the wall in a marathon! On shorter runs it can just look like those days when you are just not feeling it and you have that internal little voice screeching 'just stop' every time you take another stride!

However, I've got a little ahead of myself here.

What you need to know is if you are a little more active than you were, for example, you've discovered this incredible new running app that has your back and is encouraging you to engage in three runs a week and a couple of workout sessions to prevent injury …. Then it's safe to say you are probably becoming a little more active than you once were, and were you to ensure there were enough carbohydrates in your overall diet, this will not only mean that you can sustain the energy requirements needed to do this…. But also… you will feel incredible doing the exercise, you will sleep better, recover better and your risk of injury will be lower.

What's not to love about this wonderful macronutrient!

So the burning question is (pardon the pun), how much carbohydrate do you need to be consuming?

When it comes to protein and carbohydrate, we generally make recommendations in g/kg of bodyweight.

Carbohydrate ranges from 4-10g per kilogram of bodyweight.

If you are new to running I would just make sure you are not under 4g as a start point and once you have this sussed out I would stick to around 4-5g/kg.

So if you weigh 75kg, you'd be looking to aim for 300g - 375g of carbohydrate per day.

Within your carbohydrate intake, good goals to aim for are:

• Make 50% of this wholegrain
• Aim to get fiber between 20-30g a day
• Aim for 5 servings of fruit and vegetables

And then if we zoom in on the days you have a run, it's always worth making sure you time a snack low in fibre and high in carbohydrate anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour before your run. The reason I discourage high fibre is because fiber slows down the rate of absorption into the blood, so ideally you would be looking to consume starchy or sugary carbohydrates like white rice or rice cakes, cereal bars, drinks high in sugar or toast or bagels with jelly or honey.

Making sure there are some carbohydrates like rice, potato or pasta in the meal after your run is also a good way to keep carbohydrate stores stocked up, but if you are sticking to the recommended carbohydrate goals mentioned above this tends to happen naturally.

Where to even start?

If tracking is not something you want to get involved in, and I understand I really do, I have the majority of clients NOT tracking their food as many of them are scarred by it.

We simply grab a dedicated little notebook and pen or the notes app in your phone and at every meal and snack I get them to work out the grams of carbohydrate in that meal and add it all up at the end of the day.

If it's near the target, this is great. We just ensure we stay there and that carbs are consumed 1 hour to 30 mins before a run. If not then we work on slowly building this up and making a note of how each run felt afterwards so that they can see in words how much better they feel when they are fuelled appropriately.

How long do my runs need to be for me to think about taking 'fuel' with me?

Once you are running over an hour would be when I would start looking into taking fuel with you (e.g. gels and drinks) and assessing your overall carbohydrate requirements.

But for now, just the fact you have started up or got back into running is the best focus for you. The benefits of that alone far outweigh the intricacies of how you fuel further down the line. Perhaps that's another blog for another day!

For now I just want you all to enjoy letting carbs be the fuel that keeps you lit!

Happy running!

Jools