Paula Radcliffe – Running Diet Advice
Pavel Toropov of the South China Morning Post met with Paula Radcliffe at the Muscat Marathon in early January about spoke about all things running.
A focus of their conversation was on diet; Pavel was curious to know her opinion on a runner’s diet and how those that limit meat consumption could supplement with alternative proteins, as well as what her diet was like when she was training at her peak…
The following quotes are from Paula Radcliffe from the interview…
“You need to eat protein, but where your source of protein is from is up to you. Everyone has their own reasons. What I do believe is that if you are happy and are sticking to what you believe in, you are then far healthier. So, whatever you believe in, go with that. Just make sure you are getting enough protein. Everyone always talks about carbohydrates for running, but you also need protein because you need to rebuild the muscles.”
“I ate a lot of fish – I still do, some chicken and red meat about twice a week.”
“When I trained hard, I had a lot more volume of energy to get into my body. I was very careful to eat within 20 minutes of a training session, to refuel in that window for your body to make best use of the nutrients. Now it is all more relaxed.”
“Because I am lactose-intolerant I avoided things with lactose in them, but now if I want an ice cream I will have an ice cream. I can now put up with this sort of stuff, but I would not have done it when I was racing. I would not have a lot of processed food, I would prefer to just make it myself. I knew what was going into my food and I knew the quality.”
Toropov and Radcliffe continued to discuss training in general…
“Essentially (running is just) one foot in front of the other, nothing complicated. You just need to train running both quicker than race pace and slower than race pace, with some recovery in there as well. Hill work, strength work and some work in the gym is always good. The stronger your core, the better – you can hold it together in the closing stages of a marathon when everything starts to fatigue, but if you have not done enough running, then strong core is not going to help you.”
“Studies show that how flexible you are has a negative relationship with how fast you run. Yes, you do need to stretch, but if you are flexible, knock yourself out. Yoga will be good, but I don’t think it is necessary for runners and it can do harm if you are not flexible.”
“My #1 piece of advice for aspiring marathon runners is simple: Make sure that you get your long runs in. (You should) in a week have a good quality long run, a shorter tempo run, some intervals, some recovery running for rest, and, if you can, some kind of core training a couple of times a week, some stretching, get a massage and that’s your week sorted.
“Should you run on your own or with a group? Whatever works for you. Some run better on their own, some run better with a group. I think you need whatever motivates you, whatever makes you enjoy the run, because that makes you more likely to get it all done.”
