What hasn’t changed in ultrarunning nutrition over the last few years? In this wide-ranging and refreshingly honest conversation, Adam Peterman and Jon dig into how high-carb fueling has reshaped race day performance, especially in the heat, and how athletes are approaching hydration, calories, and real-time nutrition pivots mid-race.
We talk:
– The evolution of fueling strategies from 2021 to today
– How cyclists may have led the way in normalizing high-carb intake
– Lessons learned from a totally derailed but wildly successful nutrition plan at Western States
– A, B, and C fueling plans with Skratch Labs products
– Eating 90-100g of carbs per hour and why it works
– The importance of flexibility and realism in race-day nutrition
– What it’s actually like to eat like a pro athlete (spoiler: burgers and McDonald’s included)
Whether you’re deep in training or just curious how the best in the sport are dialing in their approach to food and fuel, this one’s packed with stories, tips, and real talk.
Leave a comment if you’ve tried high-carb racing or if you’ve got a go-to weird aid station combo that just works!
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Chapters:
0:00 – Intro
0:16 – Western States Revolution
2:08 – Plan for Nutrition
4:41 – High-Carb is Awesome
6:56 – Eating with the Pros
The For The Long Run Podcast is a podcast that explores the why behind what keeps runners running long, strong, and motivated. From pro runners and Olympians to ultramarathoners running their first big race to business owners who use running to improve their entrepreneurial journey, we believe in creating community and expanding the running world for all.
Hosted by running enthusiast, Jonathan Levitt.
if you make a fueling plan you better have an A and B and C plan because it seems that it can change wildly as the race goes on and the race heats up and things like that [Music] i’m curious your take on what has changed in the last few years as it relates to heating and cooling and carbs and like how you approach the race back then versus how you may approach it now for what you are willing to share it’s just gotten so much more dialed for it seems like across the board for everyone i mean even when I was doing ultras in 21 and 22 like I’m sure people were a lot more dialed than I was but yeah I just feel like we’ve seen it now where like this high carb fueling strategy has changed how people are able to run these things i feel like I heard someone maybe it was on the free trail podcast just say like people aren’t dying anymore during the races and you definitely see it like people just aren’t slowing down like they used to because of high carb i think a lot of that’s probably from cycling it’s probably like cyclists have been doing this for years and years and now finally ultr runners have figured out that this makes a difference but yeah like it’s just so much more dialed like before Western States in 2022 I totally had a nutrition plan and I guess tried to follow it as best as I could aiming for like 300 calories an hour so about 75 grams of carbs but man like about halfway through the race I like totally derailed the plan and I was eating like gummy be I was eating Moth gummies and goo drink mix from the aid stations and I just ran with that for like the rest of the race and so it’s kind of funny thinking back to this like you know the best race I’ve ever had and my nutrition plan like completely pivoted so I don’t know i mean I feel a lot more dialed with that stuff going into it this year but I think I need to remember that like if you make a fueling plan you better have an A and B and C plan because it seems that it can change wildly as the race goes on and the race heats up and things like that what does your A plan look like from a fueling strategy standpoint yeah so I run for scratch now i signed with them in January which I’m really excited about and so we’re gonna build a A B and C plan and essentially it would be like the A plan is probably like 100 grams of carbs an hour that’s kind of what I’ve been hitting for the last six about eight months and with Scratch that’s a mix of the high carb drink mix and I take the chew and then they don’t make a gel right now and so I just I end up taking just a few other gels just to get that because I don’t I feel like if I took entirely high carb drink mix I just need a little like something else as well so yep that would be the A plan and then I think as you went to like the B and C plan it would be a more dilute drink mix and so it would be like rather than drinking at full strength at 100 grams of carbs in a bottle it would go down to like 50 or even like plan C might be drinking the scratch every day drink mix which is like mostly electrolytes and then taking like chews and gels but yeah it’s going to be interesting man i mean like high carb is all the rage but I think that if it’s really hot it’s like physiologically it’s really really hard to take high carb when it’s that hot and so I need to just be prepared for that for sure i’ve worked with Scratch formally in the past i love their team um super stoked to see the Scratch racing team announced uh earlier this year i’ve been running with their products for years and my strategy is I have two I carry two bottles and I put a scoop of everyday drink mix in each bottle and I put a scoop of the scratch hydration mix in each bottle so it’s like Yeah and in the summer I’ll put in or if I’m at higher intensity I’ll put one scoop of the high carb mix so it’s like 35 gram of carbs per bottle two bottles and then I’ll take a gel or I’ll aim to take two gels an hour plus the most of a bottle in the hour so what’s that like 95 gram in the hour but I usually drink 75% of the bottle so it’s like Yeah like like two bottles for every 3 hours kind of a deal if that math yeah it’s crazy how well it works though i’m sure like have you noticed that when you’re when you moved up to like higher carb it’s it’s just amazing you don’t you don’t really fatigue like before is how I feel yeah i didn’t know that we were going to get into a like let’s ring the praise of of high carb but I’ve got to say it again like the one of the first times that I was practicing this approach I ended up I did like I don’t know 20 miles in the morning and then uh spent 5 hours moving uh furniture in the afternoon and I I did like 90 g of carbs for 3 hours and then literally 5 hours of moving furniture and it was the craziest thing because I didn’t have that like cognitive impairment i wasn’t like brain dead after the run and feeling like a vegetable and I talked to a dietitian friend about it and she was like I’m not surprised like that’s that’s the expected that’s the expected outcome when your brain is getting you know the fuel that it needs over that long period of time i know it’s so funny talking to professionals about this like uh I worked with a dietitian after my sacral and then I work with ones who scratch now and I feel like everything I tell them they’re just like not surprised whatsoever you know things like that or like Yeah duh yeah or like I the first time I met with the dietitian with Scratch she just had me write down what I ate for three days so she could get a baseline of what I was eating and this was during the winter so I was doing like pretty high volume uh with running and then some schemo stuff and you weren’t eating enough let me guess no I was like on it those three days i was like I’m going to impress her like I’m going to do my best to be as dialed as I can and those three days I ate so much and I mean not like way more than normal but I did eat a lot she like crunched the numbers and was like “Yeah you’re eating like 5 to 6,000 calories a day.” And I was like “Sweet like is that too much?” And she’s like “No just keep doing that.” And I was like “Are you sure like I ate so much dairy and milk and all this stuff.” And she’s like “Just keep doing that.” I was like “All right.” And so I’ve tried my best to stay on it but it’s just funny because you have these things in your head of like what you think a person should eat and anyway they’re they’re so helpful just kind of keeping it simple and telling you what’s real it’s awesome when you get that feedback loop i have shared a handful of meals with Hayden Hawks Gwen Jorgensson like people who are at the highest of you know the pinnacle of the sport and to watch these people eat is like they’re putting on a clinic it’s like I I I ate with Zach Miller once in 2016 and I assume you’ve probably shared a meal or two with Zach and like to see how much he eats it was it was crazy but it’s like that’s what that’s what’s necessary that’s what’s necessary that’s like the lesson the biggest lesson I think I learned after that bone injury was just like Yeah you have to if you’re going to output that much and train that much you have to put the food back in yeah i was um I had Matt Daniels and Hayden over for dinner when Hayden was living here and Hayden would just like shovel food onto Matt’s plate it was It was so funny eat the Eat the Take another slice of pizza it was great i know yeah yeah i know i feel like that’s another misconception that people have about athletes like I wouldn’t say I eat like the healthiest meals ever you like you’ve ever seen like last night I had burgers for dinner and uh Me too yeah man i like there was another quote someone said i think Clayton Young said his rules of eating are eat and then eat well and so it’s like if you’re not going to eat well you better like the goal is to eat first and I really appreciate that because like especially after these like a lot of times in Missoula I run for my long runs i’ll go down to this place called the Bitterroot which is just south of Missoula but the place I eat when I come back from those runs is often McDonald’s because it’s the closest place to the trail head but man it’s a lot of calories and it’s probably what you need right then [Music]
