<p>I want to talk briefly about a study I recently looked at.</p><p>It looked at carbs and protein versus just carbs vs. no nutrition during a half marathon time trial in recreational female runners.</p><p>There have been some studies that suggested that the addition of protein might be beneficial for endurance sport because the protein acts as an additional energy source, You don’t hear about it often but you do use protein as an energy source so the thinking is if you take in amino acids (<a href=”https://www.amazon.com/Pacific-Health-Accel-Gel-Variety/dp/B01H2D55P2/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=ruonthwhli-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=80fa27570d946ff08cbee0376a8f3ffd&creativeASIN=B01H2D55P2″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>I have some gels with amino acids in them</a>) then you might take away less actual body protein from your muscles.</p><p>During this half marathon time trial there was a five-minute improvement from nutrition to no nutrition but there was no improvement no real difference between carbs + protein versus just carbs during a half marathon time trial. Maybe during a longer event when there’s more muscle damage during a downhill half marathon there would be more benefit to taking in some protein and carbs but at least in this study they didn’t find much difference between taking in protein and carbs versus just carbs.</p><p>They use a hundred to hundred and fifty calories per hour of carbs during this half marathon. Usually, I don’t recommend much for caloric intake during a half but maybe I’ll change my recommendation to one or two gels during a half marathon depending on how long the individual is going to be out there.</p>
Does protein + carbs help, or is carbs enough while running? →
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