Daughter losing energy during 800m/mile with lightheadness at finish. Need pre-race energy recommendation.

Try doing a balanced breakfast. Depending on race time give her a couple bars or something to snack on. There’s these plant based bars that I eat prior to running the 8 and it doesn’t mess with my stomach or make me wanna yak. No more headaches. Definitely try having pedialyte the night before as well as the day of.

Thanks for the quick reply. I like the Pedilyte idea and plant-based bar. She gets terrible side-stiches during some XC runs so eating has to be planned around it. She usally can't eat 2 hours before a race. This is what caused part of the problem. She refused a protein bar during the delayed meet because she thought she would get a cramp. Plant-based may be tollerated better. She usually has a big breakfast assuming the race is not early.

Give clif shot blocks or a gel 30-40 mins prior. I found that if i take gels, if i don't keep up on them every 45 mins or so, i feel the sugar drop.

So if she can try a gel 30 mins prior, this should get her through an 800 with enough juice.

food and running is an experiment of n=1.

good luck.

Thank you.

You might get her ferritin levels checked. Those could also be symptoms of anemia which is one of the most common undiagnosed ailments among high school runners. Generally very easy to remedy.

It sounds like it’s low blood sugar. Have some snacks to keep her going if she’s going to be at a meet for a long time, e.g. uncrustables. Others mentioned gels, those work pretty well at getting blood sugar where it needs to be in short order, as does Gatorade. Make sure she gets enough carbs in her diet during the week too

I think she has hypoglycemia. Her blood sugar goes up after eating, but then gets too low when she doesn't eat often or when the meal contains mostly carbs. I also have hypoglycemia, but it's not a severe as your daughter.

Having more healthy fats and fewer carbs in meals and especially the pre-race meal will help moderate hypoglycemia.

I'd suggest that she experiment with pre-race meals that include easily digestible fats... coconut oil or MCT oil (which is mostly the C8 and C10 chains of coconut oil). Healthy oils burn slower and will help prevent blood sugar crashes. This is what I do every day. I add an ounce of MCT oil to my morning coffee. It's amazing how long I can last without eating after the MCT oil.

I eat my last solid food three hours minimum before I race. If the race is much longer than that, I'll have a quarter of a quality protein bar and something like Gatorade. I prefer Body Armor drinks.

The gels are okay in an emergency, but as a hypoglycemic, she's going to crash 45 minutes or so after a liquid carb drink. Once she starts gels, she will need to keep going every half hour until about 20 minutes or so before the race. It's better to plan the meals to avoid low blood sugar at the start.

Oh, one other important point. Adding healthy fats to her diet will NOT cause her to gain weight, Healthy fats, like coconut oil, help curb food cravings so you can actually lose weight because you don't get hungry as quickly.

Get a blood test might be low on iron .

Have you looked for low blood pressure?

joereger8 wrote:

There was no place to eat at this venue and she went 4 hours without food before running. For obvious reasons, she ran a slow race. Restaurants were closed early due to Covid so she probablhy went 6 hours without a meal and ate a small amount of fast food before bed. The next day she had another big invite race.

High metabolism? Sounds more like just not eating enough and making meals a priority (prepare/have food ahead of time when you know restaurants are going to be closed, or just going to the grocery store for food if restaurants are closed).

To be well prepared in the future, a good idea would be to bring extra food from home in a lunchbox. This would allow her to eat when she gets hungry in unexpected circumstances like these.

As for getting her to drink water, a suggestion is to try putting ice in water and infusing it with fruit. Making water appetizing is a great way to get people to drink more.

One thing to rule out before delving too much into nutrition: are you sure she isn't just getting out at a faster pace than her current fitness supports? If you look at her first lap splits for the races she's struggled in, does she have previous races where she ran the same lap split and performed better?

I can determine the gender of a poster by the length of their post.

(Copy/paste OP into simulator)

(Drum roll)

You are a woman.

what does her coach say?

I would be very careful with gels. Your body can see a sugar spike with no exercise and go into squirrel mode, then suddenly you blaze off needing the sugars to be liberated whilst your body is in storage mode.

You should have a proper nutritional diet, not a sugar high crutch.

Marathoners need gels because after 40 minutes or so, the sustained excercise exceeds the bodies ability to use and replace blood sugars from storage.

She takes an iron supplement and her levels were good. She had a complete blood panel and some extra tests that the doctor ordered, including thyroid.

Her blood sugar was definitely low after the last race. It was fine recently and after the stress test. That is leading me to believe that low blood pressure makes her susceptible to lightheadedness and the low blood sugar, put her over:

This will be helpful for her diet going forward. I have tested her blood sugar several times while fasting and after sting. It has never gone below 82 except after that one race. I think her very fast metabolism makes her body stay closer to the edge. The coconut oil may help increase that buffer.

That may have happened on the second race (the day after her 6 hours without food). She was way ahead and looked good. She said she felt good until hitting the wall on her second lap of the mile. She still PR’d. The last race was pretty slow from the beginning.