How to Fuel Before a Race or Morning Run

How to Fuel Before a Race or Morning Run

by | Mar 1, 2023 | Uncategorized

This question came up from an athlete the other week and they asked Coaches Sandi and Sage, “I do a lot of workouts on an empty stomach because I have to be at work at 9:00am, and I like getting my run in before work. For some of the long runs, I need to wake up at 4:00am in order to fit in. Sometimes I take a gel or two, but other times I run on an empty stomach. So I guess my questions are:
· Is it OK to run on an empty stomach? If not, what should I eat?· What should I eat the day before a race? What about the morning of?”
We (Coach Sage and Coach Sandi) want to preface that we are not nutritionists, but we have done a lot of research into how an athlete should fuel and approach nutrition and training. This is also personal experience from decades of experimenting and tweaking our nutrition, so know that something that works for you may depend on your typical diet and routine. This same thing may not work for us, and vice versa.

However, we’ll address question #1 first – is it okay to run on an empty stomach?
First, I (Coach Sage) would frequently run on an emptier stomach that were relatively shorter. This always worked out fine for me on these types of runs. Generally speaking, you’re going to be low on carbs first thing in the morning, but you should have enough glycogen stored in your muscles and liver to be able to run for a fairly long time without needing any sort of fuel source.

That being said, if you have a long run on tap or a high intensity workout planned, it’s going to be important to have enough fuel to get the right amount of intensity in for the workout
. If you don’t have a breakfast that has some carbohydrates in it, you may bonk pretty bad if you have to throw down a high-intensity 15 mile long run. You can experiment what type of fuel works best for you before these workouts, but you’re most likely not going to need to a slam a big cinnamon roll. Realistically, a banana and a cup of oatmeal would be sufficient to fuel you for a higher inte🥖nsity effort in the morning. Try to let it digest (some would say up to two hours) before heading out on a run, but this can vary person-to-person. However, a 6-8 mile run with no calories beforehand is totally doable (9-12 kms). We always encourage our athletes to have a glass of water before they go out for their run, whether they eat or not, because you usually wake up slightly dehydrated.
If you’re still struggling to eat a breakfast for a high intensity workout or long run, here are some other ideas:
· 🍌 Eating a banana or a few dates – this is light on the stomach and quick to digest.· Granola bar· Half a cup of oatmeal (i.e., a smaller portion of oatmeal than what you would typically eat for a full breakfast)· 🍞 One piece of toast with peanut butter
If at all possible, try to plan your easy runs on days you know you might not be able to eat anything before you go. Then for workouts, another reason we encourage athletes to eat is because we see them hit their prescribed paces easier because of the carbs they consumed. In the end, and like we alluded to earlier, it’s important to experiment and see what works best for you.
This leads us into our next question, which is: What should one eat the morning of a race?When Coach Sage used race a lot of cross country and half-marathon distance races, I would always eat something about 2.5-3 hours before the race. The goal was to make it something simple, easy to digest, and most importantly, something I was used to. Don’t be going to that yummy looking restaurant down the street pre-race! Nuh uh. It should be something you’ve regularly had in your diet and you know your stomach can tolerate running on it. I would aim for something high in carbs, and fairly low in fat. So a lot of the breakfast ideas we mentioned earlier (oatmeal, toast, etc) are great options, but you can probably have a bigger portion of them if you give your body ample time to digest it.
We’ve covered breakfast, but let’s back up a bit – what should one eat the night before the race?
I (Coach Sage) like to eat my dinner no later than 12 hours before the race, just so I can make sure everything is cleared out before the gun goes off… if you know what I mean 💩. Again, I use a similar mentality for what I do with my breakfast: keep it simple! I eat something I know my body can handle, I’m not experimenting in the kitchen the night before, and I try to make sure it’s carb heavy and lighter on the fats. The will help me wake up feeling good, not bloated, and confident my GI system won’t pull any surprises on me mid-race.
Whew! Are you hungry now? I think that’s all we have for this week, but as always, feel free to email us at support@higherrunning.com if there’s a future newsletter topic that you would like us to cover!
New to Running? We’re here to help!

New to Running? We’re here to help!

by | Feb 20, 2023 | Uncategorized



We want this newsletter to be as inclusive as possible, so let’s go back to the basics. This week, Coach Sage will walk you through four running tips for beginners, and how you can start distance running! The newsletter is for you if you would classify yourself as one of the following*:Someone who wants to get into running for the first time. Someone who is new to running and just started. Someone who considered themselves a runner a long time ago, took a break, and would like to start up again. Or, someone who is trying to turn running into more of a habit! 

Tip #1: Start off slowly!
The first piece of advice I tell new runners is to start off very slowly. What I mean by this is that you should probably begin by doing some sort of walk/run combo, where you spend some of the run spent walking and some of the run spent walking. I know some of you may get out there, feel like you have no idea what you’re doing, and overwhelmed with the thought of trying to get into distance running. To that I say: Don’t worry about distance. Don’t worry about how long you can run in a row. The fact you’re putting yourself out there and bettering yourself is incredible! If you can only run for 60 seconds at a time, that’s perfect. Follow that up with 60 seconds of walking. You can repeat this cycle for five or 10 minutes the first day. Over time (several weeks), you’ll notice that your stamina is starting to improve. The next step would to then work up to something like 3 minutes of running, 2 minutes of walking. Feel it out and see what works best for you. Listen to your body! We tell this to all our athletes regardless of how long they’ve been running. Just remember – we’ve all been where you are at one point in our life! Running is a tough and demanding sport, but on the flip side, it’s also very rewarding.
 
 Tip #2: Don’t worry about speed!
This goes hand-in-hand with starting off gradually (point #1), but don’t worry about sprinting during your runs, using a GPS watch to track your pace, etc. The thing that matters is to run with good form while being in control. We’ll discuss form in a little bit, but it’s likely when you first start running that you’re breathing rate is going to spike, your heart rate will skyrocket, and just general discomfort. Understand that it’s a process which will take days, weeks, months of training before you can start increasing the distance and effort level. However, it will get easier if you run with good form, stay consistent, and stay healthy. I promise! There are so many good mental and physical benefits that come from running and being consistent with it.
 
 Tip #3: Run with proper form
There is an entire newsletter devoted to this (check out “Your Guide to Good Running Form”) so I’ll try to keep it brief for now. Running forms vary person-to-person, but the primary components are that you should usually be upright with a slight forward lean. You will also want to try to take lighter, quicker steps than to try to overstride (or “bounding” type steps) because those are a lot of impact force. Utilizing quicker, faster, lighter steps means you’re less likely to strain a muscle and hurt yourself.
 
 Tip #4: Stay Healthy!
The final tip I have for you today is to stay healthy! This applies to both when running, as well as in your day-to-day life. When running, again, I want to stress to you that you should start off by building your running time (or mileage) very slowly. Starting off too fast could lead you to get some unnecessary injures or flare-ups. Furthermore, remember to take the majority of your runs slow! I sometimes see runners get really excited about becoming a faster runner (which is great!) but then they often end up doing way too many runs above an easy to moderate effort, which leads to burnout or injury. You don’t want to push everyday so you can give your muscles, tendons, legs, and your back time to adjust and get stronger over time. Running at slower speeds will still help you achieve this.
 
For life in general, are you getting enough sleep? A minimum of seven hours is what we usually recommend just because your body needs it to recover! How is your diet? While I am not have the *perfect* diet, I do live a plant based lifestyle because it helps me ensure I get plenty of fresh veggies, fruits, and whole foods. Are you drinking enough throughout the day? Sorry, we’re not talking about Coca-Cola or Coffee, but hydrating with water (and maybe even some electrolytes). Hydration is key to not only helping your energies levels throughout the day, but they can also make a huge impact on your running performance.

If you’re looking for a walk-to-run program of some kind, you can download our FREE Couch to 5km Training Plan. All we need is your email, and we’ll immediately send it on over. 
 
*Disclaimer: We’re not medical professionals, so please consult your medical doctor before trying anything new. Information provided on this newsletter is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for professional medical advice.
Tapering For a Race

Tapering For a Race

by | Feb 14, 2023 | Uncategorized



The weekly mileage is starting to decrease, the last workout is complete, and now all that’s left is to taper. Tapering is an essential component to executing your race just like you had been training for. But what does tapering actually mean? Tapering is purposefully decreasing the mileage and intensity you run in the last two weeks leading up to the race, and the goal of this is to let your body reach the perfect balance of fitness and freshness. Tapering does not mean you just get to sit back and relax and forget about running altogether those final two weeks. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but there are a few things Coach Sandi wanted to share regarding tapering that may be “outside the norm” of what you’d typically hear discussed by coaches:

 🏁 Race Day Prep: Even before the taper begins, I always make sure I’m training with the same gear I plan to use on race day. However, once the taper hits, I make a deliberate effort to dial in all of the nutrition, vests, bottles, etc, that I know I’m going to use come race day. Even if I don’t need to take a drink mix for a taper run (because it’s too short), I still take it because I want to keep my stomach used to what I plan on taking on race day. Say I were doing an ultra marathon, despite not needing to stuff my pack full of gear, I still pack it all in the same place(s) that I’m going to on race morning. Familiarizing myself with my gear and nutrition during the taper helps me feel more confident the day of the race. 

⚠️ Limit Your Warmup During the Taper: I don’t know about you, but for me, race day mornings always seem to be hectic no matter how much prep I put in! This is why during the taper I limit my warmup to maybe a mile, because I never seem to have enough time to do more than that on race day. This way I can get used to the same amount of warm up leading up to the race. Note: Normally I am a fan of a longer warm-up (~2 miles, maybe), but again, I try to simulate race day mornings during the taper as much as I can. 

👟 Start Wearing Race Day Shoes: I cycle through a lot of pairs of shoes during the training process, but when it’s time to taper, I will wear the shoes I’m going to wear on race day. I do this because I want to know exactly how I want them to feel on my feet. Are they tight where they need to be tight? Is having them this loose caused issues before? Again, all these considerations lead up to feeling confident both mentally and physical. 

😌 MOST IMPORTANT: When the race starts to draw near, this is when I remind my athletes that perhaps the most important thing you can do is relax and have fun. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about, right? When my athletes start telling me about some of the pre-race anxiety they are having, it’s often because they’re focusing on something in the race that not in your control. So when you start to feel anxiety, I remind them to go back to the things that are in their control, think about everything that’s good in your life, and don’t pass up the day at hand! There’s a lot of fun that can be had in the weeks leading up to a race. When you put yourself in a stressful situation, in never leads to anything good and ultimately you end up burning a lot of the energy you could use on race day, for other things. Train your mind to have a good time with the day at hand, focus on the controllable, and focus on the present moment. 

You can use these not-so-common taper tips in addition to reducing your weekly mileage and intensity. Enjoy the process, trust your training, and I’m confident you’ll be able to thrive on race day. 
What You Need to Do to Improve Your 10km Time

What You Need to Do to Improve Your 10km Time

by | Feb 6, 2023 | Uncategorized



If you’re looking to go sub 40-minutes or even sub 50-minutes in the 10km, then this newsletter is for you! Coach Sage Canaday will be giving you specific workouts and running tips to lower your 10km time. The examples he uses will be tailored towards those trying to go sub 40 minutes in the 10km, but know that a lot of the workouts and pieces of advice can also be applied if you’re trying to get a 10km run below 50, 45, or even 35 minutes. Even if you’re training for a 5km, this is all information that can still be applied, too. Here we go! 🙌

Let’s start with some simple math before we get started. If you’re aiming to run a sub 40 minute 10km, your race pace is going to be 6:26min/mile or 4min/km. This is important to keep in mind as we detail the workouts and pieces of training advice. 

 STEP 1: 
The first step is one we’ve preached in numerous other newsletters and training talks… can you guess? It’s to build up your weekly mileage (i.e., aerobic base). Even though it seems so simple, consistent training, the better stamina and endurance you’re going to have to run a faster 10km. It’s important to notice that this aerobic base building phase applies to whether you’re wanting to run a faster 5km or 100 miler. You can’t go wrong building up your weekly mileage in a progressive manner. Here’s the practical way to do this: if you’ve been consistently running 3-4 times per week, try to start running 4-5 times per week (or even 6 times per week if you have the time!). You’ll notice your body start to adapt to the training load, and naturally, you’re aerobic base will help you run faster. Not all runs need to be super long or hard, it’s the consistency that matters. If you’re aiming for a sub 40 minute 10km, most “easy paced” runs will be at 8 minute/mile pace or 5 minute/km pace.

BONUS: If you are at the aerobic base building phase of your training, check out our FREE Aerobic Base Building Training Plan. 
 
 STEP 2: 
A second point I want to note is just because you’re going to be running 10km, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be running longer than 10km for your long runs! Many long distance 10km runners will work up their long runs to 16-20km on training days. Don’t limit yourself to only running up to 10km because the extra mileage during your long runs will help contribute to your stamina and leg strength. Note: this same rule typically is not applied towards longer distances like marathons or ultras. If you’re training for a marathon, one does not usually run over 26.2 miles during training, or even full marathon for that matter.  
 
 STEP 3: 
Now let’s move on to the fun stuff, the speed workouts needed to run a fast 10km! Speed workouts don’t always need to be done on the track, and they should never be “all out” type efforts that have you laying on the ground gasping for air. However, they are always going to be substantially faster than your goal 10km race pace. Start by doing what we call “economy” or “efficiency” workouts. Typically, these take the form of 400m or 800m repeats. If a sub 40 minute 10km is your goal, you’d be targeting 2:55 for 800m. For 400m repeats, start by doing 4x400m at 1:24 per 400m with a 2-minute rest in between. You can then work your way up to 6x400m and finally 8x400m. As for how these should feel, it should be a medium-hard type of workout. During the actual speed portion, it’s going to feel really hard, but the rest in between should hopefully be able to alleviate some of the pain and get you ready for the next one.
 
 STEP 4: 
You then move from “economy” or “efficiency” workouts to tempo workouts. The bread-and-butter tempo workout we prescribe is the “20-minute Tempo.” You can warm up for a few kilometers, and then you jump into a 20-minute tempo run with a pace that is very close to your 10km goal pace. So again, if you’re aiming for a sub 40-minute 10km, you would be running this tempo run at about 6:36/mile or 4:08/km. This workout should not feel all out, but more so help your legs feel what it’s going to be like to run near your goal race pace for the 10km.
 
 STEP 5: 
To bring it all together, the final type of workout you will need to do are V02 max type of workouts. And yes, these are the workouts that are going to sting compared to the others. They are aerobic capacity type of workouts where you will be running the reps at 5km pace or even faster in order to get your heart rate up to 100%. The way to implement these are through longer efforts, such as kilometer or mile repeats at a high intensity interval pace. For a runner aiming at the sub 40-minute 10km, a sample workout would be 4 x 1 mile (1600m) at 6:10 pace with a 4-minute rest in between. Another workout could be 6-8 x 1000m at 3:50/km with a 2-minute rest in between. These are tough workouts, but it’s not like you need to be doing them every other day. Realistically, you be throwing in one of these hard workouts every week or two.
 
Pulling this all together, you’re going to have 80% of your running be the easy, base building type of runs. Throughout the training cycle, you’ll start to sprinkle in economy workouts, then tempo workouts, and ending with the V02 max type of efforts to help your heart pump more build to your working muscles.
Your Training Questions Answered

Your Training Questions Answered

by | Jan 31, 2023 | Uncategorized

Today, we wanted to talk you through some of our most common questions we get about training as well as our own training plans.When you don’t have one-on-one coaching, it’s not always easy knowing what to do in instances of sickness, missing a workout, or having to adapt a training plan. Hopefully these answers will help guide you in your training!

Note: This is a longer read, so we’ve highlighted the questions in red, so you can skim for something you’ve always wondered yourself. 
 
Q: What do I do if I get a 16-week training plan, but I only have 13 or 14 weeks until the race?

A: This partially depends on your overall fitness level. If you already feel like you have a good base and you don’t need a base, just remove the first couple of weeks. For most of our training plans, the first couple of weeks are focused on easier mileage, with maybe a lighter workout every couple of days. This is more so to prepare you for the weeks to come and make sure you have the base needed to really thrive using the training plan.
 
Now, say you feel like you don’t have a good base and you need those first couple of weeks to build your aerobic base back up. Our suggestion would be to look at the plan, ask yourself what you feel like are your running strengths (e.g., good at long, sustained tempo work), then ask yourself what week of the training plan would best suit your strengths, and those are the weeks that you could look at skipping. Focus on the weeks that are addressing your weaknesses that you feel like you need to work on.
 
It’s important to understand that with a question like this, there’s a lot of individual variables at play, such as the aforementioned aerobic base and your strengths and weaknesses as a runner. For Higher Running training plans, we usually try to help you feel as ready for the training plan as possible by showing you the prerequisites even before you purchase the plan (e.g., To use this plan, we suggest you’ve comfortably been running 25-30 miles per week all easy pace to be able to handle the volume). Don’t feel like you have to follow the training plan exactly to a tee, as they’re designed to be flexible, but these are all things to consider when trying to complete the training plan in a shorter amount of time.
 
Q: My main goal is to race a 100km race at the end of my 16-week training plan, but I also want to do a 50km race halfway through the training plan. What should I do in that situation?
 
(Or in situations where I have a B race halfway through training for my A race – choose you distances of choice)
 
A: We get this question a lot, and our thought is that even after a 50km, you’ll have to take recovery seriously. This means the week after the 50km you’re going to have to take it easy. You shouldn’t worry about the workouts or prescribed mileage, as you might not even run for most of the week. If you do run, focus on easy mileage. Then, your 2nd week post 50km, this is where you have to know yourself and be honest how you’re feeling. Some people may be able to jump in right where they left off. Others may still need to take it easy or reduce the volume of both the workouts and prescribed mileage.
 
You have to be really careful in the recovery and honest with yourself. Did you race this super hard and it’s going to result in 2-3 weeks of residual fatigue? It’s important to ask yourself what your true goal is, so if the 100km is your A goal, and the 50km is more of the “tune up” race, you could just use the race as a training effort like a long-run workout. (But it will still be a super hard workout regardless). Ultimately, don’t set expectations what you want your training to look like for the next 1-2 weeks post 50km race. Don’t try to push through the pain because you think it’ll help, because it will most likely end up hurting your 100km performance if you start things up too quickly again.
 
Q: If I get injured somewhere in the middle of a training plan, how do I come back? Do I start from zero? Do I jump in right where I left off?

A: This is going to vary from person-to-person and injury-to-injury. If you’re injured for a long time (several weeks), you’ll probably have to start from the beginning or even take a couple of weeks to even start truly training again. However, if you only have to take only a couple of days off, you might be able to jump in where you left off. Say you take off Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and feel good enough to run Thursday, you can probably treat it as an easy to moderate run and reduce the volume of the run. Then for the next couple of days you still would reduce the volume and intensity of the run/workout.
 
Q: Okay, that makes sense about injury, but what about getting sick?!

A: This will vary depending on the sickness. If it’s just a cold and you have to take a day or two off, don’t worry about losing too much fitness. If it’s something more serious like the flu and you have to take a week or more off, you will probably have to ease back into things with reduced run volume and intensity. Depending on when the sickness or injury occurs, you could also just do an extended taper leading up to the race if your cautious and being honest with yourself.
 
All in all, if you happen to miss a few workouts or runs because of injury, sickness, or even life, it’s not going to totally derail your training. Yes, it might take you a couple of days to get back into the swing of things, but we’ve actually seen a lot of people improve significantly after a few extra days off because of the rest their body needed.
 
Q: Should I be weightlifting? If so, how would I incorporate this into my run?

A: There can be a lot of different approaches to this, but we can tell you what we typically do.
 
We like to do our strength/lifting sessions the same day as a speed workout. The optimal way to do it would be to first do the hard run, and then the weightlifting session later on in the same day. This way you’re keeping your hard days hard, and easy days easy.
 
Other programs say to fit in the weight training when you can, no matter where it falls. Again, we don’t do this ourselves, but you can always try it to see if it works for you. The one concern we have here is that if you do a strength training session, you may be too fatigued to fully benefit from a quality run session later in the week. Another potential risk we see with this method is your body being too tired from weightlifting, resulting in improper form during your speed sessions, and ultimately ending in injury.
 
We would say there is a difference for lighter core work sessions. These tend to not be too strenuous on the body, so we will fit these in whenever is convenient (usually aiming for 2-3x a week). Just know it’s okay to experiment with what method works best for you, we are more so just telling you what we’ve found to be successful in our own running.
 
Q: If something comes up in the middle of the week and I have to change my runs around, how do I go about that?

A: Our #1 tip for this is to never stack back-to-back speed workouts or even back-to-back long run workouts. Always have one easy day in between these key sessions. If it’s a really hard workout, you might even need 2-3 easy days in between. We know that the days we’ve scheduled a key speed session or long run in the training plan isn’t always going to work for everybody’s schedule. If you are losing some training days and/or time, you may have to skip a workout here and there. But our training plans are designed where a single workout is not designed to be “the” workout you need to do in order to make gains.