What Do I Eat For My First OCR?

Obstacle Course Racing (OCR) is all the rage lately. A number of the athletes with whom I work are dedicated, even obsessed, OCR racers. They are constantly picking my brain about how they should eat on race day. My answers sometimes surprise them. Here’s why:

First, if you eat well to begin with, you really don’t need to eat differently for any race that takes you less than two hours to complete. If you eat three to five meals per day with a good balance of protein, healthy carbohydrates, healthy fats and vegetables, you should be good to go. You may be hungrier than usual afterwards, and it is perfectly fine to eat several hundred more calories after completing a race than you would ordinarily, but you don’t need complicated nutrition strategies for races of shorter duration.

Second, advanced nutrition strategies only work if you have a proper nutritional foundation in place. It doesn’t make sense to give an athlete, or anyone for that matter, a complicated plan that they cannot possibly follow because they don’t have a solid understanding of how much they should be eating, and of what. Therefore, I spend a lot of time working with clients on how to make sure that they have the basics nailed (such as eating the right amounts of protein, healthy carbohydrates, healthy fats and vegetables) before they start worrying about nutrient timing, carbo loading, supplementation, and all sorts of other things.

Third, what you eat and drink on race day should NEVER be different from what you do in training. If you have developed a tried and true training regimen, that is what you should be doing on race day because you know how your body reacts to it. When my husband ran the Boston Marathon for the first time, he ate a banana at mile 19. Big mistake. What had been a fabulous race for him until that point went downhill fast because he subjected his body to something it wasn’t used to eating under those conditions.

​Are there recreational OCR athletes who should be using more advanced nutrition strategies? Of course, and I love working with them, but only after we have the basics in place!