Diet crucial for cross-country

By Brent Meske

Outsiders often overlook a runner’s diet, but it is just as important to runners as practicing and training.

The SIU cross-country team does not have a set diet it follows, but individual runners tend to follow their own diet anyway.

Coach David Beauchem said he does not give the team a diet because he does not have control over what the team eats.

Advertisement

Former coach Matt Sparks said he suggested runners eat light before a race day, just a bagel usually. But he primarily left decisions up to individual runners. He said they were capable of taking care of their own diets.

Junior Juan Carrera said a typical cross-country diet is a balance of protein, carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables and occasional sweets.

Senior Nick Schrader said he tries to eat a well balanced diet but he eats what tastes good to him.

“I focus on getting the calories I need more than quality of food sometimes,” he said. “I never count calories or anything. I just eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full. I would guess I eat about 4,000 to 5,000 calories a day.”

According to the American Cancer Society, an average, 6’1, 185 pound male should eat approximately 3,300 calories a day.

“As distance runners, they focus more on carbohydrates and protein,” Beauchem said. “Those are the two that give runners lasting energy. But in all, they have to balance their diets for long-term fitness.”

Carrera said the night before a workout, he eats a meal of whole grain linguine pasta with chicken, vegetables and marinara sauce mixed in.

Advertisement*

The focus is on pasta because it is high in carbohydrates, which makes glucose. The glucose is then stored in muscles and converted to energy so runners are ready for their workout or race. The protein from the chicken helps rebuild muscles after long days of running.

Freshman Hillary Merrill said she did not have a set diet in high school. She said runners care more about dieting in college and it is easier to diet when people do it together.

Merrill said her teammates will send each other healthy recipes they find and will try them together.

“We have tried a lot of things like pumpkin granola, pumpkin covered almonds, homemade protein bars, oatmeal chocolate cookies and banana bread,” Merrill said.

She said the team has a serious sweet tooth so they will try to find healthy, sweet snacks to enjoy and bake as a team. They try to find substitutes for ingredients like applesauce instead of oil, dark instead of milk chocolate and they always use whole-wheat flour.

She said the team tries to eat together as much as possible.

“We eat together as a team before meets and after Saturday workouts,” she said. “The freshmen are the only girls who live in the towers and eat at the dining hall, so after practice we always meet up at True Blood and eat dinner together.”

Carrera said staying hydrated is just as important as dieting. It is more of an issue for the freshmen who come from different climates and are accustomed to colder weather sooner in the year.

“We drink more than the recommended amount,” he said. “We lose a lot of water weight because we run 70-85 miles a week. For every pound of weight loss, we have to drink about 20 oz. of water to rehydrate.”

The team still focuses on their diets in the offseason, but they are more relaxed about it.

“In the offseason I will go to McDonald’s and order something off the dollar menu,” Carrera said. “But after a couple times I start to feel weird and I just want to get right back into my diet and cross-country workouts.”

Brent Meske can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @brentmeskeDE.

Advertisement