Thereās two things to consider here.
At a certain point while youāre running for a long time you get very tired, start to feel like stopping, for you this probably happens earlier than it does for me, i find a couple of sweets just wake you up a bit and give you some short term energy, if you run a marathon you could end up eating a pound of sweets no problem.
If you are running for close to two hours youāll be needing to reload your carbohydrate stores, this is non negotiable, the sweets can do the job here as well.
I put a pack in the belt yeah.
The jelly beans are grand @Mac but those clif bloks are savage,
Iād always have porridge and a banana pre marathon but I think the meal the night before is more important. If I was just doing a long run Iād probably have a banana or bowl of cereal. In the past I would have ran plenty of long runs on empty. Some experts recommend doing long runs on empty because it gets your body used to how youāll feel after 20 miles in the marathon.
When Iāve done the longer runs lately Iāve had porridge with a chopped banana and nuts about an hour beforehand. I donāt think Iād react well to running on empty, but as you say itās the meal the night before that is most important. Last week I had a chicken madras and 4 bottles of IPA the night before. They provided plenty of nos the next morning.
An hour? Iād still be digesting at the time ā¦ iām a minimum of 1.5 hours or nothing at all.
Running empty is great - youāll surprise yourself. My last few runs empty were really poor tho, iām putting it down to lack of sleep rather than food in my tum tum.
