A coach breaks down fueling for sprinters racing at 4 PM: a big carb-and-protein meal four hours before, beetroot juice and a snack two hours out, electrolytes an hour before. After the race, carbs fast to refill glycogen for the next event.
This is how my sprinters fuel for their meets. First of all, you got to know what time you're racing at. I get it, it's rolling starts a lot of the times. Just ballpark this, okay? Let's say that you're going to be running around 4 PM. 4 hours before, you need a full meal. Now, this is going to depend on your size and your weight and stuff like that, but a full meal, lots of carbs, good amount of protein. 2 hours before the race, you're going to want a high-carb snack, plus I usually have my athletes doing beetroot juice. Then 1 hour before, I have electrolytes plus fluid. Again, this is going to depend, but around 500 milligrams of sodium is what we're shooting for here. Obviously, this is a sprint, so we're not going to have you have anything during the race, but after the race we want to make sure that you're putting the carb in your body to get your gas tanks back up and get ready for the next event.
