Author: Trainees need carbs

The New Rules of Marathon and Half-Marathon Nutrition by Matt Fitzgerald (Da Capo Press, paperback, February), 290 pages, $17.99

While the term “nutrition rules” may bring to mind a joyless regimen of chalky shakes and cardboard sports bars, Matt Fitzgerald makes a convincing case in this book that most runners training for a long race can benefit from paying closer attention to how they eat while training.

He begins by making the case for a relatively high-carbohydrate diet during training for endurance running events, presenting plenty of scientific evidence that low-carbohydrate diets prevent runners from doing their best in races. His approach to nutrition is far from proscriptive, though. There are no forbidden foods or food groups, and he doesn’t recommend that runners in training for a race try to restrict their calorie intake.

He breaks his nutrition plan down into two rules: Get enough carbohydrates and get lean. He gives daily carbohydrate consumption ranges based on amount of time spent training, which could give some readers flashbacks to math class.

This is one of the more technical parts of the book, since he calls for fairly specific goals in terms of grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight.

His method for getting down to racing weight focuses on what he calls diet quality - ranking food groups and telling runners to eat more of the higher-ranked groups. Surprise, surprise: Vegetables are the top-ranked group.

He follows these fairly technical sections with a section describing what this plan might look like in real life, including sample meal plans and a handful of recipes. They’re not exactly gourmet, but they are solid, staple recipes for runners who might not have much experience in the kitchen.

Fitzgerald also devotes a section of the book to specific advice on how to eat during each step in the training process. He goes into everything from how long a training run should be before you need to break out a sports drink or gel, and general rules for eating during the taper period before a race, to plans for what to eat and drink during a race (and how to figure out what works for you beforehand so you don’t make yourself sick on race day).

Since training and nutrition have to work together for a runner to turn in a top performance, Fitzgerald also includes a section on training programs. His recommendations are based on the Arthur Lydiard method, which calls for high mileage at mostly low intensity. Fitzgerald offers clear instructions for determining how hard you should be running, templates for eight kinds of workouts, and detailed training and nutrition programs for marathons and half marathons in three experience levels (beginner, intermediate and advanced).

One of the few places to fault Fitzgerald is that he takes several opportunities to recommend products and programs he has designed for sports companies. He doesn’t shill too hard for them, however, and he does give other options for folks who don’t want to buy his spiel.