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Easy Recipes for Marathon Runners

Eating for marathon training doesn’t have to be stressful. These easy recipes will help boost your recovery and ensure you’re eating a variety of easy meals to boost performance. 

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As marathon training continues to ramp up, I know quick, easy dinners will become more and more important.

So, I thought putting together a list of EASY, QUICK recipes would be helpful not only for me, but for others who are looking for an eating plan for marathon training.

I’ve previously shared my meal prep for athletes and easy freezer meals for new moms, but I haven’t yet talked about my favorite quick dinner recipes and healthy meals for marathon training.

honey mustard salmon breaded and with potatoes on sheet pan

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Many of these are perfectly aligned with our sports nutrition course recommendations for fueling well, too!

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Eating For Marathon Training: The Basics

Whether you’re marathon training or not, you gotta love and appreciate the tiniest bit of meal prep to make your post run meals and snacks easier.

Eating for marathon training is much less intimidating when you understand the basics of nutrition, like making a performance plate, and making your meals work for you.

And there’s a reason meal delivery for athletes exists, too. I’m a big fan of being practical and utilizing Blue Apron when necessary. 

But, it’s still possible to eat healthy while training long distances and just being generally busy. 

Smoothie bowl with fruit, granola and peanut butter

Stock Your Kitchen

When thinking about making meals for marathon recipes, you definitely want to have ingredients and appliances in your kitchen to speed up cooking.

Here’s what I suggest:

Set Aside Time to Prep

Whether you prep for a few hours on Sunday or spend 15 extra minutes every day prepping, this really helps make your subsequent days and meals much easier.

As any runner knows, even the act of washing and cutting up produce the night before, makes it more accessible and therefore, makes you more likely to eat it the next day. 

fresh produce next to black cutting board

Forming Your Marathon Eating Plan

So, let’s talk about how we can use these products to make easy recipes for marathon training season. 

When eating for marathon training, you want to have a loose marathon eating plan. Meaning, a strategy to eat sufficient energy to avoid being in a relative energy deficit state or underfueling.

This post goes more into the dangers of not eating enough calories, which will certainly affect your energy, injury status and general training enthusiasm.

girl in pink tank top running around track grabbing her hamstring

With work, kids, church, family and other obligations, there’s a lot to be done, on top of training and sleep. Ideally, at least 7 hours a night to help with recovery and performance.

As mentioned in the Current Sports Medicine Report, “Along with being an integral part of the recovery and adaptive process between bouts of exercise, accumulating evidence suggests that increased sleep duration and improved sleep quality in athletes are associated with improved performance and competitive success.”

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates should always be the base and main part of a runner’s plate for many reasons.

First, it is the quickest and most efficient source of fuel for endurance activity, so athletes will constantly be relying on carbohydrates for activity and recovery.

Having ready-to-make meals available or that can be made quickly will greatly improve your nutrition.

We know that the co-ingestion of carbohydrate and protein has positive effects on post-exercise recovery in endurance athletes, in comparison to carbohydrate alone (2).

Steelcut Banana Oatmeal topped with banana slices and cinnamon on white counter | Bucket List Tummy

Secondly, eating ample carbohydrates means the muscles can be sufficiently filled, and draw from those glycogen stores when necessary. 

Therefore, make lots of meals that revolve around carbohydrates and don’t worry about the low carb diet for running.

This is what carbs are the mainstay of what to eat before running in the morning

These foods include:

Many of these healthy snacks for athletes are also high in carbs, making easy eating-on-the-go!

Protein

Having protein sources available, like fish, dairy products, beans and lentils, chicken, seafood, whole grains and more, will increase the likelihood of eating enough protein throughout the day and around training workouts. 

Protein need for endurance athletes is higher than you may think! Plus, protein-rich foods are going to be high in micronutrients, like iron and zinc.

Some protein-rich foods include:

dietary sources of protein

Specifically, ingesting protein (especially post exercise leucine) after exercise has been associated with reduced post-exercise muscle soreness, attenuated biomarkers of sarcolemmal disruption (i.e., creatine kinase and myoglobin), enhanced mood/energy states, recovery of muscle function, and subsequent exercise performance.

So, let’s get to some easy meals for marathon training that have this important combination of nutrients (protein + carbohydrates). 

Electrolytes

Electrolytes for runners are extra important when doing long distances, like marathon training.

Make sure to have sodium-rich electrolyte drinks available, or make your own electrolyte drink. However you get them in, know that electrolytes will help you stay hydrated for training.

Nuun tub and skratch electrolyte packets

20 Minute Meals for Healthy Eating During Marathon Training

As a mom and with a husband who travels for work, 20-30 minute meals are a must in our kitchen, which is what I detail in this meal prep ebook

Every once in a while, I can go for a long, drawn-out homecooked recipe that takes an hour or so, but that is not the norm when eating for marathon training.

More often than not, I need quick recipes that taste good and provide nutrition for my family and myself, which is why I usually recycle many of these Wednesday night dinner ideas and Thursday night dinner ideas.

You can use these ideas for your marathon training meal plan. Many of these recipes fall into the following categories:

Easy Recipes when Eating for Marathon Training

These recipes are perfect when eating for marathon training and you need quick recipes that are healthy and nourishing for activity.

As you can see, there are several easy recipes that make marathon nutrition and healthy eating easy with a busy training schedule. 

If you want more breakfast recipes, snack recipes or vegetarian recipes for athletes, this post includes over 50 Healthy Recipes for Athletes that span the board for pre-workout breakfasts, post-workout smoothies and easy portable snack options. 

OTHER RUNNING POSTS YOU MAY ENJOY

References:

References:

  1. Watson, Andrew. (2017). Sleep and Athletic Performance. Curr Sports Med Rep, 16(6):413-418.
  2. Saunders, Michael et al. (2015). Protein Supplementation During or Following a Marathon Run Influences Post Exercise Recovery. Nutrients; 10(3):333.
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  1. Great recipes! I made the slow cooker Mexican pulled pork last night and it was delish! Used it in bowls with rice, beans, cabbage slaw, and homemade avocado drizzle. My whole family loved it.

  2. The chicken fajita sheet with the sauce right there. Pretty AND easy. Totally doing next week. Love the round up. Thank you!

  3. That air fryer salmon recipe is the best! I love all these tips so much 🙂 I’m training for a race in October.

  4. What a comprehensive post! My brother and friend from college both run marathons each year, so this is great for them! Thanks for including my potato and salmon fishcake recipe. 🙂