The relationship between a runner and her food is crucial, influencing overall performance. Elite marathoner and Olympic medalist Shalane Flanagan emphasizes the importance of nutrition for athletes. Her approach revolves around eating nutrient-dense, whole foods, avoiding calorie counting, and listening to her body's needs.
Flanagan's Philosophy: Eat Real Food
Shalane Flanagan's nutrition philosophy revolves around eating as much good, healthy, nutrient-dense and simple ingredients as possible-but also striving to make it delicious. Flanagan realized what an important role nutrition plays in her performance. It’s literally just as important as sleep, or the amount of time I put into my running.
Cookbook Collaboration: "Run Fast Eat Slow"
Flanagan co-authored "Run Fast Eat Slow" with her longtime friend and former college teammate, chef Elyse Kopecky. The cookbook aims to provide sound nutrition advice for athletes of all levels, moving away from restrictive diets and calorie counting. Instead, it encourages runners to enjoy real food and celebrate its benefits. It's not about losing weight. It's about being the best athlete you can be, about really enjoying your food and letting it enhance your life.
Differentiating from Other Running Cookbooks
Unlike many running cookbooks that focus on calorie restriction and low-fat substitutes, "Run Fast Eat Slow" emphasizes whole foods, healthy fats, and intuitive eating. There's no calorie counting. That's a key area where we're differentiating ourselves. It's not about losing weight. It's about being the best athlete you can be, about really enjoying your food and letting it enhance your life.
Recipes for Everyone
The recipes in "Run Fast Eat Slow" are designed to be family-friendly and suitable for everyone, not just elite athletes. The cookbook emphasizes that every ingredient has a purpose, encouraging people to get excited about cooking and enjoying delicious, wholesome meals. A lot of the recipes are family friendly. Every ingredient has a purpose behind it. We want people to get excited to get in the kitchen and cook our recipes.
Read also: Kelley Flanagan's Journey
Recipe Development: A Collaborative Approach
Flanagan and Kopecky collaborate on recipe development, with Kopecky providing the nutritional background and Flanagan offering the athlete's perspective. They focus on creating recipes that are both nutritious and delicious, ensuring that runners can enjoy their meals while meeting their training needs. Elyse brings more of the nutrition background. She can explain the reason behind the ingredients. I bring the athlete perspective.
Embracing Healthy Fats
Flanagan incorporates healthy fats like whole milk, cheese, and grass-fed beef into her diet. She noticed that she felt a lot healthier when she incorporated more healthy fats in her diet. Those healthy fats are a healing agent and help me absorb the nutrients I'm consuming. Overall, I feel more satisfied; I don't have these massive cravings anymore.
Intuitive Eating
Flanagan practices intuitive eating, focusing on minimally processed foods and listening to her body's signals. Instead of counting calories, we're encouraging people to listen to their bodies to help them make smarter food choices.
A Typical Day's Menu
A typical day for Flanagan might include:
- Breakfast: Oatmeal with fruit, raisins, and coffee with creamer.
- Post-workout: Smoothie (e.g., beet smoothie with ginger and blueberries).
- Lunch: Kale, radicchio, walnut salad.
- Snacks: Homemade bars with apricots, dates, and nuts.
- Dinner: Salmon with pear and fennel salad or salmon cakes.
Nutrition Tips for a Busy Schedule
Flanagan recommends planning ahead, creating a routine, and eating seasonally and locally to maintain good nutrition on a busy schedule. Plan ahead, create a routine and eat seasonally and locally so you can get the freshest food possible.
Read also: The Hoxsey Diet
Wholesome Treats
"Run Fast Eat Slow" includes dessert recipes made with unrefined sugars like maple syrup or honey. One of her favorite dessert recipes that we created is inspired from my competition from Ethiopia. We use Ethiopian teff -- this amazing, nutrient-dense grain -- to make these really delicious peanut-butter chocolate-chip teff cookies.
Pre-Race Fueling
Before a race, Flanagan focuses on easily digestible carbohydrates and hydration. She’ll eat rice, sweet potatoes, salad, and protein (usually fish, steak, or chicken). She notes that staying hydrated is also critical ahead of the race and she likes coconut water because it “has good natural electrolytes.” As much as she can in the days leading up to the race she tries to focus on things that are as natural as possible “because the day of the marathon, it's a lot of packaged food out on the course with the gels and everything.”Ahead of the race, Flanagan prefers frequent carb-rich snacks versus big meals. And those carbs are largely simple instead of complex. She will be eating my race day oatmeal.
Post-Race Indulgences
Flanagan enjoys donuts as a post-race indulgence.
The Importance of Meal Prep
"On Sundays, I try to do some meal prepping if I can,” she notes. Rice bowls are often in rotation: “I'll make a bunch of different veggies, rice, different sauces and types of proteins,” she explains, adding that incorporating variety ensures the meals don’t get boring. “That's my easy go-to for lunch.”
Key Ingredients and Recipes
Ginger Molasses Granola
A hearty granola packed with oats and seeds is a must for athletes, but the expensive store-bought stuff with endless health claims plastered on the colorful packages is loaded with sugar. Our ginger-spiked granola is lightly sweetened with blackstrap molasses, the sticky good stuff that’s left behind after sugarcane is refined.
Read also: Walnut Keto Guide
Coconut-Kale Smoothie
One sip of this refreshing, mean-green smoothie and you’ll be ready to go that extra mile. A high-speed blender will achieve the creamiest results.
Thai Quinoa Salad
A great healthy version, and even heartier because it’s made with quinoa. In the summer, I love adding a fresh steak from the grill-I’m not picky about the cut, as long as it’s grass-fed beef. This recipe was a staple throughout my training, and I ate it in the week leading up to New York. I knew it had the carbohydrates I needed and would be easy on my stomach, and I try not to change anything I’ve done in training before a big race.
Superfoods Soup
Soups are an incredible food for runners. They’re more hydrating than plain water because of the sodium and natural electrolytes, and they’re easy to load up with a variety of nutrient-dense veggies.
Turkey Trot Meatballs
Turkey provides protein that’s easy to digest, plus essential vitamins and minerals for energy production. Many people only think fruits and vegetables provide vitamins, but high-quality meat is nutrient-dense.
Rad Raspberry Beet Smoothie Bowl
I try to integrate beets into my diet when I’m training hard-science has shown they may be good for your cardiovascular system because they contain nitrates that help lower blood pressure.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
Store-bought peanut butter cups are full of sugar and hydrogenated oils-they’re really bad for you. These are indulgent and rich, but you can feel good about eating them. They use coconut oil, peanut butter, cocoa powder, and maple syrup for the main ingredients, so it’s all whole foods, good fats, and natural sweeteners.
Training Insights
When I’m training really hard, I’m running 130 miles a week for about eight weeks. My immune system can take a heavy hit. This soup gives it a huge boost. Every ingredient has a purpose.