Training for a marathon is a daunting task. I often advise beginners to think of running the marathon as they would think of eating an elephant; one bite at a time. When I ran my first marathon with the charity support group Team in Training, the coach recommended and ran her own intervals at a 9:1 ratio. She ran at a steady pace for 9 minutes and walked for 1 minute recovery. Her training partner ran a tri-split interval at 7 minutes steady pace, 2 hard minutes and 1 minute recovery for the entire distance. I found myself favoring the 7:2:1 pace, as this allowed for the most break-up of the distance and monotony of mileage.
Breakfast gets the same treatment from me. Break the job into pieces, do the chopping, soaking and mixing the night before, and the morning part is mostly opening the fridge. Every breakfast below gets its prep done the night before, from overnight oats and chia pudding to an everything bagel casserole and a tray of cinnamon rolls that waits in the fridge until you’re up.
Classic Overnight Oats
Equal parts old-fashioned oats and milk, about half a cup of each, plus a spoonful of yogurt, a little maple syrup and a pinch of salt. Stir it in a jar, put the lid on and leave it in the fridge overnight.
By morning it’s soft and thick and you eat it cold (or warm it for a minute if cold oats in November sounds wrong to you). I’d skip quick oats here. They turn to paste.
Chia Pudding
The ratio I go by is 3 tablespoons of chia seeds to 1 cup of milk, with a little maple syrup and vanilla. Stir, wait 10 minutes, then stir again. That second stir is the whole trick, since it breaks up the clumps before they set.
Cover the ramekins and leave them overnight. What comes out of the fridge looks like these, plain and set, and the fruit or a spoon of jam goes on top right before you eat.
Bircher Muesli
The Swiss original, and sort of the grandfather of overnight oats. Rolled oats soak overnight in apple juice with a splash of milk. In the morning you grate a whole apple into it, skin and all, then stir in plain yogurt and some chopped hazelnuts. It’s tangier and looser than overnight oats, and grating the apple at the last minute keeps it from going brown.
Yogurt Parfait With Granola and Berries
Layer the yogurt and berries in jars at night, but keep the granola in its own little container and add it in the morning. Otherwise it’s soggy by breakfast, which sort of defeats the point of granola.
The bowl here skips the layers and just piles blueberries, raspberries and granola on top. I’d call that a parfait too.
How Long to Wait Before a Morning Run
Going for a jog on an empty stomach can be tempting. You’ll want to save time and maybe burn some extra calories while you’re at it. Whether you’re going for a run or a jog, it’s recommended to eat before the exercise. It’s better to leave a space of at least an hour between your jog and your meal. You can take your time changing your clothes and warming up a bit.
A good breakfast for morning joggers should be quick to prepare and gentle to digest, with plenty of carbohydrates and fat kept to a minimum. The right pre-training meal varies from one person to the other, so keep in mind that this whole thing is highly experimental. There are a few things that are better to avoid, at least initially: spicy or salty food, fatty junk food, large amounts of caffeine, red meat and legumes. Once you wake up, remember to drink at least 1 cup of water. After eating your breakfast, you can take another one. This way, you’ll drink around 16 ounces of water an hour before the jog.
Everything Bagel Breakfast Casserole
This is the old strata move with bagels. Cube 3 or 4 everything bagels into a greased 9×13 dish, scatter cooked sausage and shredded cheddar over them, then pour on a dozen eggs whisked with 2 cups of milk. Cover it and refrigerate overnight so the bread soaks it all up.
In the morning it bakes at 350°F for 45 to 55 minutes, until it’s puffed and golden like the one being cut here. Check the center with a thermometer, since the FSIS safe temperature chart puts egg dishes at 160°F.
Mini Frittatas
Muffin tin frittatas are the kind of thing you bake at night and pull out 2 at a time. Whisk 10 eggs with a splash of milk, pour it over chopped spinach, peppers, ham and a little cheese in a greased 12-cup tin, and bake about 20 minutes at 350°F, until the middles are set and puffed like the tray here.
Let them cool all the way before they go into a container, or they sweat and go rubbery. About 30 seconds in the microwave brings them back.
Sausage and Cheddar Breakfast Casserole
Bread cubes, browned sausage and cheddar in a baking dish with eggs and milk poured over. Cover it, refrigerate overnight and bake in the morning until the center is set.
Egg Salad Toast
A good way to use up a few of those eggs. Mash them with mayo, a little Dijon, chopped celery, salt and pepper, and keep the bowl covered in the fridge. The morning job is toast. Rye or sourdough holds up better than soft sandwich bread, and a handful of arugula on top doesn’t hurt.
Iced Coffee With Cold Foam
Cold brew does all its work overnight: coarse ground coffee and water in a jar, strained in the morning. Froth a little cold milk on top.
Overnight Egg Bake
The plainer cousin of the bagel casserole up the list, with no bread at all. Whisk a dozen eggs with a cup of milk, stir in cooked sausage or ham, diced peppers, mushrooms and a couple of handfuls of shredded cheese, pour it into a greased 9×13 dish, cover it and refrigerate overnight.
Bake it at 350°F for 40 to 45 minutes in the morning, until the center is set and the top is golden like this one. Cut it into squares and the leftovers keep 3 to 5 days in the fridge.
Savory Oatmeal
Steel-cut oats soaked overnight cook in about 10 minutes. Stir in a little parmesan and top with a soft egg, greens and a spoonful of chili crisp.
Banana Bread
Banana bread is one of those things that tastes better the day after you bake it, which is why it belongs on this list. Mash 3 very ripe bananas, stir in melted butter, sugar, an egg and a little vanilla, then fold in flour, baking soda and a pinch of salt. Chocolate chips are optional (the slice here has them).
Bake it in a loaf pan at 350°F for about an hour, until a toothpick comes out clean, and let it cool completely before you wrap it up for the night. In the morning you cut a thick slice and go, or toast it with a little peanut butter if you have a few extra minutes.
Eating the Week Before a Half Marathon
In the week leading up to the race, you should eat healthy, full meals that are rich in protein, complex carbohydrates, fiber, and healthy fats. However, you can slightly increase your carb intake 2 days before the race. You still want to eat balanced meals, but carb-based meals can raise your muscle glycogen levels, which your body relies on as fuel.
On race day, you should eat a good breakfast 2 to 3 hours before the race. There are many pre-race breakfast options that you can choose from, such as a bagel with a bit of honey and peanut butter, granola bars, or a brown toast with an egg. At the same time, you should lay off high-fiber foods to prevent any stomach issues. You should also drink at least 500ml of water the morning of your race. A few things on this list (a plain bagel, a slice of pumpkin bread, a hard-boiled egg on toast) fit that pretty well if you set them out the night before.
Overnight French Toast
That’s the whole lineup in the photo: a loaf of thick-sliced bread, eggs, milk, butter, vanilla, cinnamon and a few berries. Cube the bread (day-old soaks better than fresh), lay it in a buttered baking dish and pour over about 8 eggs whisked with 2 cups of milk, vanilla and cinnamon. Cover it and leave it in the fridge overnight.
Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes or so, until the middle is set and reads 160°F. Berries and maple syrup on top.
Crepes
Crepe batter is better after a night in the fridge since the flour has time to relax. In the morning it’s just a hot pan, a thin pour and whatever filling you like.
Dutch Baby
Whisk the eggs, milk and flour the night before. In the morning, pour it into a hot buttered pan and bake at 425°F for about 20 minutes while it puffs up.
Overnight Cinnamon Rolls
Make the dough, roll it out, spread it with soft butter, brown sugar and cinnamon, roll it up and slice the rolls into the pan. Then stop. Cover the pan and put it in the fridge overnight instead of letting the rolls rise.
In the morning, let them sit out about an hour to warm up and puff, then bake them for 25 minutes or so. Cream cheese icing goes on while they’re still warm, like the one here.
Blueberry Muffins
Bake them at night and they’re ready when you are. A standard muffin batter (flour, sugar, baking powder, an egg, milk and melted butter) with about a cup and a half of blueberries folded in at the very end. If the berries are frozen, toss them in a spoonful of flour first so they don’t bleed purple through everything. Coarse sugar on top gives you the crackly lid on the one in the photo.
Refrigerator Bran Muffins
An old-school batter that sits in a covered container in the fridge, so you bake as many as you want each morning. Bran cereal soaked in buttermilk, plus flour, brown sugar, eggs, oil and raisins. Scoop it straight into the tin and bake about 20 minutes at 375°F. Given the fiber advice above, I’d keep these for a regular weekday and not race morning.
Pumpkin Bread
Quick breads are a natural fit for the night before, since they slice cleaner once they’ve cooled for a few hours anyway. Canned pumpkin, oil, eggs, brown sugar, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and a little clove, baked in a loaf pan at 350°F for about an hour.
Wrap it once it’s cool. A slice with peanut butter makes a decent pre-run breakfast in my book.
Race-Day Food Rules From the Ginger Runner
If you’ve ever wondered what you should be eating on race day, Ethan Newberry (a.k.a. the Ginger Runner) has some advice worth hearing. He’s speaking from experience, not as a certified or trained professional, and here are the things to keep in mind, according to Ethan:
- What you eat every day directly affects you on race day.
- Everyone’s systems are completely different, so what suits one person may not suit another.
- What works for you may suddenly stop working for you.
- Know that your plan can and will change at any time, and be willing to adapt.
- Try everything so you can figure out how your body processes different things and how it behaves.
In other words, do your breakfast experimenting on a training morning, not on race morning.
Make-Ahead Buttermilk Biscuits
Biscuits are better baked fresh, but almost all of the work can happen the night before. Cut cold butter into flour, baking powder and salt, stir in buttermilk, pat it out and cut the biscuits, then set them on a lined sheet, cover them and put the whole thing in the fridge.
In the morning they go straight from the fridge into a 425°F oven for about 15 minutes. The cold butter is what gives you the flaky layers on the ones here.
Turkey and Sweet Potato Hash
Dice the sweet potatoes and onion at night, and brown the ground turkey with garlic, smoked paprika and a little sage, then refrigerate both. Ground turkey is done at 165°F.
In the morning the sweet potatoes go into a cast iron skillet with some oil until they crisp at the edges, the turkey goes back in to warm through, and you crack 4 eggs into little wells on top. Lid on for a few minutes until the whites set, like the skillet here.
Cottage Cheese Bowl
Probably the least work on the list. Portion cottage cheese into containers at night, and in the morning top it with granola or sliced almonds, blueberries and raspberries.
The bowl here gets a little lemon zest at the end, which sounds odd until it’s next to the berries. Go with large curd if the small-curd texture bugs you.
Fruit Salad
Cut the sturdy fruit at night, like the watermelon, pineapple and blueberries in this bowl, and hold the bananas and apples until morning since they brown. A squeeze of lime and a drizzle of honey keep it from tasting flat. Cover it tight and eat it the next day.
Stewed Berries
Frozen mixed berries, a spoonful of sugar or maple syrup and a squeeze of lemon, cooked over medium heat for about 10 minutes until they break down and turn saucy. Cool it and jar it. Spoon it over the overnight oats, the yogurt, the waffles, pretty much anything on this page.
Chia Jam
The shortcut cousin of chia pudding. Mash 2 cups of warm cooked berries with a little honey, stir in 2 tablespoons of chia seeds and let it set in the fridge overnight. It turns thick enough to spread on toast or swirl into yogurt. I’d use it up within 3 to 4 days.