On the fly Recovery sport Nutrition

It was a Sunday and it was time for me to get out and complete my long run. I had been busy at work in New lynn finalising different things for the week ahead. I usually carry everything I need in the back of my ute keeping all my stinky running and training gear very separate from the cab. Today I was running out of time I really wanted my run to be about 30km, so I grabbed all my gear, got changed and sorted out what nutrition I may need to take. Lately it has been pretty cold so I haven't needed much hydration (lower sweat rates) during runs and have been able to get away with not taking much fluid. However I knew for a 30km run I was probably going to need some decent carbohydrate during it, to get the most out of the training......I was a bit unprepared. I found one Gel floating around the cab! Maybe I could get away with this. Time was really running short. So I threw the gel in my pocket and took off from the office. Everything was going great. At about the one hour mark. I started to feel it, I know that feeling, that ebbing of energy, but I was only about 12 km into the run.... I didn't want to use my only gel just yet. Then I thought I could just go into the gas station further up the road to replenish, as a dietitian I would be able to put something together from the servo offerings. Then I remembered I had taken all my bank cards out of my cell phone case so they didn't get sweaty ! DOH. SO I had my gel and continued on. Needless to say I really started to feel the lack of energy by the half marathon mark. I got back to my office with 30k under the belt having consumed one gel. So my next best thing to do now was REALLY make sure I got good Post training recovery nutrition in ASAP. The first 60-90 minutes after exercising is when the body will be most effective at replacing muscle glycogen and facilitating muscle repair through protein uptake. SO I jogged to the supermarket. Now what to get fast?. I am a vegan so it cuts out a lot of handy options I could have grabbed like low fat creamed rice!, a lean meat option from the deli and some bread, 330ml of  flavoured milk.... But I ended up looking at the chocolate soy milk , 500ml of this would give me 44gm Carbohydrate and 15gm protein in liquid form, fantastic. Plus it tastes great. Bonus it would help with rehydrating. Sometimes you cant always be prepared but if you know what you need you can still make do in most situations. Getting that post training nutrtition in means helping to make sure my body is adapting how I need it to and keeping me in good shape going into the next training week. 

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