Is the importance of diet exaggerated? I think so

You can run fast on a bad diet. But it catches up

with you over the long term. If you just want to run fast in college than I suppose you can get by training hard and not caring too much about nutrition. However if you enjoy running and want to continue training and even just running recreationally for your adult life. A healthy diet is important to keep your body able to get out there.

If you don't eat, you die. If you don't eat enough, you will physically be unable to complete your workouts.

John Wesley Harding wrote:

OldManRivers wrote:

I was a 14:30's 5k and 24:30's 8k guy in college. A decent runner but certainly not "good" by any standards.

That’s “good” by most standards. Not Cheptegei’s, but most.

Absolutely very good because 1430 is roughly equivalent to the following times: 1500/3:55, 3000/8:20, 10,000/30:00-30:20, half marathon 1:05-1:06, marathon 2:15-2:19.

I think when people focus on "nutrition" it's mostly a euphemism for "keep your weight down, because unnecessary fat will slow you down," which they're afraid to say, in 2021. That being said, it's still probably better to eat lots of fruits and vegetables over junk and beer, no matter how many college kids says they're getting away with it, in the short term.

On the other hand, if you're running high mileage, subsisting on nothing but low calorie vegetables, no matter how rich in vitamins and minerals, can sometimes lead to carb depletion. When you're running 50, 60 80 miles per week sometimes you just get way too far behind on calories, and there's not always unlimited time to graze on green stuff. In that case, I might eat some junk food. But I try not to make it the norm.

It's all about having a reasonable balance. Constant binge drinking and eating isn't good. Neither is living like a giraffe with no other options but eating greens non-stop even if calorie depletion has you crashing.

Can’t agree. If a runner says they’re focusing on nutrition these days, they’re normally talking about trying to recover better or avoid stress fractures. Certainly not trying to keep their weight down.

Bad diet can lower things like testosterone, don’t fall into the trap

JoshKerrsBeard wrote:

Maybe you’re getting more calories now?

This was my first thought. Your previous diet didn't have enough calories, so by eating junk you had a calorie boost and are performing better.

Long term though, a healthy diet (with enough calories) wins out. You need the nutrients.

Ghost1 wrote:

John Wesley Harding wrote:

That’s “good” by most standards. Not Cheptegei’s, but most.

Absolutely very good because 1430 is roughly equivalent to the following times: 1500/3:55, 3000/8:20, 10,000/30:00-30:20, half marathon 1:05-1:06, marathon 2:15-2:19.

Never ran anywhere near that for 1500. Just couple seconds off for 3k. Never raced an official 10k but went sub 31 a couple of times on longer training sessions. Half marathon just under 69 min and never raced the marathon. My diet and night habits were deplorable in college. It was in graduate school that I began to develop the routine I'd carry later into life. In my mid 30's, I've found that lower carb diet during the week and enjoying pizza, burgers, some beers, etc. on the weekends is doable. If I want to stay low mileage and run where I want to, I stay pretty conservative on the overindulging. I also found that after 25, I gained weight very easily...

As long as you don't gain weight from your whatever diet, it probably won't matter much in shorter races.

doesnt matter what fuel you use if the engine is burnin hot enough

U. Raynuss wrote:

When you get to that level of excellence, you owe it to yourself to grab every edge you can, and eating a crappy diet like that and drinking to excess the night before a race certainly is not helpful.

Maybe that "sub-4" guy could have ran a second faster, that's an eternity in a mile race at that level of competition.

This is a somewhat silly discussion. If you have talent like that, of course you will be able to eat garbage and still run very well. But to me, that's completely missing the boat.

CORRECT!

MelRnr wrote:

I agree. A healthy balanced diet is important for overall health and longevity. Simple carbs / sugars are great in the days before a race. Nutritious foods like, fruits, veggies, meats and fish, and whole grains are important for a long healthy life.

Also, it's ok to eat pizza, cheeseburgers, and all that, and drink beer and wine, I just make sure I'm eating healthy most of the time and keep the "bad" stuff in moderation.

^This! A very smart sports nutritionist once told me, "there are no bad foods, only bad diets." What someone eats for a weekend is not going to tell you what their total diet looks like. Choice of foods over a week, month or longer is a better picture of what is a healthy diet.

British Guy wrote:

…

Ever since that visit I've pretty much abandoned my diet, which used to be pretty healthy, and this past weekend I improved my 4-month old 5K PB by a fairly large margain, even breaking 15 for the first time in my life, despite eating far far worse than I was eating 4 months ago.

This whole experience has shown me that diet can't make much difference at all, it makes me realise that anyone short of olympic level shouldn't really care about their diet as the gains from it are so margainal. Training and genetics are what matter.

You appear to be conflating the small (but certain) effect diet has on running performance with the belief that eating unhealthy has no consequences. You are probably too young to have an appreciation for the long-term difficult-to-reverse effects of diet or most anything to which you subject your body.

Diet does make a difference even to running performance. You can probably survive on fries and coke alone for a long time but I’m having a difficult time imagining you will achieve your best running performance that way. But your observation is correct that, unless your diet is extremely skewed like that to have almost no diversity, eating chocolate and alcohol and sugar water and pizza are all just fine as part of a runner’s diet. Pizza is even decent nutrition unlike the mostly empty calories in the others.

agc5k wrote:

My personal belief is that nutrition has little to no effect on performance, but rather it effects ability to stay healthy. If you have good nutrition, you will lower injury risk. Now some people are naturally so durable that they can have horrible nutrition and never get injured, but most aren't so lucky.

Yes, but the ability to stay healthy has a huge influence on performance. Getting injured =missed training time=reduced performance. Similarly, the ability to avoid communicable illness has a huge influence on performance. I can not tell you how many times I seen runners complain about always being sick but when I see their diet they are eating next to none fruits and vegetables. Because of the increased stress on the immune system brought about by intense training, athetes need more vitamins,minerals and antioxidants than a sedentary person.

I think diet is important, but not in the way people would think. Too many runners are out there eating salad because it's "healthy" (probably without a good definition of "healthy") when what they need is carbs and meats. As for junk food, as long as it's far enough out from a workout or race, I have never had a problem with junk food, even fried foods in moderation but I'm sure everyone's sensitivities to junk food is different.

You didn't mention their ages. There's a very high chance the sub 4 miler is in his mid 20s or younger. Most guys in their later 20s or 30s and beyond aren't running sub 4 miles. If they are, they are probably watching their diet a lot more.

When you are in your teens and up until your mid 20s, you can get away with eating a lot of garbage with minimal effects.

Thinking diet doesn't matter is beyond dumb. The amount of posters that lack any semblance of common sense or critical thinking is astounding. The inability to grasp simple concepts blows my mind.

No, your diet doesn't need to be "perfect" but if you think you can eat crap and have it not hurt your performance, or think you improved because of it. Is this stupidity or a troll? Let's not even get into how you're hurting your health....There are posts on this thread rivaling the stupidity that goes on in COVID threads.

I can't believe I'm actually, for once, disgusted with the "bro-crap" I'm reading.

Just eat chocolate cake and drink beer everyday geniuses, who needs protein, iron, or healthy fats. Literally the biggest science deniers of all time. Basic nutrition science that isn't even controversial. Your misinformation is dangerous and irresponsible! You risk the safety of others by spreading it...Educate your d@mn self!

America really is fat and stupid. Our healthcare system can't cope with the magnitude of stupidity.

To be clear, the first page of posts is mostly crap. The 2nd page is mostly good.