If you are a runner taking some downtime from higher volume training and racing—or if you plan to ramp up your efforts in a cross seasonal sport like skimo racing or cyclocross—winter is a great time to dial in your offseason nutrition. 

Focusing on your performance nutrition in the offseason can give you the mental capacity to apply information to your specific challenge areas and help build a solid framework that you can work off of as your running intensity and volume increase. Offseason nutrition can also help build a foundation for your peak training and racing season.

Work on Your Foundation

Like base training, building a strong nutritional base can help as you get into the race season, when you might be short on time or tired from all of the training. Foundational nutrition skills like planning, shopping, macronutrient adjustment for training days, and micronutrient diversity can all contribute to the makings of a strong, adaptable runner. 

Flex Your Planning Muscles

It’s hard to fuel well without a plan. Think ahead and prepare grocery lists and meals to ensure your nutritional choices align with your goals. 

To get yourself into a better routine, block out specific times on your calendar or set reminders on your phone every week. Keep planned meals and snacks simple and easy to prepare, particularly for breakfast and lunch. This can make the process less daunting. Snacks, in particular, can be planned in a way that supports different training goals, such as pre-and post-workout snacks that are meant to promote energy levels and recovery. For example, graham crackers might be a great pre-workout choice because they contain simple carbs and while chocolate milk provides a perfect balance of carbohydrates and protein post-workout.

Planning your grocery list and meals can save you money and time because you’ll avoid impulse buys and aimless wandering around the market.

Plus, the offseason can be an opportune time to try new recipes that you might have needed more time to try during heavy training. If you don’t like to cook, try exploring meal delivery services. Purple Carrot, Factor 75, Daily Harvest, or Hello Fresh are great places to start. These can help you conveniently plan meals to fit within budget and dietary needs.

Macronutrient Intake

Many runners focus strictly on energy intake when thinking about off-season versus race-season fueling. However, the offseason can be a great time to hone in on the macronutrients you consume—protein, carbohydrates, and fats. While it may be tempting to start restricting overall energy consumption, you must be cautious and aware that, even in the offseason, any training requires additional energy intake.

If you decrease your volume and intensity in the offseason, you may need fewer carbohydrate than during race season. However, it is important to note that carbohydrate intake must match volume and intensity if you are not decreasing in the off-season. The International Society of Sports Nutrition recommends 5-12 g/kg/bodyweight per day carbohydrate requirements for ultrarunners. (To get your weight in kilograms, take your bodyweight in pounds and divide by 2.2). However, carb intake can be adjusted based on training volume and intensity. This might look like one cup of carbohydrate at each meal on light training days less than one hour in duration, or two cups at each meal on heavier training days greater than two hours.

Eat and Train to Reduce Injury

The offseason can be a good time to work on muscular strength and resilience to help avoid injury risk when preparing for a big race. Your protein needs in the offseason will depend on strength goals and the volume and intensity of training. For instance, if you are doing more strength training during the offseason, you may want to keep protein intake similar or even increase it slightly to help support muscle strength. Protein intake recommendations range from 1.6-2.5g/kg bodyweight per day and, like carbs, can be adjusted to fit offseason goals. 

While runners often neglect fat consumption, it is important to remember that fats contain twice the energy compared to carbohydrates and protein. In the offseason, fat requirements may not be as high if you are not training as much. However, they are still important diet components for fat-soluble vitamin consumption, cellular membrane functioning, and hormone production.

Get in Those Micros

Micronutrient intake, a.k.a. your vitamins and minerals, is essential to the body’s physiological functioning. From bone health and strength to immune system function and neurotransmitter production, your micros keep the body running smoothly, reducing injury and illness risk.  

A peak training period (roughly three months before a race) places higher stress and demands on the body’s systems, which increases the micronutrient requirements needed to function properly. So, the offseason is a good time for runners to consider getting a basic athlete blood panel to check under the hood and ensure no deficiencies need to be addressed.

Runners should pay attention to iron status (full iron panel including ferritin), Vitamin D (important for bone health, muscle strength, and immune function), red blood cell magnesium (which impacts iron storage status), B12 (an energy producer), and a basic complete blood count are good foundational blood markers to examine. It is important to note that, if you do get an athlete blood panel done, make sure professionals who understand laboratory reference ranges are interpreting the panels for you. Runner’s levels and nutritional needs are different compared to non-runners, and athletes should seek out a medical team that understands their background and goals.

Some athletes might need or benefit from supplements for certain deficiencies. But, the offseason is also a great opportunity to see how athletes can correct that imbalance through food. 

Focus on Diet Diversity

Due to time constraints and training demands during race season, you might gravitate towards eating the same foods for weeks or months. Additional time in the offseason can allow for time to explore increasing plant food diversity.

To support your gut microbiome, increase plant-based food variety in your diet. This will help support bacterial diversity in your gut, something that’s correlated with better cell signaling, improved metabolism, modulation of inflammation, and improved glucose metabolism.

Additionally, increasing diversity in antioxidant-rich foods such as herbs, spices, teas, and colors of plant-rich foods can reduce oxidative stress load from exercise (which can impair muscle contraction and lead to performance impairment) without inhibiting training adaptations. Cue the green tea and dark chocolate consumption!

Keys for Offseason Nutrition

The racing offseason can be a great time for runners to focus on rest and recovery, and build a resilient foundation through nutrition. While it may seem enticing to go into restrictive fueling mode, it can be beneficial for runners to view this time as the perfect opportunity to focus on digging deeper into blood biomarkers, overall macronutrient consumption, and what to add in to optimize performance and health of your future self.