Initially, my two concerns when I was asked to review the ‘High Performance Nutrition for Master Athletes’ book were:
- Although I do run marathons and ultra-marathons I do not consider myself an “athlete” as such
- Would the book be too technical for me?
I am pleased to say that both of those concerns were alleviated shortly after starting to read the book.
The book started with a detailed analysis of what constitutes a masters athlete, how age is just a number and how by looking at factors such as nutrition you can still maximise your potential rather than be defined by your age category and being an “older runner”. The book then goes into fuelling, it covers the basic principles of nutrition and how what we eat affects performance and covers in detail the requirements needed of different nutrients based on high or low training volumes.
I liked how the book went into detail regarding relevant nutrition for different sports and how the needs of an ultra-runner are very different to those of a sprinter for example, all whilst keeping the text simple enough for layman like me to understand.
There are various interviews from masters’ athletes across all sports discussing how they fuel for events and how they have adapted their nutrition since becoming masters athletes, this I found helpful particularly when they often admitted to the post-race cheat meal that we all know and love!
As well as covering the types of fuelling the book covered what I find to be potentially the most important element of all, the timing of fuelling, how do you avoid hitting that dreaded wall? How do you fuel post-race to ensure you are correctly fed and hydrated for recovery, this can often be a minefield but the book lays it all out using helpful tables breaking down the amount of recommended carbohydrates and the timing both pre-race, during race and post-race and sample meal plans covering both of those 3 key areas.
The meal plans I found extremely helpful and I have started to implement the timings and carbohydrate ratios for my longer training runs and so far so good!
If there was one thing I could change about the book it would be to have more plant based options within the fuelling plans, there are many of us out there that chose to live a plant based life however I have found that I can easily adapt the plans to suit my chosen lifestyle.
I am currently training for my first 50 mile ultra which is a step up from previous 50k events and I am confident that this book will be a well-used tool along my training plan.
If you are looking for a book that covers all the science without all of the confusion then I think this could be the book for you.
Review by Donna Banks
High-Performance Nutrition for Masters Athletes by Lauren A. Antonucci
Click here to view the book.
Pros
✅ Training and nutrition
✅ Recommended meal plans
✅ Easy-to-understand nutritional information
✅ Fuelling for races (pre, during and post recovery)
Cons
❌ Lack of plant-based food options