In this monthly article series, ultrarunner, race director, and coach Gabe Joyes answers reader questions about anything and everything running. Learn more about this ask-the-athlete column, and be sure to fill out the form below to submit your questions for a future article!
In this article, Gabe answers questions about running hills, pre-race nerves, fuel, and more.
Gabe’s Tip of the Month
Do you have a “normal” running pace? I sure hope not! If you run on a wide variety of terrain, diverse slope angles, and all the different intensities, you will not have the stereotypical “average” pace. What you will have is a resilient body that is not worn out from overdoing any one particular training stimulus or motion pattern, and I would also guess that you will enjoy the adventure and variety in your own personal running journey!
Diverse terrain in Wyoming’s Red Desert leads to diverse movement patterns. All photos courtesy of Gabe Joyes, unless otherwise noted.
Hills and Heart Rate
What’s your guiding strategy for running hills but keeping your heart rate zones in check? — Steph
I’m a big fan of using the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) scale to determine my running effort or intensity. An RPE of five is an RPE of five, regardless if I am running uphill, downhill, over scree, through mud, or on rock solid pavement. The effort basically looks the same, even though the pace might be wildly different. If you keep the effort the same while running uphill, you are likely going to stay in the same heart rate zone.
That being said, running uphill is literally fighting gravity, which does take more exertion, so it is reasonable to expect your heart rate to creep up a bit as well. A great question to ask yourself while running uphill is, How long could I sustain this effort? If your answer is something like, I feel like my heart is exploding and I hate running uphill and I just want another rice crispy bar and everyone else must be doping, then a great way to improve your running experience is to just slow down. Running uphill is hard, but if every time you feel like it is a herculean effort, you just might be putting too much into it.
If you are not having fun, you may need to slow down. Photo: Casey Grimle
Pre-Race Nerves
How do you manage pre-race nerves? I find it difficult to sleep, eat, and I am generally just a nervous wreck. I seem to always have problems that arise during races that never happen in training. — Anonymous
It is good to be nervous before a race! Yes, you read that correctly. Being nervous before a race shows that the event really matters to you — it is something important in your life. That nervousness is our brain and body attempting to gear up and prepare for something that we know is going to be challenging. Direct that extra nervous energy into action to help you prepare for the event by dividing concerns into two categories:
- Things that you can control.
- Things that you cannot control.
For things that you can control, get to work on dialing those concerns in! Plan your pre-race eating, get your shoes and other gear figured out well before race day, practice a sleep hygiene routine, and determine what you want your race day attitude to feel like. You have influence over all of these things, and utilizing that power goes a long way to calming those pre-race nerves.
For the things you cannot control, first free your mind and accept that you cannot control them. Second, accept also that in ultramarathons something almost always goes wrong — that’s all part of the game. If you can’t control something, why waste energy on it? What you can control is how you respond to these variables, so before a race I always recommend you “pre-problem solve” potential barriers to success.
How will you manage the absurdly hot weather? What will you do when your go-to fueling strategy stops working? How will you handle that guy who won’t stop talking to you about his marathon PRs? Having a plan ahead of time to manage all of these potential problems eases post-race nerves as well because you have a plan to solve the problem — even if it hasn’t happened yet.
Lastly, the most common pre-race concern I hear is, “How do I know if I did enough in training?” In the few days leading up to a race, this thought squarely falls into the category of things that you cannot control. Go back through Strava, or your training log, and take a look at all of the effort you put in as it is easy to forget about all of that hard work. You might be dramatically fitter than you even realize! If the training wasn’t what you hoped for, use that information to dial in your pacing strategy and expectations for race day. After all, you can only race with the fitness you have, not the fitness you wish you had.
Fueling
Honestly, what has happened with fueling? A few years ago, it was cool to eat nothing while running, and now the rage is something like 150 grams per hour (or more?!) of carbohydrates. I don’t get it. — Confused
Extreme fueling strategies are certainly eye-catching. In fact, just a couple weeks ago I volunteered at The Drift 100 Mile, where I witnessed an athlete who planned to fuel almost their entire race on Muscle Milk and packets of tuna — a wildly high protein diet that I have to imagine will constipate them up until those snowy western Wyoming trails thaw out. Eye-catching does not mean effective though, and generally sports nutrition recommendations from registered dietitians have changed very little since I took a sports nutrition class in college 20 years ago (60 to 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour, supplemented with lesser amounts of fat and protein for extra-long duration events).
There are four calories in every gram of carbohydrate, so 60 to 90 grams is 240 to 360 calories per hour. In recent years, high calorie drink mixes have made it relatively easy to ingest even more carbs per hour than this. So how did we get here!?
More carbohydrates in racing is kind of like running more miles in training — more is better, until all of a sudden it’s not. Extra training in the legs is amazing until you get that calf strain or iliotibial band syndrome. More carbs in your stomach is amazing to keep your pace snappy on race day, until you are vomiting, or scurrying to the bushes and accidentally using poison oak for toilet paper.
The sports nutrition industry brings in tens of billions of dollars a year globally, and it is in their best interest to convince consumers to keep buying more. My recommendation is to be a bit dubious of social media nutrition sources — not counting registered dietitians and professional sports nutritionists here— that are looking for “clicks” and engagement, have a product to sell, or is run by an athlete that has something to gain by convincing you to buy into their specific sports nutrition strategy. Remember that a single athlete, or even a handful of athletes, who are successful using an extreme fueling strategy does not equate to “best practice.”
While extreme fueling strategies may work for certain individuals, I assure you that countless course records, fastest known times, personal bests, and other successful races have been fueled by all sorts of snacks in various quantities — including Peanut M&Ms, Doritos, donuts, dried fruit and salami, every kind of gel and sports drink imaginable, and of course the endurance fuel GOAT: Coca-Cola.
So don’t overthink it or be overly influenced — get out there and enjoy a reasonable amount of snacks and enjoy the benefits of being well fueled, while also avoiding all the misery and gastrointestinal distress of trying to be a high carb consuming hero.
Jeff Mogavero experimenting with high carb fueling strategies in Chamonix, France.
Finishing Strong
How do I finish a race without feeling so tired? I see some elites cross the finish line not looking tired at all. What gives? — Christina
I saw an incredible video from the 2025 Transgrancanaria Marathon showing Francesco Puppi passing Robert Pkemoi with only 200 meters to the finish. Puppi looks rock solid and ice cold, and even though Pkemoi is moving well, Puppi emphatically cruises past him on the way to another impressive victory. I was amazed to read a mere two days later Puppi’s post on Instagram:
“As I saw Robert Pkemoi in the distance, maybe 30 or 40 seconds ahead of me with 3km or so to go, I vividly remember negotiating with myself whether I should dig deeper, giving more than I thought I could give, in order to try to catch him. I always have a hard time in those moments. On one hand you feel a huge drive to win, on the other hand there are no certainties, no assurances that pushing harder is going to allow you to cross that finish line in first. The pain you’re willing to accept one side, the glory of victory on the other.”
This is a timely reminder that what we can see on the outside is not necessarily an accurate depiction of what is going on inside. Even though it might not look like it, Puppi was digging deep. Beyond that, I would encourage you to adjust your racing expectations of what the end of a race should feel like. If your goal is to maximize performance, then finishing a race or event feeling not-so-tired probably means there was room to push on for a different, and perhaps more satisfying, finish line experience.
Francesco Puppi making it look easy at the 2025 Transgrancanaria 47k. Photo courtesy of Francesco Puppi.
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Call for Comments
- What do you think of Gabe’s answers to this month’s questions?
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