Sarah Funderburk, the leading lady when dusk falls in Battersea, favors salted potatoes. Brian Robb, the leader of the overnight race, makes his way through 57 yogurt tubes more commonly seen in a child’s lunch box.
Samantha Hudson dos Santos Figueira (formerly Amend), British 24-hour runner and British 100-mile record holder, has gone a step further in the past. “I ate baby food in the race – because it’s easy to fall.”
In a 24-hour race, eating on the road has a very literal meaning. But getting food — or “fuel,” as many call it — into your body isn’t easy, especially after hours of breaking it down.
“I was chewing so hard,” says Funderburk, an American who now lives in London, after the race. “I made a ton of tortillas with jam, but I just didn’t want to eat them.”
Stocks recalls “getting sleepy even when I looked at the food,” while Hudson dos Santos Figueira eats raw ginger to combat nausea. “I’m just chewing on this – it’s disgusting.”
Britton, who coaches some of the best ultra runners in the world, says: “I eat mostly gels. It hurts, but you just push in as much as you can. They taste good, but does that matter? I don’t eat to enjoy myself.”
According to Field, 37, every long training run is an exercise in eating. “I did one where I ate a pot and a tin of rice pudding.”
He stopped only 26 minutes into his record run. Britton was on the road for all but 23 of his own.
Even though there are portals along the track, even those few extra steps can seem like an unnecessary diversion. In the 2018 race, which was notorious for its terrible weather, Stocks remembers avoiding social etiquette. “It was late, it was raining, so why stop? I would pee my pants.”
Support teams are set up at the side of the track – usually a partner or friend who has sacrificed their weekend to pull an all-nighter.
Some runners arrive with little more than a plastic bag of snacks and a camping chair. Others operate out of the trunk of their car. The best prepared bring a pavilion, a cooler and a spreadsheet with a scientific nutrition and hydration strategy.
