The Best Real Food for Trail Running

A banana-gel combo works, as bananas are nature’s best runner-friendly energy food (in my opinion, not a proven fact). However, I don’t really like eating bananas, and eating nothing but bananas and gels for hours on end is not the best way of fuelling a long run.

There must be a better, more diverse real-food alternative?

Asking the experts for suggestions

To gather the top recommendations for the best real food for trail running, I polled my network of trail and ultra-runners on Twitter, and they well and truly delivered… even Dean Karnazes, the Ultramarathon Man, offered some tips.

[Thanks to everyone who responded with such great advice!]

These aren’t all foods I have tried, however, this doesn’t really matter given everyone is different and will have different preferences and things that work for them.

So, I’m sharing what a cross-section of other long-distance trail runners have told me are their favorite foods on-the-go, and hopefully, a selection of some of these will work for you, too.

Real Food for trail running: the list

With that in mind, here is an unbiased summary of the top recommendations from all the responses:

Requiring some advance preparation/cooking

• Wraps, mostly with a form of nut butter (peanut, cashew, and almond were all recommended)
• Wraps with other toppings (such as salty butter, dried fruits, or Nutella)
• Bagels with nut butter
• Croissants with ham or jam
• Sweet potato brownies
• Sushi rice, filled with anything from nut butter and jam to humous and olives

Bought read-to-eat

• Nak’d bars (I personally like the peanut and cashew crunch varieties)
• Malt loaf (recommended by many people)
• Fat Coke (ideally flat)
• Baby food pouches (‘Ella’s Kitchen’ fruit varieties are a popular choice)
• Crisps
• Lots of nuts (cashews, almonds, Brazil, walnuts…)
• Jam tarts
• Sugary donuts
• Cheese
• Meaty items: chicken wraps, salami, pepperami
• Chocolate milk
• Coconut water
• and… don’t forget the aforementioned bananas

Other good liquid nutrition alternatives to real food

• Mountain Fuel
• Tailwind

Both come in a powder form that mixes with water and are designed to be sipped as an alternative to water during your long run – providing you with energy and an electrolyte source.

Many people run with just Mountain Fuel or Tailwind and don’t necessarily need to eat real food, although in my view, if you can get it down you, it’s good to have that variety.

I’ve had success using Tailwind on a couple of recent 4-hour runs, alternated with the odd piece of banana.

Some other portable suggestions

These specific brands were also recommended by folks in our Twitter poll, so may be worth a try, too:

• 33 Shake
• Tribe bars
• Primal Pantry
• Active Root ginger

Summary

I hope this has helped provide a clear summary of real food to try eating to fuel your long runs, and look forward to hear how you get on with trying some/all of them out!

See also our other food-related posts in the Advice section of the blog, such as our ‘Race Day Breakfast‘ post for suggestions on what to eat before a trail race.