Pass the Easter dinner rolls, please: A nutritionist's take on what to eat — and avoid — ahead of the Boston Marathon

One runner digs into a bowl of beef and sweet potatoes when training to run 26.2 miles. Another pops a pair of Pop-Tarts before long runs.

Training for a marathon is as much about eating as it is about exercising. Nailing nutrition, or “fueling,” comes down to science — and timing. Boston Marathon spectators even might notice athletes fueling during the race next Monday.

But are carbohydrate-dense foods the answer to a good race? What other foods are marathoners eating before the big day? What should they be eating? And what should they be eating if they celebrate Easter, which falls the Sunday before the marathon this year?

Nutritionist and serial marathoner Carol Sullivan confirmed: Carbs are king.

“Your body will take either white table sugar or berries or a sweet potato or jelly beans — that’ll all get turned into blood glucose,” Sullivan explained, “and that will get stored in your liver and in your muscles as glycogen.”

The body taps these glycogen stores for energy to burn when exercising. Keeping these stores full is ideal pre-marathon. Most people underestimate the amount of carbohydrates their body needs, Sullivan said.

Typically, she said, carbohydrates might take up 40% of calories in a regular diet, but when it comes time for a “26.2 effort,” that carb percentage should rise to 60% of caloric intake. Another way to measure the ideal carb-load is based on individual weight: eat eight to 10 grams of carbs per kilogram. To put that in perspective, for a 130-pound (59 kilogram) person, that would be about 10 cups of pasta for the day.

Sullivan suggests runners stick to only familiar foods the day before the marathon. “They should also be eating foods that are very high carbohydrate, low fat and low fiber,” she said. “None of the traditional Easter foods make this cut, except for the dinner rolls.”

As a clinical dietician at Massachusetts General Hospital and a former college athlete, Sullivan is running her ninth Boston Marathon this year. She shared some tips for specific foods to eat and avoid, whether it's on your Easter dinner table or pulled from your pantry.

When it comes to traditional Easter meals...

While there are basic guidelines to follow, ultimately what people eat before their big race is truly personal. So, we asked a few local marathoners what they’ve been fueling up with during training, too.

Bridget Leahy, 33, Salem

Bridget Leahy prioritizes protein in her lunch and swears by an internet-viral protein bowl: ground beef, sweet potatoes, avocado and cottage cheese with hot honey. The day before long runs she has two big protein bowls. She hydrates with LMNT electrolyte drink mix — “one of my big things that I have every day, that I truly think that I will do for the rest of my life,” Leahy said.

She realized fueling and hydration begins at the beginning of the week, not the night before her long Saturday runs. She downs carb-rich Gu or Edge gel packets every 4 to 5 miles. Salt tablets help her from cramping. Her carb load happens on Thursdays — and she swears the chicken saltimbocca from a restaurant on her route is her good luck.

Leahy, who has a 16-month-old son, is running for Tufts Medical Center in support of its pioneering postpartum research. She works as an emergency room technician in Salem Hospital and is a member of the National Guard. This is her first marathon.

Jason Venkat Bhardwaj, 42, West Newton

Jason Venkat Bhardwaj keeps it simple.

“I just kind of eat normally,” Bhardwaj, who’s run a dozen marathons including six Bostons, said. “I'm a big believer in, like, don't change the formula a lot.”

But he said he takes race day and in-race nutrition “pretty seriously.” Among his rules: Don’t eat anything greasy, don’t drink beer in the week before the race and get enough sleep. Taking a page out of the book “Hansons Marathon Method,” Bhardwaj doesn’t see much benefit in carbo loading.

“I think part of the training is like your body gets used to storing a certain amount of glycogen from your normal diet,” he said.

So instead, he leans into hydration. Sometimes, he drinks beet juice. He prefers half a cup of coffee on race day.

On Monday, Bhardwaj will be in the first runners’ corral, with a 10 a.m. start time. Around 5 a.m., he said he’ll have a regular breakfast, like half an English muffin with peanut butter and some dry cereal. Before the race, a banana and Triscuits. And once he gets going, he’ll alternate between the caffeinated and decaffeinated Maurten gels every 5 miles.

Trevor Hodde, 35, Uxbridge

Trevor Hodde is staying true to his regular balanced diet. He learned his lesson.

On Hodde’s 21-mile training run, he baked a batch of Kodiak protein muffins, knowing this run was the closest to the real marathon he was going to get; he wanted to carb up. But he said he felt heavy on his run.

He said he likes Propel water for its electrolytes, sodium and potassium, and sometimes drinks LMNT electrolyte mixes while running.

Hodde has been running since high school, and has run a few half marathons and triathlons, but this is his first marathon. He is running for the Boston Children's Hospital’s Miles for Miracles Team.

Seetal Ahluwalia, 23, Brighton

Seetal Ahluwalia has a more colorful approach to carbs.

Before a long run, she eats two Pop-Tarts — particularly the s’mores flavor — and while running she reaches for the occasional handful of Scandinavian Swimmers gummy candy from Trader Joe’s. The sour ones keep her mouth from getting dry, she said.

Those quick sugars have worked well for her so far. On her runs, she alternates between caffeinated and decaffeinated Gu energy gels. On warmer days, she also takes SaltStick electrolyte chews to stay hydrated. She added that she also believes a chicken cutlet sub of any kind is “rewarding and satiating” after a long run.

Ahluwalia picked running back up during the pandemic as a casual form of self-care. Running the Boston Marathon was on her Boston bucket list before finishing her master’s degree in the city. She’s repping Team Red Cross.

As for the Pop-Tarts?

“I stole it from people on TikTok, and it worked out,” she said.

This story is part of a partnership between WBUR and the Boston University Department of Journalism.