I finally qualified for Boston!! And not just by a few minutes. I managed to take over 10 minutes off my previous PR, achieve a sub 3:30 marathon and BQ by 10 minutes and 7 seconds. And I know it was the nutrition that honestly made all the difference this round.
Originally I wasn’t sure I needed a nutritionist because I thought I knew a lot already – for years I’ve loved to read and research about food and healthy eating. But I knew something was missing so I spent a lot of time researching nutritionists who specifically worked with runners because I really only wanted to work with someone who beliefs about eating real, whole, nutritious food aligned with my own. I choose Sarah and was definitely pleased to discover she was indeed like-minded!
Sarah totally changed the way I viewed food. I went from eating whatever I wanted because “I run it off anyway”, to fueling my body to run the best it could! My endurance increased and I was able to run higher mileage weeks than I had ever run before in my entire life. In addition, in the past I’ve never had a training cycle that was without injury. Every marathon before this I’d be struggling with one injury or another! But I was able to run this entire cycle of marathon training without injury, thanks to proper nutrition! I know eating according to the plan she gave me helped me to build a stronger and healthier body. I saved so much money because I wasn’t at the physical therapist as much as I always had before.
It was so nice to have a combination of menus that Sarah designed for me as well as the flexibility to make my own menus using her recipe book. I was able to choose from some of my favorite recipes and have them a lot more often. If I wasn’t feeling like I had time to make a menu plan for the week, I just used one of the example weeks that Sarah had given me to follow. It was so straight forward and easy to create a balanced day! It was also so nice not to count calories or try to track macronutrients. The way that Sarah laid it out for me, I knew I could eat snacks or meals from the lists provided and I would be well nourished!
I had some known food intolerances that Sarah easily accommodated and I was able to eat lots of delicious meals and snacks that avoided the foods that were making me not feel well or that hampered my performance. Almost immediately I felt so much leaner and lighter, and I begin running faster, stronger and injury free. Sarah also helped me fine tune a race week and race day plan. With her help I had a race nutrition plan that I practiced beforehand (in half marathons) and she’d fine-tune it along the way. My personalized race week / day plan ended up fueling and hydrating me perfectly on the day of my marathon.
Last, but not least, I not only Boston Qualified, but I surpassed my goal pace at my marathon and felt great doing it! I never hit “the wall” and finished those 26.2 miles with a HUGE smile on my face. While everyone around me started to fade at mile 20, my legs still felt strong and I was able to kick it into gear and race my last 6 miles with confidence.
I not only achieved my goals, I exceeded them! Sarah helped me through every step of the process of changing the way I was eating and understanding why I was supposed to eat that way. Thank you Sarah, for all your support and teaching me so much about how to fuel my body to run its best!
Sarah Lumbard, Denver CO (winter 2017 to summer 2018)
(nutrition coaching client)
