On today's episode of Run with Coach Parry we have another great question from our members forum.

We know the benefits of carbohydrates for endurance sports, but there is so much hype around protein and protein intake around these days, is it important for runners? If so, how much and when is best to be taking it.

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Is protein important for runners?

BRAD
Welcome on to this edition of RUN with Coach Parry. I'm Brad Brown with you once again, coming to you from a somewhat rainy Cape Town as we are recording this, Lindsey's up in Johannesburg. Lindsey, how's it, nice to have you.

LINDSEY
Yeah, good to be back on here and we're a little warmer this side after going through a pretty cold spell of late.i

BRAD
Absolutely. I was up in Joburg, I mentioned it a couple of podcasts ago, I ended up running the North Cape 10. It was freezing. I'm glad to be back in Cape Town, I can tell you that much. Well, today we're going to be talking protein and nutrition and the importance of protein in running. Lindsey, today's question is a great one. It's popped up in our forums and I thought this is a great one to do on this platform. There's so much talk about protein intake. Is it important for runners? How much if it is important? And when should you take it?

LINDSEY
Yeah, so it is a good question. I don't know all the details that I think the person asking the question would like out of it. But our muscles are essentially made up of protein and we need our muscles for exercise. So it is important to have a steady supply of protein.

When should you take it?

The timing of that protein meal isn't massively important. There are some, I've read one or two little bits of research that do suggested taking in some protein immediately after exercise does, in fact, assist with the building up or repair muscles and improved recovery. And there are also some good studies which show that taking in small amounts of protein with some carbohydrates actually facilitates the uptake of those carbohydrates or simple sugars into the muscles to be stored as muscle glycogen.

How should you be taking it?

But as a general rule, you want to be having a good supply of good quality protein. I think this is, for me, a much more important part of the message because the question, although it's not implicitly stated in this case, is often asked to me in a slightly different way and that is to talk of protein supplementation or whey protein and really I only feel like those things are necessary if you're not getting good quality sources of protein in your everyday diet. So I'm a big fan of going natural and getting fresh produce and preparing that for yourself.

However, if you do do shift work or you're a single lazy bachelor, or travel a lot and you're not sure what sources of protein you are actually consuming or you're travelling to countries where perhaps meat proteins in particular are quite expensive, then yes, of course you would consider supplementing with some form of protein. Then these days we have a situation where a lot of people are banting or are at the very least on a high protein type of diet or high fat, low carb type of diet.

So there are different sort of diets that people are on and experimenting with. Most of those diets do at least allow you to get in enough protein, but I always remind people that carbohydrates are your high octane energy source. So even if you're having low carbs in the rest of your day and carb restricting yourself then during times of high performance racing, high intensity workouts, very long training runs, you probably want to supplement with a little bit of carbohydrate.

BRAD
Yeah, and where I come from in the Free State, Lindsey, you've spent some time there too, chicken is a vegetable. So that's a great source of protein as well. So that's where we get all of ours from. Lindsey, as always, great to catch up. Don't forget if you have any questions head over to coachparry.com/join. That's where you can get all the details from and get your questions asked in the forums. You can sign up for a free trial right now. Seven day free trial, go check it out.