I'd love to get some advice on this one.
tl;dr: I can't figure out my calorie intake, and often end up dying in the middle of my 5k runs.
The longer version:
I've been running since August-ish, and have been trying to three 5k runs per week. In the last month I've gone from 32min down to 27:40. (That's just a bit of background).
About 50% of the time, I'll get 3/4 of the way through a run and completely run out of gas. And I mean completely. It's extremely frustrating—one day I'll have a good run, and the next, I'll be ready to pass out after about 20 minutes of running.
Here's what I had to eat today:
7am: Toast and peanut butter, coffee
10:30: apple, banana, coffee
11:30: a good-sized turkey sandwich
12:00 a granola bar
12:40 Run
Today, I got to about 22 minutes of fairly moderate pace and thought I was going to have to be carried back. I was dead. I didn't have a thing left.
The only runs where I find that this doesn't happen are my night runs — when I run after dinner (about 7:30-8pm). I find these runs go just fine when I eat by 5:30 and run after 7:30.
Any suggestions on how I might sort out my daytime running issues? An apple, a banana, a big turkey sandwich and a granola bar should be enough to fuel an 'easy' day run, shouldn't it?
Thanks for any ideas!
ps: I'm 6'2, about 200lbs. In 'reasonable' shape.
Update: So it seems like it's almost certainly a pacing issue. I've had 4 quite good runs now with no out-of-gas issues. I ran last friday on very little food, but watched my pace meticulously and had no issue. I didn't post a fast time, for sure, but I didn't run out of gas.
So the 'trick' to getting better at running is really improving your 'conversational pace'? When I started, I couldn't maintain a conversation at any pace, but now I can run for 30mins straight and be conversational the whole time. Again, not with a fast time, but I my heart rate isn't going nuts. I presume that with 6-8+ weeks of this, my 'conversational pace' will be faster? Is that how this works?
At any rate, thanks everyone for helping me sort this out. It seems obvious to me now, but it was quite a mystery before! Thanks!