Nutrition and Vitamins For Half-Marathon

Good afternoon.

The need to take vitamins causes a lot of controversy among the professionals. I can tell you my opinion and give you an example from personal experience. 

There is an opinion that you should make a blood test before taking any medication in order to get a real picture and understand what medications and vitamins to be taken. It's definitely a scientific and good approach. Therefore, if you choose this way the probability of any negative consequences will be almost excluded.

As for me, I didn't always use the method mentioned above. Moreover, I often neglected recommendations to take vitamins thinking that I can get all necessary microelements and substances with the food. But it lasted until the moment when my skin between toes and fingers cracked in the training camp.

The reason became clear at the same moment and two days was enough for the deep cracks to heal. Since then I made it a rule to take vitamins (even the simplest ones) during intensive trainings. 

During trainings you should test sports nutrition you're going to take at the race. I mean running gels which are very convenient to use.

It is recommended to test sports nutrition during trainings in order to exclude possible negative response of your gastrointestinal tract.

If we say about nutrition during a half-marathon running I would recommend you to take gels at the aid stations and drink water in order to remove an aftertaste. Usually aid atations are placed every 5 km.