There are many reasons why runners are more suspect to injuries. Most commonly mentioned below and most of them lead to one factor which is inadequate nutrition to mitigate the risk of injury.

1. Overuse injuries and stress injury / low injury recovery
2. Muscle fatigue and slow recovery
3. Nutritional deficiencies
4. Poor footwear causing damage
5. Incorrect technique of training

Overall, runners are at an increased risk of injury due to the high-impact and repetitive nature of long-distance running and low recovery.

Any runner needs a carefully designed diet to combat the physical, physiological, biological, emotional, system related changes, stress and impact that is put on your body. These cannot be overcome only by better gear and training. The body needs to be supplied with the adequate and appropriate fuel to handle and manage the increased workout and recovery. Lacking which the body will sustain injuries, illness, lowered immunity, lack of energy, brain fog, and very slow recovery.

If Input is not corresponding to output, wear and tear and injury is likely a very fast outcome.

Intensive training is done to improve stamina, endurance, muscle growth; but can be measurable in improvement only if recovery is good and adequate. Else, the same can have detrimental effects in terms of injury, lowered immunity, lack of energy and other ailments.

Few corner stones of recovery are nutrition ( in all its forms) and sleep/rest.

Lack of adequate and complete nutrition means that mentally and physical the body does not become better and stronger after every training session. Gaps widen leading to break down of muscle, microscopic to major injuries, aches and pain, illness, loss of energy and wellbeing.

Quality input in terms of nutrition is needed to get improved quality of wellbeing after intense training.

Nutrition in form of hydration, calorie intake, macro nutrients, micro nutrients, supplements, maintaining the balance of the body, keeping intensity and kind of training, for recovery and building muscle and continued burning of fat is important. Lack of balance hastens the wear and tear of the body.

Normal diet for normal people is not adequate for high intensity training recovery. The balance of macro and micro nutrients need to be done dependent on the training load and other factors .

One of the most common mistakes runners make with respect to nutrition are as below

1. Not pay any importance to nutrition at all – they think running is a additional tool to expend energy and hence they can do this physical form of training without any nutritional input.
2. Do their nutrition themselves some decide to make changes to their nutrition plan by their won understanding or knowhow. Like in learning any new skill you need a guidance of an expert , it is important for Nutrition guidance as well.
3. Copying someone else nutrition plan or tips as a general element it may help, but the benefits are very generalised and may not work at all. Like each person pace of running, speed, progress is different, it is not possible to copy a nutrition plan and get results.
4. Nutrition plan only for race day come the competition, we all wish we have a magic pill that gives us the jump to the next level. However, in running, you are at a pace while training, there is hardly anything that will make you improve more than 5 % on the race day in a short period of time. Like you don’t run a 20 k on the 1st day of practise, it is impossible for you to see a dramatic improvement in a months time for the race. A minimum of 3 months of head start helps in managing goal setting better.
5. Following new things close to race day – introduction of a new technique, supplement, food, shoes less than 30 days to race day can bring in changes that your body may not be used to and does not improve the performance. It may undo the progress that you have made.

Most elemental is to understand why did you stop in making progress. One of the most important reasons is that your body refuses to go to the next level, because it does not have the potential to do so. In order to improve progress, improvement in all aspects in important.

Nutrition plan can show a 10 % to 50 % improvement in endurance and stamina from person to person. This improvement comes by improving and heightened recovery, improving muscle growth, reduced fat %, lowered heart rate, better energy utilization, lowered injury risk, improved immunity, better gut health, improving blood circulation, and other related and unrelated human performance and well being markers.

Customized and correct nutrition plan aligned to your personal markers and evaluation of specific response system of your body can improve levels of performance over a period.

Most elite athletes will use bio hacking methods and understanding of in depth of diagnostics ( genetics, blood tests, micro biome, omega , intolerance levels, etc ) to unravel the reasons and find solution in bio chemical input of nutrition to get to the next level