Blog Takeover: Meet Amanda and Max

Our names, are Amanda, and Max. We are newlyweds, who share our love for all things movement on our IG page @movement_with_mandy_and_max. We really do love all things movement, from challenging kettle bell workouts, HIIT,  power yoga, we love it all! But, if we had to choose our favorite it would be endurance running!

While Amanda, played sports throughout her youth and ended up playing collegiate basketball, Max found his love for fitness, in the high school weight room, and his love for running during graduate school. As a couple, running has been a shared activity that we use to destress, catch up, and continuously work on challenging our bodies and minds.

Nutrition has been something that we have both paid attention to simply because it’s impossible to put in 25-40 mile weeks without being properly fueled. What we have more recently found out is how important fueling is during our aerobic runs.

This past December Max ran his first Ultra Marathon, virtually! He ran 31 miles, in honor his 31st year of life, and Amanda was a pacer and mobile fueling station. The first 12 miles out and back Max ran alone, he drank some water, and in typical boy fashion, left the house without any fuel. Max felt great flying back to the house. Meanwhile, Amanda, prepared an aide station at home, as well as the fuel belt for the next 12 miles, out and back, that they would cover together. When Max arrived back at the house he had a lot of pep in his step, he took about three minutes to drink Gatorade, took a few bites of Cliff bar, and together, we embarked on our next leg of the race.

At the 18 mile mark, Max hit the wall. He was under fueled, dehydrated, and feeling an old ankle injury. Luckily, Amanda had packed the fuel belt with an abundance of Gatorade and chews, for some quick nutrition. This was able to keep him going, but not for long, as mile 21 turned into 22, and we were out of fuel. We had majorly underestimated our fuel needs. Luckily, we were near a CVS, and Amanda literally ran in, to grab 20 more ounces of gatorade, for an impromptu aide station, that would help us finish our loop. We made it back to our house for one final refuel. This time, we brought along over 30oz of gatorade as well as 2 cliff bars to give us that final bit of energy for the final 7 mile push. We also, wised up, and ran a 2 mile loop around our house, instead of an out and back, just in case we needed to grab extra fuel! At the end of the day, Max finished his 31 mile race, Amanda got a good 19 mile training run in. We both learned the importance of having, and practicing, your personal fueling strategy!

Before this experience we would embark on anything under 12 miles, without any fuel. It seems silly to say now, but having such a strong aerobic base and feeling good at the start- it can trick you into thinking 12 miles isn’t far enough to need fuel. So now any run over an hour, we bring a little something along with us, almost always, an electrolyte drink (gatorade, Powerade, Nuun etc). We have found we prefer real foods, i.e. cliff bars, starbursts, gummy candy etc. vs, gels, and GUs, in addition to our liquids, for anything longer than 8 miles, or 70+ minutes.

So don’t make our mistake, the next time you sign up any endurance event, in addition to that training plan, come up with, and practice a plan for your race day fueling!

you can follow Max and Amanda on their next run via their instagram @movement_with_mandy_and_max