Lesson #4: Use the whole duration of your training cycle to figure out what works best for you. You need to know how you use energy, how much water you shed while running, whether you lose an excess of salt. As you have likely heard from every marathoner you have talked with: never do ANYTHING new on race day -- that goes for both your equipment and even more so for your diet.
There are multiple interpretations as to what would be referred to by "nutrition" with respect to training for a marathon: regular diet, what to eat/drink before/during/after your workouts/runs, adjustments to your diet in the days leading up to the marathon, and what to eat/drink on marathon day (pre-race breakfast, on-course nutrition, and post-race replenishment).
Take stock of what you currently eat. Do you eat a well-balanced diet? Or do you eat an excessive amount of processed foods and other snacks? Do you drink lots of soda and/or alcohol, or just water? While no one (let alone me) should expect an absolutely perfect diet, you may need to make gradual changes in what you eat and drink.
Ideally, you will drink water almost exclusively -- about 1oz for every 1-2 pounds of weight. I tend to go on the lower end of that range. Too little, and you'll be dehydrated, which makes your body very inefficient. Too much, and not only could you cause yourself some basic GI issues (having to go to the bathroom at rather inconvenient times), but you could even push yourself towards hyponatremia -- not a fun condition.
As for food, if you recognize an excessive of "bad-for-you" foods in your diet, gradually shift your diet to pull out the worst of those foods and replace them with healthier items. Don't try to do it all at once -- that way lies madness and failure. If you make 1 or 2 shifts at a time and make sure they stick over the course of several weeks until they become habit before you make additional such changes, you will have a much higher likelihood of success in changing your diet.
What I have found most useful is using the MyFitnessPal app. You can track your individual food and drink (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack), exercise, and water. You can scan in barcodes from packaged products and even find a lot of other individual items (and even some restaurants) to keep track of your daily nutritional intake and exercise done. By planning out one day during the preceding night, it makes it much easier to know what you have set out as your goal for the day and whether you have any addiitonal leeway for more food to eat.
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