Post-Race Nutrition Explained: What to Eat After a Race to Recover Faster (with Sports Dietitian Meg Mahoney)
The Running Explained Podcast
Running Explained
4.6 • 534 Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2026
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What you do after the finish line matters just as much as the miles you ran to get there.
In this episode of The Running Explained Podcast, coaches Amanda Katz and Nick Klastava sit down with sports dietitian Meg Mahoney to break down the truth about post-race nutrition, recovery, and why so many runners unknowingly sabotage their progress after race day.
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If you’ve ever finished a race and thought, “I’ll just eat later,” this episode is for you.
Meg walks through exactly what’s happening in your body after a race and how to refuel properly so you can recover faster, avoid injury, and actually build fitness from your training. From hydration and carbs to protein timing and real-life strategies, this is your complete guide to post-race fueling.
- What happens in your body immediately after a race
- The biggest post-race nutrition mistakes runners make
- Why carbs matter more than you think for recovery
- What to eat in the first 30–60 minutes after finishing
- How to fuel if you don’t feel hungry post-race
- Recovery strategies if you have another race coming up
- Why “eating less because you’re running less” is a mistake
- The role of hydration, sodium, and inflammation in recovery
- Practical, real-world examples of what to eat after a race
Recovery isn’t passive. If you want to stay healthy, consistent, and keep improving, your nutrition needs to match the effort you put into your training.
Meg is a runner and dietitian for runners. I own the practice Nutrition for Runners and am most passionate about helping runners and active people improve their performance, recovery, and relationship with food by helping them unlearn everything they thought they knew about what it means to fuel like an athlete! I've run several marathons and made all of the fueling mistakes most runners have, but have helped myself and hundreds of runners get to the other side!
Meg Website - https://nutritionforrunners.com/
Email - Hello@runningexplained.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Busy routines can make it hard to focus on your health goals, but MedExpress offers a simple way to explore weight management treatment online. |
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| 0:19.1 | VisitMedexpress.co.com.uk-Uk slash podcast to get started today. |
| 0:23.3 | Welcome to the Running Explain Podcast, your go-to resource for learning the how, what, and why of running |
| 0:29.2 | so you can train smarter, race stronger, and actually enjoy the process with a more human approach. |
| 0:36.5 | I'm Coach Amanda. |
| 0:38.3 | And I'm Coach Nick Clostava, and today we are diving into all things post-race nutrition |
| 0:44.3 | with sports dietitian Megan Mahoney. |
| 0:47.3 | Hi, Megan. |
| 0:48.3 | Hi! |
| 0:49.3 | Welcome to the show, and this is a great episode for a lot of people, as people may have wrapped up their races last weekend, myself included. So I'm here with my notebook. Congratulations, Coach Neck. Thank you. I hear my notebook taking notes so I can do the right things post race. But we're so happy to have you here to chat about all this lovely stuff. |
| 1:11.5 | Awesome. |
| 1:13.4 | And thank you so much for having me. |
| 1:16.2 | Meg, why don't you tell us? |
| 1:18.7 | Who are you? |
| 1:20.2 | Who am I? |
| 1:20.7 | Wow. |
| 1:23.0 | Well, hi. |
| 1:24.2 | My name's Meg. And I am a dietitian that works primarily with runners. |
| 1:28.3 | My business is nutrition for runners, so that's pretty straightforward. |
| 1:33.6 | But besides that, I'm a runner myself. |
... |
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