We've had fueling plans from marathons, ultras, and mountain bike races – but what does the prep look like for an elite 10 miler? Cole Sprout takes us through his routine and experience at the Cherry Blossom 10miler, aka the US National Champs this year.
The Cherry Blossom 10 Mile doubled as the US 10 Mile Championships this year, with a 7:30 AM gun in DC. For me on the West Coast, that meant a 4:30 AM EST wake-up, which translates to a brutal 1:30 AM PST. I finished 4th overall in a time of 46:40, 2nd American, and ran at a pace of 4:37/mile, according to Strava (official splits had me at 4:39-4:40, but we’re going with Strava's data). Here’s how I broke down the prep, phase by phase.
ONE WEEK OUT
My priority was shifting my circadian rhythm so my body wasn’t completely caught off guard come race morning. I gradually moved my sleep earlier in the days leading in, getting up around 6:00–6:30 AM PST, early enough to nudge the clock forward without sacrificing a full week of recovery just to chase one early start.
The lever I leaned on to actually fall asleep earlier was Pillar Triple Magnesium. It’s a three-form blend (bisglycinate, citrate, and chelate, ~420 mg elemental magnesium), and the glycinate piece works alongside GABA to actually help you fall asleep and let muscle tension unwind. Exactly what you want when your body is fighting a time zone shift.
On the food side, I stripped out anything inflammatory or GI-irritating: little to no dairy, no spicy foods, fewer processed sugars, lean white meats, and a steady carb base.
TRAVEL DAY
I flew in Friday, two days out. Cabin air sits at roughly 10–20% humidity, drier than the Sahara, and a long flight can pull 1.5-2 liters of water out of you through breathing alone. So my carry-on was basically a hydration kit: my XL Feed bottle, a bag of The Feed Lab Hydration Mix in grapefruit, and a couple of SiS 40g carb + electrolyte gels to tide me over. I grabbed a poke bowl at the Portland airport. Probably not advisable, but I could practically see the ocean from my gate, which I’m choosing to count as quality control.
Got into DC around 11:30 PM EST, took my Pillar, and went straight to bed.
DAY BEFORE
Saturday was a 5-mile shakeout with a few strides, and one SiS carb + electrolyte gel beforehand. From there, the day was all carb-loading. Turkey sandwich on the way back to the hotel, legs up, then my classic pre-race dinner: pesto pasta with chicken.
Right before bed, I had my first Nomio shot. Quick aside, since Nomio gets lumped in with beetroot a lot: it’s a broccoli-sprout shot (isothiocyanates, or ITCs), not a nitrate product, so the 5-7 day load you’d run with beetroot doesn’t apply. The mechanism is timing-based instead. ITCs deplete your glutathione over ~90 minutes, then your body overproduces, peaking around hour 3. So the night-before shot wasn’t really about loading, more about chasing that recovery effect after the shakeout. The morning shot was the one I had timed to peak at the gun.
Magnesium + 3 mg melatonin to lock in an 8:30 PM EST bedtime (5:30 PM my time).
RACE MORNING
Up at 4:30 AM and, somehow, surprisingly rested. Whether it was the Nomio, the magnesium, the melatonin, or all of the above…we were dialed.
Three hours out: two packets of instant oatmeal, an SiS carb + electrolyte gel, and a bottle of water mixed with Feed Hydration to sip on through warm-up. At 2.5 hours out, my second Nomio shot (this is the one timed so that ITC peak lands at gun time) and the start of a double espresso to wire in. After bussing to the course at 5:30 AM, I went into a light warm-up, locked in with music, and yapped to stay loose. One last SiS Nootropic carb gel went down about an hour out for a final hit of carbs and caffeine.
THE RACE
Not purely tactical, but the field went out noticeably slower than last year and progressively negative-split until the move went with 1.5 miles to go. Came across the line 4th overall, US National runner-up. Very solid day, and the routine held all the way through.
WHAT I’D CHANGE
Not much. The poke bowl was the one variable I was nervous about, and next time I’d play it safer at the airport. A sandwich would have done the same job without rolling the dice on raw fish before a championship. The bigger lesson, though, was that the front-loaded sleep shift mattered more than any single supplement. Nudging the clock forward all week made the 4:30 AM wake-up survivable; nothing in the bottle could have fixed that on the day.
If you want to try the routine, or just follow along for more of the journey, come find me on Instagram at @colecsprout!
