gaining muscle while running a lot

[watts]

so yeah, im quite the bean pole (6' and 134lbs on a good day). im a distance runner, always have been - and will be running XC for a small community college in the fall (practices start monday actually). I was wondering if its possible for me to gain some muscle weight while still running as much as i do (right now approx 35 miles/week, will be up over 65 during season)

i know that a lot of it depends on my nutrition, and i try to eat as much as i can, but i am having trouble putting in the calories and protein that i need. any suggestions on sites with recipes?

[Faraz421]

I notice after my runs (though only 4-5 miles) I cant stomach solid meals. Go for liquid meal replacements (Muscle Milk tastes amazing but can be price), Protien powders (I use Optimum Nutrition Whey) and mix it with milk or with gaterade powder(better after runs/workouts). Eat BIG BREAKASTS, you might be overlooking that, its seemed to help when i need to eat more. And keep eating more often, smaller meals to stoke your metabolism constantly.

Get the proper nutrition pre during and post workout if possible... Carbs + Protien. You could make shakes with gaterade powder and Whey protien, about 2g of carbs for every 1 g of protien and mess around from there for proportions.

Peanut butter and almonds pack in alot of calories, and i seem to never notice how much im eating, they may help with adding healthy fat and calories in your diet.

Before you sleep, try having Cottage cheese. The Casein protien is is absorbed and digested slower than most, so it helps to ward off some muscle catabolism.
http://www.stumptuous.com/cottage.html
Theres a page with lots of ways to incorporate cottage cheese into foods.

My main advice for gaining muscle besides Eating ALOT , and then alot more. Would be to incorporate some sort of weight training, which would give your muscles the stimulus for growth... as well as get more than adequate sleep, to allow recovery!

Hope this helps a bit, ive gotta run out for a while.

[BamaDave]

I agree with Faraz, and it may help you to track your calorie intake for awhile to develop a perspective on how much food you need to eat. I generally run 30-35 miles per week in addition to training with weights, and on an average of 3200-3600 calories per day, I have recently been slowly losing weight... you will need to eat bucket loads of food to run 65 miles per week and gain muscle mass.

Muscle mass gains for people while running long distances generally seem to be small at best... I tried last Summer to gain modest mass while running only in the low 20's every week and was not very successful. On the other hand, there aren't too many long distance runners who try this from what I can tell, since adding too much muscle mass translates over to slower run times. On the other hand, you can certainly preserve muscle mass by eating a lot and incorporating weight training versus what would happen if you don't do these things.

[gobbla]

fall in love with fat. oil, nuts, cream, most things that REALLY taste good.

[Faraz421]

Remember, eating ALOT all day is GREAT! but pay attentio to the pre, during and post workout windows (times where additional carbs/protiens can really help!)

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/...n/puzzle_1.htm

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/...n/puzzle_2.htm

Go eat something.