Emily Sisson’s Recovery Plan

Athlete fuel plans · Marathon

Read Emily Sisson's marathon fuel plan before you write your own. She is a two-time U.S. Olympian who competed at the 2024 Olympic Marathon in Paris, and she set the American marathon record in 2022, running 2:18:29 in Chicago as the first American across the line in the women's race. Her plan is unusual for one reason: she drinks her race fuel.

This is the plan she published with UCAN, reproduced as written, converted to kilometres, with notes on how to run it with the range stocked in Victoria. The recovery half gets as much space as the racing half, because that is where her plan is most different from most runners'.

Why a 2:18 marathoner's plan matters to runners here

Nothing in Emily Sisson's plan depends on running 3:17 per kilometre. The breakfast is toast and coffee. The race fuel is a powder in water, taken at the same four points a 4-hour runner passes. The recovery shake takes two minutes. What separates it from the average age-grouper's plan is not the products, it is that every step has a time attached and none of it is improvised on the morning.

The other reason it travels well is the drink format. In Australian conditions, a humid Gold Coast start or a Melbourne morning that warms up fast, carrying your carbohydrate in the bottle solves fuel and fluid in one action. Her plan maps directly onto the UCAN marathon fuel plan; the products she names are the products on this site.

Emily Sisson's race day, from dinner to the finish

Plan as published by The UCAN Company in "Emily Sisson's Marathon Nutrition Plan". Distances converted from miles.

Recovery, the half of the plan most runners leave out

Most race plans end at the finish line. Hers has two more steps and a week of habits behind them.

The shake, before anything else. One serving of Cocoa Energy + Protein in oat milk, immediately. The point is the timing, not the recipe: 20g of protein and 15g of LIVSTEADY™ carbohydrate in the window right after a hard effort, when most finishers are still looking for their bag. The same shake works after a hard long run, which is where it earns its place in a training block.

The meal, a few hours later. More protein and carbohydrate once the stomach has settled. The shake buys the time for that meal to be a proper one rather than whatever is nearest the finish chute.

The weeks before. She lists 8+ hours of sleep in the weeks and months leading in, relaxing activities such as reading and calls with friends, time away from social media, and resistance work with bands: monster walks, lateral band walks, clamshells, RDL pull-throughs and elevated bridges. None of it is nutrition and all of it is recovery.

The daily check. She describes asking herself two questions before deciding whether to push or pull back:

In her words

"How am I feeling?" [...] "Can I push harder today or is it time to pull back and give my body the rest it needs to become even stronger?"

For a runner in a marathon block that question is worth more than any single session. The fuel plan makes the hard days possible. The check-in decides which days should be hard.

Her long run rules, in kilometres

Her original interval is every 4 miles, which is 6.4 km. Round it to the nearest drink station on your route.

The same plan with the Australian range

Every product in her plan is stocked here. Column two is her plan as published. Column three is how to run it from Australian stock, with the UCAN protocol filling in anything she leaves open.

Run the race-day sequence on two or three long runs first. The drink-every-10-km plan needs bottles on course or a crew; most Australian city marathons allow personal drinks only for elite fields, so practise the Edge version too.

The four products in her plan

All from Australian stock. Order in time to train on them, not just to race on them.

Morning and every 10 km

Energy Powder

Tropical Orange is her flavour. 20g of LIVSTEADY™ per serving.

Shop Energy Powder

At the finish

Cocoa Energy + Protein

Her recovery shake. 20g of protein with 15g of LIVSTEADY™.

Shop Energy + Protein

Start line and long runs

Edge Energy Gels

Strawberry Banana is the one she names. 0g sugar, no water needed.

Shop Edge

The nights before, and long runs

Hydrate

0g sugar electrolytes, before, during and after her long runs.

Shop Hydrate