Years ago, I wrote an article about how many calories a person burns when they run. I used a 150-pound person as an example. It turns out that a person burns .09 calories per minute running at an 8-minute pace. If the person walks the calories burned per minute are .04 calories. At local races the usual refreshment table after the race includes doughnuts, bananas and orange quarters. The idea behind these refreshments is that after a hard 5K run you need to replace that energy the runner burned. A 5K race for a 150-pound runner who ran a 25-minute time burned 374 calories. After the race the runner heads to the refreshment table for those doughnuts and bananas to replace that energy lost during the race.
A glazed doughnut comes in at about 260 calories. The chocolate covered glazed doughnut equals the calories burned in the race. Add a banana for 105 calories and the runner comes out equal with calories out and calories returned. Oranges have very few calories but have some juice and taste that appeals to the taste buds. And a quarter cut orange won’t add enough calories to count.
The change in refreshment benefits starts to become more important as the distance increases. A 10K race is 6.2 miles. The 150-pound runner finishing in 52 minutes has now burned 702 calories. Maybe having two or three doughnuts will be necessary to replace that energy burned. Recalling race day rituals, the after-race routine was to grab a doughnut and head to a restaurant for a pancake breakfast. A four-inch pancake has 60 calories and a short stack only has three pancakes for 180 calories. Following this routine everything worked out great. Calories burned was 702 and calories replaced was 700 so a perfect ending to a race day.
