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Optimally controlling nutrition and propulsion force in a long distance running race

INTRODUCTION: Runners competing in races are looking to optimize their performance. In this paper, a runner's performance in a race, such as a marathon, is formulated as an optimal control problem where the controls are: the nutrition intake throughout the race and the propulsion force of the r...

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Autores principales: Cook, Cameron, Chen, Guoxun, Hager, William W., Lenhart, Suzanne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10233029/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37275649
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2023.1096194
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author Cook, Cameron
Chen, Guoxun
Hager, William W.
Lenhart, Suzanne
author_facet Cook, Cameron
Chen, Guoxun
Hager, William W.
Lenhart, Suzanne
author_sort Cook, Cameron
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Runners competing in races are looking to optimize their performance. In this paper, a runner's performance in a race, such as a marathon, is formulated as an optimal control problem where the controls are: the nutrition intake throughout the race and the propulsion force of the runner. As nutrition is an integral part of successfully running long distance races, it needs to be included in models of running strategies. METHODS: We formulate a system of ordinary differential equations to represent the velocity, fat energy, glycogen energy, and nutrition for a runner competing in a long-distance race. The energy compartments represent the energy sources available in the runner's body. We allocate the energy source from which the runner draws, based on how fast the runner is moving. The food consumed during the race is a source term for the nutrition differential equation. With our model, we are investigating strategies to manage the nutrition and propulsion force in order to minimize the running time in a fixed distance race. This requires the solution of a nontrivial singular control problem. RESULTS: As the goal of an optimal control model is to determine the optimal strategy, comparing our results against real data presents a challenge; however, in comparing our results to the world record for the marathon, our results differed by 0.4%, 31 seconds. Per each additional gel consumed, the runner is able to run 0.5 to 0.7 kilometers further in the same amount of time, resulting in a 7.75% increase in taking five 100 calorie gels vs no nutrition. DISCUSSION: Our results confirm the belief that the most effective way to run a race is to run approximately the same pace the entire race without letting one's energies hit zero, by consuming in-race nutrition. While this model does not take all factors into account, we consider it a building block for future models, considering our novel energy representation, and in-race nutrition.
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spelling pubmed-102330292023-06-02 Optimally controlling nutrition and propulsion force in a long distance running race Cook, Cameron Chen, Guoxun Hager, William W. Lenhart, Suzanne Front Nutr Nutrition INTRODUCTION: Runners competing in races are looking to optimize their performance. In this paper, a runner's performance in a race, such as a marathon, is formulated as an optimal control problem where the controls are: the nutrition intake throughout the race and the propulsion force of the runner. As nutrition is an integral part of successfully running long distance races, it needs to be included in models of running strategies. METHODS: We formulate a system of ordinary differential equations to represent the velocity, fat energy, glycogen energy, and nutrition for a runner competing in a long-distance race. The energy compartments represent the energy sources available in the runner's body. We allocate the energy source from which the runner draws, based on how fast the runner is moving. The food consumed during the race is a source term for the nutrition differential equation. With our model, we are investigating strategies to manage the nutrition and propulsion force in order to minimize the running time in a fixed distance race. This requires the solution of a nontrivial singular control problem. RESULTS: As the goal of an optimal control model is to determine the optimal strategy, comparing our results against real data presents a challenge; however, in comparing our results to the world record for the marathon, our results differed by 0.4%, 31 seconds. Per each additional gel consumed, the runner is able to run 0.5 to 0.7 kilometers further in the same amount of time, resulting in a 7.75% increase in taking five 100 calorie gels vs no nutrition. DISCUSSION: Our results confirm the belief that the most effective way to run a race is to run approximately the same pace the entire race without letting one's energies hit zero, by consuming in-race nutrition. While this model does not take all factors into account, we consider it a building block for future models, considering our novel energy representation, and in-race nutrition. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-05-18 /pmc/articles/PMC10233029/ /pubmed/37275649 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2023.1096194 Text en Copyright © 2023 Cook, Chen, Hager and Lenhart. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Nutrition
Cook, Cameron
Chen, Guoxun
Hager, William W.
Lenhart, Suzanne
Optimally controlling nutrition and propulsion force in a long distance running race
title Optimally controlling nutrition and propulsion force in a long distance running race
title_full Optimally controlling nutrition and propulsion force in a long distance running race
title_fullStr Optimally controlling nutrition and propulsion force in a long distance running race
title_full_unstemmed Optimally controlling nutrition and propulsion force in a long distance running race
title_short Optimally controlling nutrition and propulsion force in a long distance running race
title_sort optimally controlling nutrition and propulsion force in a long distance running race
topic Nutrition
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10233029/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37275649
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2023.1096194
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