Just make sure you're getting ENOUGH food. I'd never eat at a defecit while training (I'm currently training for one in October). Re: macros, it's whatever works for you. I'm paleo and only eat 15% of my daily cals (around 90g) from carbs--the rest come from fat and protein. Good luck!

I don't have a book or plan to recommend, just looking to relate here as a fellow female runner. I second the not "eating at a deficit" for long distance training. I personally set my calories at my TDEE (daily rest day maintenance calories prior to any workouts and running added) then log my runs on top of it and usually only eat back 40-60% of my easy day calories burned. This way I'm not in a deficit upon another deficit and actually getting in macros/micros for recovery. Anyone who sees my journal would be wtf, how's this woman eating so many calories and dropping weight? I know my TDEE and deficits for the training day, I look at my calories on a weekly basis not daily.

Depending on the training day (if it's a LSD or high intensity day I'll eat back all of my calories burned and rarely end up with any deficit). This keeps me hormones and joints happy! This works for me and I do so in an attempt to maintain most of my lean mass.

After extensive research and experience playing around with my own diet for so many years, I think it's safe to say there isn't a one size fits all diet for anyone. It's a guess and check method for sure. You want to be getting leaner but not necessarily getting "thinner" if you're already a healthy weight. Train and eat like an athlete would, not like a dieter when doing distance training is my motto.

If you're already at or close to goal weight and you're eating strictly for performance, then I recommend for women a high heme iron rich diet. If you don't eat red meat, find someway to get heme iron, if you don't make sure you get your blood checked periodically as a preventative method. I've seen too many female elites and athletic friends lose their periods and suffer preventable injuries from not getting enough iron (it's so much easier to become overtrained when lacking iron, B12 and amino acids). Eat lots of calcium rich greens, vitamin A and magnesium/potassium rich foods. Moderate carb, moderate fat, moderate protein works for me.

If you feel like you're starved and you've drank your water that day, you are more than likely under fed for the day, learning to eat intuitively with moderation as a runner and fitness fanatic has helped me tremendously. However I have noticed I'm often not hungry on long days, I just feel yech and sometimes force myself to eat more because I know I need it. Lastly, I don't skip on my strength/circuit training, a small amount of weight lifting is better than no weight lifting, it helps prevent catabolism which running promotes (as does not eating enough). Wish you well on finding your own groove.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/articles << edited to add this link, I know it's for body recomposition purposes but the science is science and these reads helped me tremendously.

Any plans or suggestions on what the right mix is for training? And how do you figure it all out??

There are a lot of plans out there, many of which contradict each other. Whatever nutrition plan you normally follow should be good for your training. What you do need to worry about is those couple of days leading up to the race, race morning, and during the race.

I like to have pasta the night before but I like pasta any night. Do not think you need to gorge yourself on the family bowl at Buca de Bepo; a normal size portion is fine. For the morning and during the race you need to experiment during your training to find what works for you. If your next half marathon has an expo try and get some samples or buy a couple of differnt gels so you can figure out which ones you like.

I trust www.jeffgalloway.com he has a lot of knowledge and free

I've read the New Rules by Fitzgerald (linked above) and it offers some very good basic nutritional advice. If you are trying to lose weight, however, I didn't find his plan to be particularly effective. What he does offer is a set of guidelines that makes it pretty easy to eat healthy food that is appropriate for training. But he is not so good with the advice about controlling the quantities you eat. That said, I do make an effort to stick to Fitzgerald's rules because I feel much healthier when I do.

I did try his system of caffeine-fasting and then consuming caffeine before the marathon and didn't find it worked very well for me. I was SUPER jittery right after I took the caffeine and then I think it wore off towards the end of the race (although to be fair I probably should have been consuming more caffeine to match his suggestions). You can check out my blog archive for last April (including my running the Boston Marathon) to get a sense of what my experience following Fitzgerald's guidelines was (the posts are in reverse-chronological order though).

http://mungerruns.blogspot.com/2013_04_01_archive.html

It's definitely helpful to pick and choose what we think might be helpful to us. I don't think I would use his system, or any other, word for word. Fitzgerald's plan is more along the tdee method that some folks employ here. I much prefer the "eating back the exercise calories" method, because it works for me. I have found his suggestions about which foods to eat helpful, but I certainly don't do that to the letter. My particular favorite part of the book is how he sets up a schedule for pre-race nutrition. I used that for my last race and found it helpful.

I agree; I definitely don't follow it to the letter, but he has encouraged me to give up soft drinks (diet or otherwise) and to cut way down on dairy products (though I still can't resist cheese and sour cream!). And the pre-race nutrition stuff is fascinating. I'm not sure I'm ever going to attempt fat-loading though. That just seems painful.

Thanks for sharing! I also set my calories at no exercise assumed and look at my calories on a weekly basis. While this doesnt lead to rapid weight loss, it does help me esnure I can get to the finish line and through all my training runs. After a few year hiatus, I am training for a November marathon and planning this same diet plan. Hoping to gain some fitness back and lose a little weight!

(http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/articlePages/article/7) It has some great information on how your body recovers with nutrition after a hard effort. I only use this on my longs and my speed work days when I run 800m or longer intervals.

thanks for the read... I know it is beneficial to get the carbs/protein in during that important window after strenuous exercise but I wasn't aware of the suggested ratio. I find I can't eat within an hour or so after my long runs so I opt for a berry protein shake until everything is right with the world again.