Banana with peanut butter

Peel, slice if you feel fancy, and eat. A banana is the classic grab and go runner breakfast for a reason, and a spoon of peanut butter turns it into something that actually feels like breakfast. Two minutes, no dishes.

Toast with jam or honey

Toast goes in while you get dressed, and jam or honey adds quick, easy to digest energy. It is the option that tops our fuller pre run breakfast guide, and it is hard to beat when you are eating close to the start. Three minutes, one plate.

Yoghurt with muesli

Spoon yoghurt into a bowl, sprinkle over muesli or granola and eat it standing up. It is cold, quick and gentler than a cooked breakfast on a warm morning, and it carries a little more staying power if you are running the longer option.

Overnight oats

The only breakfast on this list with zero minutes of morning cooking, because you make it the night before: oats, milk and whatever you like in a jar, left in the fridge. In the morning it is already made, which on a 5:45am alarm is worth more than any recipe.

A banana smoothie

A banana, a glass of milk and a small handful of oats, blitzed for a minute. If chewing before 6am does not appeal, drinking your breakfast is the easy answer, and you can sip it on the drive to the run.

Which breakfast suits your morning

The right pick depends less on nutrition and more on how many minutes you actually have. Here they are side by side.

What to skip when you are short on time

Speed is only half the goal. The other half is finishing the run feeling good, so on a rushed morning it pays to keep the morning simple:

• Fried or greasy food, which sits heavily no matter how fast you eat it.
• A huge fibre hit, like a big bowl of bran, right before you head out.
• A large serving of anything. Small and boring beats big and regretful.
• Anything brand new. Run mornings are for the breakfast you already know.

The longer list of what to leave out, and what to eat instead, is in our guide to foods to avoid before a run if you want to go deeper.

Make tomorrow morning even easier

Most of a quick breakfast is decided the night before. Sixty seconds of prep buys you a calmer alarm:

• Put the oats, milk and jar for overnight oats on the bench before bed.
• Set out the bowl, the bread and the knife where you will see them.
• Put a banana next to your keys, so leaving without breakfast is harder than grabbing it.
• Fill your water bottle and leave it with your running shoes.

What you eat the evening before matters too, especially for an early start. Our guide to what to eat the night before an early morning run covers the dinner side of it.

Eat, then run it off with us

Breakfast tastes better with somewhere to be. Our Thursday Morning Run meets at 5:45am for a 6:00am start at Glenhaven Oval, 78 Glenhaven Road, Glenhaven, with 2.5 km or 5 km options and walkers welcome, and coffee and a sweet treat waiting at the end.

Not a morning person? The Tuesday Night Run meets every second Tuesday at 6:45pm for a 7:00pm start at Castle Hill Showground under the lights, with 3 km or 6 km options. Both runs are free: make a free HRC+ account and register for each run there. You can see what is coming up on our runs page and join HRC+ in a few minutes.