Rough Saturday Run

[riunmann]

So Saturday was my long run before the official taper period for the marathon 2 weeks from now. I ate my normal paleo breakfast, eggs scrambled, onions, scallions, spinach with bacon, coffee and water. I also had a banana right before the run. At around 1 pm, I set out for the planned 20 mile run. I was carrying a water bottle and electrolyte tablets with me. Mile 10 came and went (an hour and a half of running), no problem. It was getting hot out though, felt like 70s running. My water was running out by mile 14, tablets gone. I was slowing down and walking hills (piss poor). Mile 15 was torture. It felt like my calves were going to explode, but the actual cramp I was expecting never came. When I would feel a cramp coming on, I would slow down or walk and it would dissipate. Soon that wouldn't be enough. I was on Peachtree Street, about 4 miles from my front door, when I sat down and wondered how I was going to get home.

I would walk but each step felt like a cramp was about to hit, so I would stop, walk, stop. I finally decided I just needed to sit down for a good ten minutes and rest. I got up and felt better and somehow was able to fight through and slowly jog all the way home. Miserable 20 miles. Total time: 4 hours 30 minutes.

I have never felt this way, and nothing has really changed except.... wait for it... my diet. I need some drastic measures to curb this cramping that is bound to happen during the full 26. Maybe the week of the marathon I will HAVE to eat carbs?? I am willing to experiment with juices / powders / gels, but I am really nervous for the marathon on this diet.

Thoughts?

[steve-n]

Remembering my exercise physiology, here is the back-of-a-napkin explanation as to what happens when you run:

- for the first five to fifteen minutes, your body is burning fuel anaerobically (e.g. glycogen in your bloodstream)

- gradually your body switches over to aerobic, where it is metabolizing fat, but still using glycogen to fuel the reaction

- the preference is to use glycogen in the bloodstream/muscles, then glycogen recruited from the liver (ketosis)

- most people have something like two hours of "capacity" before running out of glucose in the bloodstream

I'm guessing that when you are doing these long runs, you don't have a lot of glucose in your bloodstream/muscles to begin with and are maybe flipping into ketosis mid-run. I know there is a bunch of stuff on the internet about hunter-gatherers being in ketosis all the time, but I can also tell you that when Brian McKenzie and Carl Borg did their crossfit endurance cert, they said their paleo/zone diet rules went out the window on race day.

I've done two Ironmans, two fifty mile trail races, and a bunch of marathon distance runs (both races and self-supported runs in training) and what has worked for me is to budget about 100 calories per hour in simple sugars during the event. I got that rule of thumb from other ultrarunners. You are right to be worried about experimenting with gel packs on race day, but that is what I use these days (either hammer gel or power gel) to meter out the calories.

I'll also point out that a single water bottle for a 23 mile run is not nearly enough hydration, even in cool winter weather, you were probably dehydrated as well. I'm usually shooting for something like one water bottle per hour, and I still end up losing four or five pounds on long runs in the summer.

Steve

[bethanieh]

Ryan, didn't we discuss this? you need something during your run.

[riunmann]

Thanks for the advice, Steve. I didn't know you had done all of those races! This will be my 9th marathon.

I was talking to Ian last night and he said I should be eating a lot more starches and sugars than everyone else. I purchased about 6 big sweet potatoes yesterday. I usually have a bunch of Power Gels with me on those runs, but I just didn't have any that day. I will never make that mistake again. For the next two weeks, I plan on eating at least one starchy meal per day to support my training runs.

Jonathan has been saying to HAVE to listen to some podcast, but I can't find it, and Jonathan won't tell me what the content is that is so important. Yes, I know I need to fuel during my runs, but what exactly should I take? How do I carry it? I need specifics. I'm special like that.

[steve-n]

Ok, a couple of things in response here:

1. There are two different nutrition things going on here: what you are eating as part of your daily diet during the paleo challenge, and what you are eating/drinking during a race

2. Daily diet: while nothing says you have to eat low carb when you eat paleo, it sure does seem like there is where everyone ends up. I would tend to agree with Ian, but at this point, you should have enough data in your food log to figure out what your carb intake has been. The "rule of thumb" from Mark's Daily Apple is that 100g to 150g of carbs a day is "maintenance" and less than 100g of carbs a day is where you'll start losing weight/fat. Personally, I don't have any experience trying to race or run long distances on a low carb diet, but I've got to believe it decreases your margin for error if you screw up your nutrition on race day.

3. Long training runs: since you've done a bunch of marathons before, you've surely noticed that the organizers really stack up the aid stations so that you probably never have to go more than about 3 miles between water tables. Even in ultramarathons, on remote trails, organizers figure out ways to get aid stations in and you usually would never have to run more than five or six miles between aid stations. So there is no reason to go out and do a 20 mile training run (or even 10 mile) with just a water bottle. If you run in a group like Team In Training, someone will stage the water for you on long training runs. I'm not a big fan of group running, so I set up my long runs as "cloverleaf" routes where I am looping back by my house every five miles or so. I have three regular loops I run that are 5.2mi, 4.2mi, and 1.8mi -- I'll piece those together into whatever mileage I need and it ensures that I've got a chance to swap water bottles or whatever no more than 5 miles.

4. Carrying water: for longer runs, I will use a hydration belt, for shorter runs, a waterbottle with a handstrap/pocket thing to put a gel in. I've attached pictures at the bottom of the setups I use, this gear is from Amphipod. The other belts you'll find around town in the running stores or REI are Fuel Belt or Ultimate Directions. The belt I've got uses a snap-in system to hold the bottles in place, and the snaps thread onto the belt so you can reasonably get four bottles on it. It also has a thread on zippered pocket big enough to hold a bunch of gels. The other belts I mentioned are also modular but use a "holster" design. They are all equally annoying to wear, anytime you get 40 or 50 oz of water on your hips it will be, so I have a love/hate relationship with the belt, but tend to wear it when it is very hot or I am running a long ways.

5. What to drink and eat when racing: since you've done a bunch of marathons, you've probably figured out what works for you already. For me, I like to do things on a schedule, so I am drinking a third of a (12 oz) bottle of plain water every 20 minutes as a baseline, and eating one gel every 60 minutes. What is on my shelf right now are vanilla flavored powergels, which weigh in at 110 cal of carbs. I leave the bananas on the aid tables alone and wear the belt so I can carry some gels and maybe put one water bottle on so I can take a drink in between water tables if I want. This way I'm eating/drinking the same stuff on the same schedule on long training runs as in a race.

Hope this helps, good luck in the ING!

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[riunmann]

Steve, you are a downright genius. Thank you.

I may run a lot but for the most part these marathons have had a lot of luck involved in getting through them. In the past I have haphazardly taken gels and water and anything else race organizers are giving away at the aid stations because I've felt that if they are giving it to us, it must be good. I will definitely be prepared nutritionally going into this one because of the heightened awareness of my diet.