Mon, May-28-07, 12:14
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Registered Member
Posts: 1,216
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Plan: Atkins
Stats: 185/180/165
BF:
Progress: 25%
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52 miles on lowcarb
Earlier this year I tried lowcarb by itself and had a poor race. Yesterday I did another race. Rather than strictly lowcarb, for about 4 days before the race I loaded up on carbs: lots of potatoes, bagels, pizza.
The race was a 52 mile run outside of Laramie, WY at about 8000ft altitude. Dinner the night prior was a Subway chicken sandwich and half a sleeve of pringles. Race morning breakfast was half a bagel. For the race I wore a camelback. That's a backpack with a bladder that holds nearly 4 liters of fluid. A tube attached to the bladder makes it easy to drink fluid. I filled it with gatorade. Every four miles there was an aid station. At each station I topped off the camelback and ate a 100 calorie snack bar.
Most of the run went as well as expected. I had problems with the heat. Gatorade didn't seem to give me enough sodium but when I added salt pills things got better.
Around mile 40 the wheels came off my trolley. Suddenly I had a lot of leg pain. I could keep moving but mainly at a walk. I noticed my fingernails were white as chalk. I don't know what that means but it was curious nonetheless. I thought I had been hydrating adequately. I peed at least 5 times during the race. I was augmenting the gatorade with salt pills. I took 800mg of ibuprofen. Nothing much helped.
The course is quite hilly. Running hills takes a toll on one's legs. Downhill is worse than uphill. Typically a marathon--26 miles--will take me 4 hours. The first 26 miles took me 5.5 hours. Considering the terrain, that's a decent time. I finished the 52 miles in 12.5 hours.
A marathon runner can load up on carb and it will be enough to run a good race. A few years ago the winner of the Austin marathon was muslim and the race was held during Ramadan. He didn't eat or drink anything during the race.
For races beyond the marathon distance, it becomes more difficult to run well on carbs. And that's all one can expect at the aid stations. A trained runner is using carbs and fat for energy. Those at the front are using more carb. The slower runners at the back are using more fat. A marathon is 26.2 miles. The body can store 2000-2500 calories as glycogen. So theoretically the race can be done on carbs alone. But for slower runners, glycogen is being used to help the fat-burning furnace. "Fat burns in a carbohydrate flame".
So what happened to me? I'm definitely a slow runner. My carb stores were fully stocked on race day. I was ingesting pure carb every 3 or 4 miles. My guess is somewhere around mile 40 I ran out of carb and was forced to burn fat. Burning fat without the 'carbohydrate flame' is next to impossible. Every 100 calorie snack bar would give me a boost of energy but it would only last a couple of miles.
It's not as if I ran out of body fat; I'm probably 15% body fat now. The obvious answer is that I'm still depending on carbs. I've read of those who compete well on a ketotic diet. But do any of these guys run for 13 hours straight? And that's not a large amount for ultra runners. I've done 24 hour and 100 mile races. There are 6-day races. Yes, that's running for six days straight. So the next step for me is moving on to a non-carb diet. I've resisted that because I don't like ingesting meat or fat.
I would have to find a vegetarian diet that is high in fat: nuts, seeds, avocado? I know it's possible. There is a monk sect in Japan where the monks run for 100 miles or more, all of it on a vegetarian diet.
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