Against the grain

[OutAlongTheRiver]

Inspired by the enthusiastic lunacy of Sweder and MLCMM on the Monday evening of Almeria, I plunged into the no carb regime with the fervour of a convert. Carb no more. Get thee behind me satiating toast. I reject the you as the wheat of the devil, etc

I managed to sustain this for the impressive period of 5 and a half days through to Sunday evening. In that time, I essayed the Bevendean Park Run, and Sunday morning Twittens and an outing to Black Cap in the bitter cold of the Sunday afternoon.

I realise that Dr Phil calls for slow running as the approach to kick into ketosis (fat burning). But I found I was incapable of even trying to go quickly. My parkrun time was as slow as the first time I'd ever done the Bevy - and my final sprint was merely a sustained downhill flail. In the twittens I convinced myself this was all about slow, but watching John and David sprint lightly up ahead of me, I realised I actually had nothing to give. And - horror of horrors - I had to walk up the final slope to Black Cap summit.

I guess you might say I was doing as the good doctor had ordered and not going quick. But truth to tell I could do no other. Plus I was getting down, crabby, had flu-like headaches ...

So Sunday evening I read up on low carb and no carb blogs and posts. There is quite a lot written out there. And I am now convinced that fat burning can be the answer: if you want to access the 30K of energy stored as fat in your body and not hit the wall at 20 miles, then pursue this course. But I miss toast. And rice. And beer. And I miss having the quick burst energy at the end of a 5k or for the length of short twitten. I am just a carb runner after all.

So reasoning that the biggest improvement I can make is not so much dietary, as sticking to a consistent training regime (Thames River high, Almeria low), I reluctantly put aside the frying pan and eggs, and sat down Sunday evening to a bowl load of carbs in the form of pasta. Yum.

Now about that regular training I promised myself ....

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

You need to properly understand the reason why you want to do this low-carb, low heart-rate training thing. For some it's about weight loss, for others it's about endurance. For most it will be a combination of the two. The jury is still out as far as the RC community is concerned, but I feel quietly confident this system will allow me to finish a marathon without hitting the wall, and in a new PB time, which is currently my primary goal. That I have easily shed the few kilos I couldn't previously shed to get near my fighting weight was a real bonus that helped to continue down this path.

Watch this space ... it may take a while, but it will be an interesting trip.

[Sweder]

I feel your pain, OATR. I'm struggling, not with the lack of carbs, but the lack of pace in my running.
As the oft-quoted Dr George Sheehan would say, we are all an experiment of one. These ideas are no panacea, but they offer insight and possible solutions for those of us struggling with excess baggage. 

I know if I cut out bread and beer I'll probably lose weight, or at least not pile it on. I'll probably run with this in the current format for another week or so, then reward myself for good behavior (on crafty Thursdays most likely).

[OutAlongTheRiver]

I realised that I was unlikely currently to want to do a marathon, hence wall-hitting not for me. And if I needed to shift some pounds, I had found calorie reduction worked fine for me in the past.

And I just wasn't able to hack the way I felt on the diet and the daily attention needed to not eat bread/rice/pasta/potatoes etc

Plus, plus, the discipline I need to find again is around regularity/frequency of running.

Nothing would cheer me more than to hear that it's worked for you guys!