Category Training

Stress pipe…

There are tons of articles online about stress and accumulation of stress and over stressing and over training.  That’s one of the reasons I’ve cut our Wednesday cruising run, is to try to reduce stress load.

The tricky thing is stress is very much a single bucket that is filled from all kinds of sources.  Those sources might be just an annoying drip in the night because you wake up 3 or 4 times or it might be a fire hose of impending job loss that threatens to wash you down the street.

Stress from your professional and personal relations and environments, stress from the daily commute, the volumes of bad things going on in the world, the 28 miles you ran over the weekend, insomnia, health issues, running conditions, hydration levels, weight changes; none it is singular and it all impacts our abilities to ‘do it’.

Whether it’s at work, play, in bed or on the trail, stress can and does have major impacts on our lives and potential.

Personal reference point, yesterday’s run, not that great, 2 minutes slower than an identical run last week…

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Weekend 6 was a high volume week with 28 miles done on Saturday followed by Sunday and Monday being off days from running.

Yesterday was the first run after the long day with a 12K run scheduled dividing into a pyramid of 4K zone 2, 4K zone 4, 4K zone 2.   That was the plan anyway.

And it’s only going to get longer. That’s what she said…

When the plan met the dirt it kind of fell apart.   Bunny was at Zone 4 for the first part while I was in Zone 2.   For the Z4 stuff my push fell apart and I ended up hiking a fair bit of it instead.

It was also roughly 100 billion degrees Kelvin out.  Or a 100F.  One of those two is correct.

I also wore my slightly too short Lone Peak 3.0 size 13’s.  They’re a quarter inch shorter than my Escalante Size 13’s.  FGS Altra the sizing ridiculousness is just… ridiculous.  They’re okay for shorter distances but the heat accelerated my foot swelling so by the end of it my toes were just touching the end of the shoes.  I guess I’m going to have to retire them permanently.

Intellectually I know this failure was in large part due to just accumulated stress from the weekend, that it was OMFG hot, but emotionally it still feels like a bit of a failure.

The loop we were on, the Snake aka Pink trail, at our nearby trail refuge of Turkey Mountain, where I’ve never seen a turkey but I’ve seen several bobcats, rabbits, snakes, frogs, a bazillion mosquitoes and spiders from hell, measures right around 3.5 miles, at least the route we take.   There’s a small loop on the way back to bring it up to 3.5 miles and as we were coming back the second time I was sorely tempted to bypass that loop and just be short but Bunny wouldn’t commit to doing it so as always “when it’s a run day you run”.

We still ended up about .33K short of our planned 12K distance but I deemed it good enough, the heat and W shape of the elevation was enough to make up that slight lack in distance.

Tomorrow is another double morning and evening run, just 8K each for a total of 16k.  “Just 8K”.

It’s interesting how what things change over time.  I was thinking about that on the way home yesterday, how when I started my Couch to 5k plan, my first sessions were 20-25 minutes long and maybe 2k to 3k total.  Now any run less than 90 minutes / 15k is now considered a “it’s just xxx”.

And it’s only going to get longer. That’s what she said…   At week 6 in a 18 week long plan, the long days and weeks are only getting started although we do have a 2 week taper so really it’s 16 weeks that we have to ‘worry’ about.

I have written a bit before about what it’s like to face my personal walls while running, but I encountered an interesting experience during our back-to-back 30K/15K and I feel it is worth a few lines to describe it as it seemed rather significant and useful for future use.  At least to me, myself, and I anyway.

As T-Rex mentioned in his report, I have had a bit of knee pains the past week or so. I don’t think it is my shoes as I am alternating between 4 pairs of shoes and don’t quite have enough miles on them to be the cause. As such that pretty much leaves strain due to weakness & overuse, sooo I am going to have to up my PT game a bit. I have done band exercises (mostly) on the two days a week, that are our only non-run days, but I guess I will have to do them more fervently and frequently.  I would rather not have to do all this work only to bench myself as a result of injury.

Anyways I have had a bit of extra pain while running. Who doesn’t really? So after we started our second long run for the day my knees complained loudly. My right knee especially using rather colorful profanity from the beginning threatening to force me to turn around. The right had griped a lot after our earlier 30k, so during the day I iced it and applied liberal amounts of Biofreeze gel. I don’t know that any of this helped but it made me think I was doing good anyhow.  So not one to listen to “a bunch of b*tchy little [knees],”  I willed them into submission by running long enough for everything to warm up and loosen up. Thankfully this only took about 15 minutes. Bunny 1, knees 0.

So as the pain subsided I found the 7-min/2-min run/walk cadence helped me get into a decent zone faster for the first half of the run. I agree with T-Rex, our runs have improved with the return of the run/walk repeats.  But one problem I have with this pattern is that towards the end of our longest runs I hit a point when the stop/restart of running and walking becomes extremely painful and it feels better to just simply trot than to change gears. So painful in fact that at the restart of the last run of the night, after an extra-long walking bit, both T-Rex and I, in unison, belted out four letter expletives at our discomfort. The pain was real my friends.

It was during the last 3-4 miles or so of our run/walk that I felt my wall beginning to form. Brick by brick. And not the Yellows kind either.  Perhaps it was the hypnotic atmosphere created by the dark, mingled with the strong light of the high full moon, (or the delirium brought on by the pain and late hour), but somehow I was able to consciously observe the construction process in an almost disembodied state which gave me the opportunity to deconstruct the wall before it could form a solid obstacle.  This disconnected deconstruction process struck me as rather remarkable, and as it repeated itself over the last half run cycles, it allowed me the opportunity to meditatively experiment with my thoughts over my state of being. It went something like this….

Muscles: “Everything hurts, we are sooo done with this sh*t.”
Brain: “I concur, this sucks. F@#k it I’m out.”
Conscience Observer: “Wait a minute, we’ve totally been through this before guys, remember? Let me remind you that we have twice this distance to cover in a few months so cut this moaning crap out and let’s finish strong!” (Rocky theme begins to play)
Muscles & Brain: “But it hurts! And it’s hot. And we are tired. And this sucks. And it HURTS!”
Conscience Observer:  “Ya ya heard it all before, shut the hell up, we are just fine and we are damn sure not quitting. Here think of this…. We are half way from finishing our first 50k and the end is nowhere in sight, we are in the middle of the high desert with no aid nearby and, did I mention, we sure as hell aren’t quitting now? So what would we do then?” (Duh duh duuuun)
Muscles  & Brain: “Sh*t.”
Conscience Observer: “That’s what I thought. Now shut it, we’ve got a long way to go.” (Whip crack sound effect)

I know what you’re thinking… but as Sheldon would say “I’m not crazy, my mother had me tested.”

The not-crazy-like-at-all thought cycle continued to roll through my brain, and each time I would conjure up the idea that “we” simply were in the middle of a much longer run and, in fact, had no choice but to carry on. I basically tricked myself into thinking the end wasn’t near and it worked!   Well that is until the next time my muscles and brain tried to unionize and strike, forcing me to remind them of their ‘At Will’ contracts as I cracked my proverbial whip. (cue Devo song).  In those moments I somehow, not through the use of hallucinogens, stepped outside of myself and talked some sense into my brain and body. It was a rather surreal experience. But I am curious to know if other runners have a similar trialogue with themselves, or if perhaps insanity is creeping in with stress and age. Probably the latter. Hoping it’s the former, for Trex’s sake.

While I can’t say that I didn’t struggle with the wall, I can say I learned how to not allow it to form solidly, gaining me the clarity and abatement of the pain needed to reset mid-run. It also gave me hope that I have what it takes mentally to finish Ultra distances.  Or I am mental. Either way as long as I can keep my machine from giving out on me I intend to give it a try.

Yesterday was the end of Week 6 of my training schedule for our 50/50 training.  This week ended in a double long run day.   We did a 30K in the morning and a 15K in the evening.   The 30K went better than I was expecting, we cut 2 minutes off our last pace times for a measly 25K.

Now with that said, we did a 7/1 run walk today for the runs.   One of the things I’ve experienced which backs up like a bajillion other folks who’ve tried it is that my average pace goes up in a significant way when I intentionally run walk.

I tried a new fuel today, crunch peanut butter+Swerve+cocoa powder+ginger powder and coconut oil as well as a new drink mix, Ultima in Orange and Raspberry.

I’m not sure if it was the experimentation of different fuels, but for the 30K and around mile 10 the heat got up to 90 and kept going and the humidity was off the chart but by mile 15 I was feeling pretty queasy which is pretty unusual for me.  I don’t do queasy much.

Bunny is having some issues with her knee, might be time for new shoes or less running or more core exercises.  I’m always having issues so it’s just par for the course for me.

Overall we’re keeping up with the schedule with only a few minor issues.  I pulled the Wednesday run out of the schedule as it just didn’t add anything and the extra recovery day is useful.

Barring major catastrophe we’re going to go to Dead Horse and see it through to the end.

With only 5 weeks into our 50 plan I’m half hoping Dead Horse Ultra has a DFL* award… I mean that only half in jest.

Dead Horse Ultra

Right now in the middle of Oklahoma Summer, 6 weeks into a low carb lifestyle, and being a year older than when I decided I wanted to do a 50K this year, I’m not anticipating this being a fast run even for me.

But barring life threatening injury I do fully expect finishing it and since there’s a 50 Mile run going on at the same time with the same cutoff time for both and the same start time I don’t expect getting a DNF*.

One of the things this plan which is more than really needed for a 50K that I set it out to do was get us to a point where we can enjoy our first 50K.  My first races of all types I didn’t really enjoy them as I attempted them right at the cusp of my ability to do them.

But 31.5 miles is a long time to be on a trail and not enjoy it because you’re at the edge of your ability to keep moving forward.

I did pick up a new travel pack on my employer’s dime. No I’m not ripping them off, we have a system where you can cash in awards that you’re awarded by other employees for doing your job and get gift cards at various online merchants.

Yes it’s an environment where just doing your job well is enough to earn an award due to comparison to people that half ass phone it in.

* Runners Jargon (Random website found while googling but it included the values I wanted and isn’t asshattish like some others)

Week 5 has come and gone of our trek to doing our first 50.

It was an interesting week, Thursday we had a split 10k, 5K in the morning and 5K in the evening.   In spite of differing conditions, flat versus a little hilly, warm and humid versus warm and torrential rain and wind, I ran both 5K’s only 4 seconds apart in time.   On Friday I had a 5K race which I managed to cut 30 seconds off my Thursday runs in spite of being hillier.

Bunny’s Boat Anchor

Bunny on the other hand cut 3+ minutes off her evening run versus her morning run but then she’s a badass who suffers from significant #boatanchor status.

Over the weekend we had back to back long runs, a 15K and a 25K which went… slowly and badly but the distance was done and frankly at this point I’m okay just getting time on feet and distance on the long runs.

I’m thinking though that one of the three regular training weeks of the month cycle I’m going to drop the back to back weekend and just make the Sunday run longer.  5K or 10K longer than the currently plan.

This week our runs were –

• Tuesday – 3K Pyramid which is run 3K at zone 2, 3K at zone 4, 3K at zone 2, cooldown.
• Wednesday – 6K zone 2
• Thursday – 5K Z4 runs in the morning and evening.
• Friday – Special 5K run for a race in the evening.
• Saturday – 15K
• Sunday – 25K

The Wednesday run I skipped as I had the race on Friday but I also plan on skipping this run more often depending on how I feel the week is going because a slow 6k run I’m feeling doesn’t gain us a lot in terms of performance or conditioning and skipping it gives us some more recovery time during the week.

We’re both feeling the heat of constant training and I’ve not had a break in training in over 2 years, just keeping upping the target distance after reaching a milestone.  Although I’m feeling it more.

Week 4 has come and gone.   Week 4 is a ‘light’ week with only 27 ish miles in it.   The weekend had a 10K and 20K run.

Over all things didn’t go too badly although even a light week was still a little on the hard side. With only a month into this training plan it’s been going okay but I’m leaning toward dropping the Wednesday run.   It at most is just to get rid of that “something is missing today” feeling.   That will leave Tuesday and Thursday as the various tempo, interval, threshold, hill repeats, speed etc runs.   Saturday and Sunday will be the back to back training and long slow runs.

A problem I’m trying to get ahead of before it’s a problem is over-training.  Wear and tear is cumulative if you don’t have time to recovery.

And a reminder that this plan is a hybrid 50 plan.  A bit more than needed for a 50k and a bit less than a 50mile plan.

Also to be remembered is this is our first attempt at going beyond a marathon which we’ve done a whopping 2 of, one road, one trail.

Next week will be some solo training runs as B won’t be available most days.  The difficulty ramps up a bit with Tuesday being a ME day, where the run is done in the Morning and Evening which for this first ME day is a 5K.

Thursday is a 3K pyramid which is a 3K z2, 3K z4, 3K z2.

The weekend is a 15k and 25K weekend.

Total distance is thus 59K or 37ish miles.  That’s assuming we skip the 6k on Wednesday which I’m pretty sure we will. Otherwise it would be 40+ miles.

This is the end of Week 3 of our Run Salty 50 Plan.   Our runs this week were

• Monday – Core/Rest
• Tuesday – 2K Double which is a 2K warm up, 2K sprint, 1K recover, 2K sprint, 1K recover, 2K cooldown (10K total)
• Wednesday – 6K Slow
• Thursday – 10K Hill Repeats (we did repeats for 70 minutes and then had to bail due to commitments) on Lipbuster at Turkey Mountain
• Friday – Core/Rest
• Saturday – 15K Easy
• Sunday – 25K Easy
• Total 37 Miles, less than scheduled due to the Hill Repeats on Thursday getting cut short.

I was doing okay up until today, Sunday.   I’ve been trying to run continuously lately even though we race Run/Walk style in varying schedules.  Today for whatever reason was pretty brutal.  The first 15K went okayish but the last 10K and especially the last 5K everything fell apart.   Blame it on dieting while trying to train, removing all but a smidge of carbs from diet, the heat and the last 10K being in full sun, or something else but whatever the cause it was just bad for me out there.

So we ran 40K this weekend, just shy of a marathon.

On the way home, like usual, I stopped to pick up some iced tea for myself and my non-running wife and a doughnut for my kids, just something I do after a long Sunday run.   While waiting in line I was hit with a bad case of nausea and almost lost the contents of my stomach, not that there was anything in it but water and possibly whatever remained of the 2 tablespoons of peanut butter I had around mile 7.   But a few deep breaths and frankly iron clad willpower to not throw up inside a store I escaped without making an ass of myself and kept things tightly wrapped till the feeling passed.

I also made the mistake today of assuming things were going to go well and didn’t bring any cold frozen water and out of ALL the public water fountains on our entire ‘street running turf’ which is comprised of about 20 miles of Riverside Trail and Creek Turnpike Trail, there is a single water fountain that is remotely cool and we didn’t reach it today.  All the rest are low pressure, ambient air temperature at best.   I’ll try to make that mistake less often.

This coming up week 4 is is a light week and I’m considering dropping the 6K on Wednesday to add some more recovery time in there.   Every 4th week I scaled back the mileage to be in the low 20’s.   Each week the mileage goes up by roughly 7-10% other than off weeks.

Right now I couldn’t walk a 50K much less run/walk one.   My Paradigm 3.0’s are just about shot and I’m only ‘okay’ with the Paradigm 4.0’s I’ve got.   They’re nothing special or earthshaking in terms for me personally.  My Lone Peak 3.5’s are still doing okay for trail and I have a pair of Altra Olympus 4’s coming in size 13 to replace the size 14’s that were just too big.   Once again you just can’t tell what size Altra to get until you’ve put them on your feet.  Some I’m a 13, some I’m a 14.

I’m hoping training gets better as the heat goes down and we have some down time next week.  Assuming the heat goes down.

But to say I’m not at least a little concerned about DFL / DNF on our scheduled 50’s would be a lie.  50K in Nov, 50M in February, 50K in April and somewhere in there I’ve already entered a triple, back to back to back Halves race that I forgot about.  Early registration and the discounts can result in some schedule chaos.

Week 2 of our 50 plan has come and gone and we did our back to back long runs over the weekend.  One of the things I’ve put in our training schedule is one weekend a month we do both long runs on the same day, one in the morning, one around 9:00 p.m.

This weekend we did the night run on the Snake trail at Turkey.  There’s a reason it’s called the Snake trail.  We had to shoo off, go around or jump over about half a dozen copperhead snakes between 18″ to maybe 30″ long.   Copperheads are typically non-aggressive and rarely fatal although they can leave you with some pretty nasty tissue damage.

The snakes were somewhat easy to spot in advance, it was the giant spiders constantly spinning webs across the trail as we did the multiple out and backs that were really annoying.   Being the slowest #boatanchor member of the group running I ran in front mostly to set the pace and as a result I got to clear the path of all the spiders and webs as we ran.  Mostly by running through the webs.

On week 5(ish) of dropping carbs from the diet and I’m still feeling the hit to some degree.  My pace is off by a fair bit for one, heart rate still on the high side for any given pace and in general just don’t feel ‘fast’ not that I ever did but it’s worse. A factor in this is that I don’t really have a ‘low intensity’ speed so converting stored fats to fuels is slow for me.

One semi-interesting thing is that even though we’d already done one 9 mile run that morning the second 9 miles that evening didn’t feel much different than the first one.

On a more useful topic is lighting.  Running Wife #1 forgot her headlamp and I didn’t have the spare I normally carry with me so I loaned her my headlamp and used the backup backup light I carry in my bag.  It’s one of many flashlights I’ve carried for a few years now, a Quark / 4 Sevens light, I’d give the model but you can’t get them anymore.   On medium which I used it puts out about 160 lumens OTF which I found very usable.  Not great at that setting for spotlighting far up the trail but I didn’t need to see that far out.

The biggest take away is that a light that’s not in line with your face is far more useful in terms of spotting hazards that might trip you up due to the sole fact that it casts shadows you can see unlike a light 1″ above your eyes.

As a result I’ve been doing a fair bit of research on lights, specifically L shaped lights I can use to attach to a belt or vest or carry easily and more naturally in my hand as I run.

I have some very specific needs though which makes it tough (impossible) to get a perfect light.

I’m currently looking at the following (no direct links as they are likely to go dead over time)

WowTec A2S ($30 on Amazon at the time of this post)

Skilhunt H03 ($30 to $45 depending on where you get it)

Skilhunt H03 RC ($55 various places)

Zebralight 600 Mark IV ($85 from vendor)

Armytek Wizard ($65 from vendor)

Armytek Wizard Pro ($80 from vendor)

I’ve ordered the WowTec A2S, got it today actually and a Zebra to test out.  Will likely pick up a Skilhunt as well.

Here’s the bigger problems I have – None of these lights are programmable so you have to use the settings they come with.

None of them have the perfect light levels for me.  I’d like a medium or high around 250-300 lumens to get the best efficiency at that level for me.   I’d like another setting in the 150-190 lumens range.   One that’s around 20-30 lumens and a ‘moonlight or firefly’ mode.

I need them to have a decent spill as well as okay spot but without a hot spot and I need it in a warm color range to make it easier to spot things like snakes that are almost the same color as the dirt I’m running on.  Warmer lights to me make it a fair bit easier to distinguish smaller color changes in greens and browns.

The TURBO!!!! modes I have no use for personally.   I just don’t see a point in having a light that in theory can throw 1100 to 2500 lumens for all of 30 seconds before the temp controls cycle it down significantly nor having a light that on the highest sustained power that doesn’t burn it up lasts an hour.

“Why don’t you get a dedicated trail running light?”

Good question, best answer I have is that Trail running specific vendors are lagging behind lighting technology and in general aren’t cutting edge in technology.   Not that bleeding edge is necessary or even a great thing but when it comes to a light the fewer batteries you have to potentially carry, the tougher the thing is, the more light it throws per watt, these are all good things.  And frankly most of them are pretty expensive for what you’re getting compared to the rest of the lighting world.

As I test these various lights specifically as options for trail running at night I’ll post my thoughts of each one, stay tuned.

How I earned my Red Badge of Courage

Attention male readers, the content below is targeted for those who are interested in the use of menstrual cycle products as they relate running.  I give you permission to stop reading here (that includes you Trex).

I have been rather lucky when it comes to the timing of my long runs and races. But as the stars and moon would have it, eventually my luck ran out and for both Midnight Madness and our 15k night time training trail runs I ran into a few issues that only girls can relate. But with a little support and a costume change I fought the good fight and for it I have now earned my Red Badge of Courage.

I have failed to find any good blog articles that were helpful about how to prepare for long distance running while on my period, which is why I am telling my story here in case some other female comes along and wants some helpful / useful information.  Now to start there are several articles going around the Internet, like the ones on Livestrong, and RunnersWorld about how you will run/perform better for hormonal reasons during your cycle. Allow me to debunk that crap right now. It is total BS. While I have felt ok-ish energy wise (possibly due to Keto), which might support their evidence, that is minor in comparison to all the other stuff you have to deal with. No I can say for certain it is not helpful, not helpful one bit.

I highly recommend a useful little app called P. Tracker (or something like it) that I use on my iPhone that tracks the dates of my cycle easily and allows me to project out to the day (if my body plays nice) when I will start/end. Whenever we discuss doing a particular race I first check where that falls in the month and until this last month I have lucked out.  Just before the Little Rock Marathon I had a near panic attack as I had an ‘early’ warning scare and thought I was going to have to run my first marathon wearing the traditional forms of female protection. But it was only a scare and my body stayed on schedule. Whew! But this lead me to do some research and I found what I hoped would be the right combo of protection to avoid significant chaffing and leakage, and wouldn’t require equipment change midrace in a porta potty. Yuck!

So as it happened Midnight Madness was my first long race during which I would actually get to test out the reliability of my new female only gear, the Thinx sports shorts and a Diva Cup, both purchased for the inevitable times like this race when being a women feels like a curse. I chose the cup for the main reason that it fits better than most tampons do for running, and it can be worn for 8-12 hours depending on the day. That is important when running on trails where there are no bathrooms or for during long 6 hour races.  NOTE: I was not paid for or sponsored for this review. I purchased these products out of my own desperation at full retail price and here is my experience using them (both good and bad)

Before the race I had tested the cup a few times, but only on shorter runs, and had a dry run with the shorts to know they were comfortable to run in, but race day was my first use of them together as the pair to serve as my shield and armor.

For the first half of the race I was totally fine. Happy that I had the right combo of equipment and felt secure, confident and comfortable. But as the run went on I could feel the cup was just not seating quite right and it would need to be readjusted, having been jostled somewhat during the run. But much to my chagrin, mortification, and utter horror I found that I had a wardrobe malfunction around mile 8 of 20, when the Thinx shorts couldn’t handle all the sweat plus small amount of leakage caused by the running and the ill positioned cup.  Let’s just say I was utterly grateful for a night time race and my dark sweat towel.

Thank goodness for my DH, who just happened to be done with his race and met us along the way just in time. Like a saint he drove and retrieved my spare clothes (which I packed in my mobile aid station just in case!) and met me at the turnaround. Not wanting to slow us down too much with a wardrobe change I picked up pace and booked it ahead of our little gang and swapped my shorts out for a different set of Thinx underwear and a different pair of shorts and I was good to go again by the time they were ready to leave. At least for a while.

My change of clothes and the cup held up slightly better the second half of the race; and I felt good until about that last 3 miles of the race when all hell broke loose. Every so often my body likes to remind me I am a mere mortal and punishes me with a bout of cramps so bad they would bring a Dino to his knees; and well, my body chose the last three miles of my 20 mile race to dole out this punishment. I had the usual leg aches and pains, but those were insignificant against the low back, abdominal cramps, and a tender soreness of my nether region that I haven’t’ felt since my youngest was born. The pain was such that it actually induced severe nausea and by the end of the race, as we were all sitting around a carrot cake singing happy birthday to Trex, I was doing everything within my power not to ruin his hard earned homemade celebratory dessert.

Now I know for fact that this was not food related. I had no indigestion, or significant trouble intestinally during or after the race. And as I said, I have had bouts with this sort of pain before, but not quite this bad that I can recall.

After the race I drank some Traditional Medicinals Womens Healthy Cycle herbal tea which gave me relief from the cramping and pain, took a long hot shower during which I discovered that I had chaffing where no women should chaff thanks to the ill positioning of the Diva Cup; then crashed in bed for the remainder of the morning.

Last night I experienced a milder version of the above. Having learned from the previous experience, I doubled up on my Thinx under layers, had a black towel at my car, extra feminine towelettes and water. I had to adjust the cup a few times to reseat it which is why I carry black towels and wipes.

Given conditions and my anatomy, frankly at this point I don’t know what will actually hold up, and not cause chaffing, leakage, or considerable discomfort, as the above combo just hasn’t been quite up to the task during my heaviest of days. I think really I just need a different shaped cup for running, or maybe a wet suite. Who knows?

I have since talked to a co-worker of mine who finished her first 100 miler and she too agreed my equipment of choice was the right way to go, but we agreed I should try different brands in search of one that will work better for me for longer distance runs. I found a website… putacupinit.com that seems promising at helping me in this search and it has wonderful information on how and why to use cups verses the more traditional options. I for one love the Diva Cup for everyday use. I also love my Thinx, but if I am at some point going to run 100 miles, I really hope it won’t come with another Red Badge of Courage.

So last month we went madder than the hatter and ran a 20-mile race starting at midnight.  Then last night we ran our first back-to-back morning then midnight 15k’s. As Trex has already given you his Race report, I suppose I should give my take since it was a tad bit different.

Having been on a Keto diet for month it was a preparing for races and long runs are different in many ways.

First no carb loading the days before the race and long runs. I have to say, while I am honestly not really craving carbs I did miss our pre-race ritual meals, Thai or Indian for dinner two nights before the race, and Honeynut Cheerios and bananas for breakfast (dinner in this case). Instead I eat more veggies,  avocados, fatty meats and fat bombs, drink lots of water and electrolyte drinks (Propel so far is my favorite from a flavor standpoint).

My vest isn’t laden with gels and treats, instead I bring Lyteshow, salt sticks, hammer electrolyte extreme endurance, Nuun Energy tablets, run gum and Rx Nut Butter,  Ucan and Propel server drink pouches.

Fueling for long runs is a bit different as we can’t depend on carbs. So I did some reading and found a few recipes for alternative fuels for Keto running. I bought some reusable squeeze pouches on Amazon and made up a few batches. One of pb,  ghee, avocado oil and salt. The other was pb, Lilly chocolate chips, and coconut oil. Lastly I fill a pouch or small water bottle with Gut Shot garlic and dill. Since I started Keto I crave pickle juice. This has really been a life saver and has helped with leg cramps, which I experienced around mile 13 during the Midnight Madness.  I also made lemon keto fat bombs (made with Coconut butter, which I don’t’ recommend) and usually have a couple in my ice chest.  Other snacks I pack for pit stops now usually include pickles, pickled okra, Moon cheese, Parmesan crisps, macadamia nuts and pork-rinds for crunchy salty.

With our race routes and long runs being on the same city trails we normally run, we park our vehicles to serve as our own aid stations. For Midnight Madness we parked right next to the race aid station, in the lower lot of Turkey Mountain, which stocked foods and drinks we can’t consume on this diet, so no aid there for us really.  It has worked out perfect and has ensured we have the right fuel and plenty of cold water at critical times during our runs.  Like most trail races I will grazed a bit when we stop, taking in little bit of the variety of goodies. And so far, by the time I do feel a bit tired and low on energy we are able to refuel and go.

Midnight Madness, being my first really long run on Keto I would still give it high praise for sustainable energy. During my 10-mile run through the Santa Cruz mountains and yesterday’s back-to-back 15k’s I didn’t bonk out. I feel like Keto has been way more of a help than a hindrance, at least for that distance/pace. On the other hand I have definitely noticed an impact to my HIIT runs and distances. My HR runs higher and I still find it harder to catch my breath, this is also impart due to the heat of the summer but I encountered this in San Jose so I am confident it is the greater amount of blood oxygen it takes to burn fat that is the cause of this particular issue.  Overall in terms of running condition I have felt really good for my long distance runs having started Keto and plan to continue to stick with this at least through our fall races, unless something drastically changes between now and then.