(06-28-2010 02:30 PM)bookworm Wrote:  Wow! 6 oz of water on a long run?! ...

Oh no! Let me clarify. The 6 oz flask is for my "fuel." I live in an area with tons of water fountains at the parks, and during races I rely on the aid stations. I drink a ton of water. That is CRUCIAL for fat burning. Have fun!

I have run long distances including ultra marathons in addition to being a professional athlete prior to that. I always ate pretty clean, but heavy in grains, and over the years, I did gain too much weight. Since I have lost 15lbs on a low carb toward paleo plan my workouts have improved dramatically, though I don't run due to having both feet surgically reconstructed last year. I now use the Nordic Poles and do some pretty challenging workouts using them, and I find I get a better workout with them then I did running!! Sure you can use them to assist, but you can also use them to provide resistance, add totally new motions, and I liken it to 4 wheel drive locomoting. Really cool. I'm in a similar age group as you, and I adore my athletic life, which time has me usually re-inventing thus expanding! The diet has been very helpful for me. When my weight loss stalled, I ate more, and ate more fat which helped. It was kind of counter intuitive but I am overjoyed with the improvement in my athleticism.

Hello, I am very new to all of this. I have tried to start on a LC program for a month now and keep "falling off". However, in a few weeks I will be beginning
Kat James Total Transformation and am looking forward to it. I was a triathalete prior to this year J(had a baby). I keep thinking that I cannot do both--LC and triathalons. I really wanted to work up to doing an Iron Man in a few years but thought this diet would not allow it. It seems that some of you are succesfully running and such with this way of eating. I am also confused about the literature and how and when to fuel............I am so tired of reading it all. Anyway, I"ll stay on here and see if any others have any ideas. Best, Lisa

Lisa—welcome to the forum.

Trust me, you can train for and compete in triathlons on a low carb diet. Your body can burn fat just as efficiently as it can burn carbs. The only difference is your body goes to the carbs first and then transitions over to fat when there is no carbs left in the body. You “hit the wall” during that transition, and as you probably know, getting through that is difficult and sometimes painful.

When you eat low carb, there is no wall. Your body starts off using fat as energy and continues without interruption. I am a successful runner in my 40’s and I have competed in numerous 5ks and 10ks. My typical pre race meal is half a chicken. I was training for a half marathon when my Achilles ruptured so I am in recovery mode now. If I had more time, I would train for a triathlon and I did complete 2 triathlons back in the early 90s. I have been on a low carb diet for 6 years and I eat less than 50 carbs per day.

Hi Lisa! I want to second every thing that Ecocarnivore says. Especially the "no wall" effect. (I am a marathoner.) But you must go low enough to be ketogenic. Not all LC programs go that low. Expect about 2 weeks of misery while your body adjusts (it might be shorter but you'd rather be pleasantly surprised, right?). Good luck and enjoy!

(08-19-2010 03:05 PM)lookforward Wrote:  Hi Lisa! I want to second every thing that Ecocarnivore says. Especially the "no wall" effect. (I am a marathoner.) But you must go low enough to be ketogenic. Not all LC programs go that low. Expect about 2 weeks of misery while your body adjusts (it might be shorter but you'd rather be pleasantly surprised, right?). Good luck and enjoy!

I rarely fall into ketosis and I don’t hit the wall anymore. I eat a lot of fatty proteins, lc veggies and some fruit, and I usually keep my carbs at 40-50 per day. Years ago, I had a horrible problem with hitting the wall around mile 5 and now it never comes.

I've been a distance runner for over 25 years--I ran my first marathon in 1985. I've lost count over the years but I'm sure I've done over 50. Plus two dozen ultras ranging from 50 to 100 miles. I went from high carb to The Zone to low carb and how I'm somewhere inbetween.

The problem I've always had is eating enough to stay out of ketosis. In ketosis you're still burning sugar but it comes from gluconeogenesis. The Krebs cycle demands a small amount of glucose to keep it rolling. There's an old saying: Fat burns in a carb flame. So when I'm running I'm always burning both. At slow speeds I'm burning predominately fat. At sprint speeds I'm burning nothing but carbs. When I'm in ketosis I can't run fast. For training runs I'll average a 12:00 pace while in ketosis but with carbs on board I average an 8:00 pace.

For training I stick with a low carb diet. For races I eat whatever I feel like. Last weekend I ran a marathon, munching on potato chips for five hours. There's a lot of info about the 'fat-burning zone'. That's where you are burning mostly fat. Depending on condition, it could be while walking. But while walking is burning mostly fat, you aren't going to win any races. The fat burning zone is where you are running but can maintain a conversation. Anything faster and you are burning mostly carbs. Again depending on conditioning, you need to ingest carbs to keep the Krebs cycle happy.

If I'm doing a slow-jog run, I don't eat anything beforehand. If I'm planning speed drills I'll use Hammergel. It seems to get into the bloodstream as glucose the fastest.

kevin

I am SOOOO happy to find this thread!!!! I'm a long distance runner, just turned LC about a month ago. I got over the "Atkins flu" and have felt great! I'm training now for my first full marathon and will be doing possibly a 10K or 2 HMs before the full. (I've run 2 HMs and several 5Ks and a 10K.) I'm 43, female and just started running May 2009.

I was JUST telling my running friend who is trying LC that I wasn't sure what I was going to do as far as fueling myself for long runs. I really don't want to depend on carbs since my body isn't used to having them (I stick with 30-50 carbs/day).

I was very happy to find this thread and then Chipper, (sorry!!), got me all confused again!!! sigh

I can run 5-6 mi on just a cup of coffee and feel good. I'm not sure how to get up to longer runs on just coffee except to do it but I don't know what to do when we're running 11+ miles now for long runs. One person I have talked to online told me not to go running without eating SOMETHING. She is a runner too but I don't know how much/far she goes. Another woman I know from online does Paleo and keeps to 25 carbs/day and uses nothing but water even for her fulls.

So far the majority seems to be to not eat or just run on coffee/cream. What about if I added in a couple tablespoons of almond butter before a longer run?

When I run at night (2x/week), I HAVE to eat dinner or a heavy snack a few hours before we run. For morning runs 3x/week, I can go with coffee/cream but I still don't know for sure what to do for long runs 1x/week. Last weekend we ran 8 mi and I had 1 egg with cheese and 1/2 c. coffee. I had a pretty good run as far as energy; humidity was REALLY high and we stopped 1/2 way to wait on some slower runners (I run about mid-pack) and my legs just did NOT want to work again when we started back up. Today we did 11 with some big hills and I used 2/3 c. of coconut milk because it only had 6 carbs plus some protein powder that had 10 carbs. I figured that 16 gms wasn't too bad and would give me some "insurance". I ended up finishing faster than I started but my overall time wasn't as good as I wanted it to be.

So.....what would be the consensus of working myself to longer runs on nothing or on protein/fat?

Athletes have been carbo loading for decades, but is it necessary? As long as you eat something a few hours before your run, you should be okay. Your body can also feed off itself (stored fat). When Pheidipides ran the 2 miles from Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek’s win over Persia, I doubt he had any Gatorade, gels or Jelly Belly sports beans.

Assuming that you have enough body fat, and that you run at a pace that your body can fuel, you don't need to eat anything.

If you burn more energy than your body can release from storage, you need to eat during the run. The problem with low carb eating right before and during long runs is that your stomach does not have enough blood flow/energy to digest heavy proteins and fats. So you need something the body can just absorb.

There are fats that are mostly absorbed and not digested. Somebody help me out here because I can't remember, they are either short or medium chain fatty acids. If I remember right butter was high on the list of absorbable foods.

(08-30-2010 09:35 AM)Mackay Wrote:  Assuming that you have enough body fat, and that you run at a pace that your body can fuel, you don't need to eat anything.

If you burn more energy than your body can release from storage, you need to eat during the run. The problem with low carb eating right before and during long runs is that your stomach does not have enough blood flow/energy to digest heavy proteins and fats. So you need something the body can just absorb.

There are fats that are mostly absorbed and not digested. Somebody help me out here because I can't remember, they are either short or medium chain fatty acids. If I remember right butter was high on the list of absorbable foods.

I agree about eating lc foods during a run. It doesn't do anything. Eating 2 hours before a run however, will give you a good amount of fuel.

Thanks to both of you.....I can't make it up early enough 2 hr before...oops! I can barely make it up 1.5 hrs before running but eating is the first thing I do. If we run at 6:45, then I eat at 5ish so I guess that's close.

(08-31-2010 01:05 AM)ecocarnivore Wrote:  

(08-30-2010 09:35 AM)Mackay Wrote:  Assuming that you have enough body fat, and that you run at a pace that your body can fuel, you don't need to eat anything.

If you burn more energy than your body can release from storage, you need to eat during the run. The problem with low carb eating right before and during long runs is that your stomach does not have enough blood flow/energy to digest heavy proteins and fats. So you need something the body can just absorb.

There are fats that are mostly absorbed and not digested. Somebody help me out here because I can't remember, they are either short or medium chain fatty acids. If I remember right butter was high on the list of absorbable foods.

I agree about eating lc foods during a run. It doesn't do anything. Eating 2 hours before a run however, will give you a good amount of fuel.

Pnsguys, let us know how your running goes.

Sure! I ran easy last night and did intervals tonight. For night runs I HAVE to eat something about 1.5-2 hrs beforehand. Tonight I ate a piece of spinach quiche (eggs/cheese/spinach), 2 T. almond butter and 1/2 of a Quest bar. Intervals are always hard for me blood sugar-wise because I push my muscles so hard and run so much faster than normal and I can really feel the glycogen deplete in a HURRY. I'm learning to pace myself during each interval alot better though where I don't "die out" so early.

Tomorrow morning I'm running 6 miles with undulating hills and 2 large hills then back the same way. I'm going to try it on 1 c. of coffee with cream and a TBS of almond butter. Sat will be a long run of 13 miles but havent' figured out what I'll eat beforehand yet.

Thanks for the update, please keep me posted.

Well, today I ran 13 mi. I ate the Vanilla Almond Quest bar and a cup of coffee with cream before running. I only ate it about an hour before starting to run (I started running at 6:15 and was up at 5 am...I refuse to get out of bed much earlier. ) NOT a good idea to eat that....at least for me. I received my bars week before last. I ate one on a day I had already run and had no stomach upset caused by all the fiber. I had 1/2 of one on Tues of this week along with some other food and ran intervals, and had no problems. Not so today.....I got 1/2 way through the run and started having bad stomach cramps....I was definitely glad there was a bathroom at the halfway point...let me put it that way. On the way home I still had a few stomach cramps and it actually seemed to get a little worse when I drank a good bit of water. I made it home fine, and have only had some bloating but that has gone away now.

Energy-wise, I felt fine (or as fine as you'll feel running 13 mi). Running 12 next weekend so I'll try maybe some almond butter; not sure yet.

Those Quest bars have 15 grams of fiber. I have never been able to run after a high fiber meal.

I thought it would be okay since I had eaten a 1/2 one plus other food on Tues before running intervals. Live and learn.