3 Race Reports, and Yes, I'm Still Alive.

So, it's been a little while since my last post. Fear not, I'm still adhering to my normal diet and training (hopefully, I'll have a post on that shortly!). But life's been a little busy, what with our little girl Eleanor, my wife, Sarah, and my business, One Line Coffee, taking up quite a bit of time!

Anyway, I thought I'd give a quick rundown of my three races spanning February to May. None of these could really be termed a “success”, but I thought it would be good to share, nonetheless.

First, I ran the Run For Regis 50K back in February. I was really excited for this race, especially coming off my Rocks and Roots win back in January. Unfortunately, it just wasn't meant to be. I caught a flu bug about six days before the race. The good news? It forced me to taper a bit going into the race. The bad news? Definitely not recovered by the time the race started. I was really looking forward to “racing” this one, but once out on the course, I just found I couldn't push at all. I could run comfortably, but it seemed that anytime I tried to push (ie, run up a hill, push to stay with another runner), my body just shut down. In addition, I just didn't feel good. The course has a 8 mile loop done twice, and a 5 mile loop done three times. I came back to the start/finish with the intention of dropping out after 13 miles, as it just wasn't much fun. Well, Sarah sort of yelled at me to get out there, and pretty much ignored my quibbling. So I trudged forward. I ended up hiking all the uphills, and running to a 3^rd place finish at 5:02:xx. I was happy I could manage that time without pushing, but disappointed that I couldn't run the race I wanted to. Ah well. Such is life. I am glad Sarah didn't let me quit, as I did get some confidence from the finish.

Second, I ran the Forget the PR 50K at Mohican State Park in April. I was again really excited for this race. I've always heard good things about this race, and I've run many times at Mohican, and enjoy the trails. Prior to this race, I had really started focusing on my 24 hour training, so I had pretty much stopped running trails. I knew I was really undertrained on hills going into this, so I went into this with the idea to compete as best I could, but to not beat myself up too much if I couldn't hang at the front.

The race started off pretty good (other than the fact I completely forgot to grab my Garmin and my S-Caps! Oh, well, just another hurdle to deal with). I let a few faster guys go ahead, and latched on to a good runner I know from Granville, Kevin Motsch. I stayed maybe 50 meters behind, just taking my time and running comfortably. After a few miles, I came up on Vince Rucci, another good runner I know, and ran with him for a while, still with Kevin in my sights. Unfortunately, disaster struck.

I do have a slight history of missing course markings, and it happened again. This one I felt bad about, because I really took Vince with me. Sorry, Vince! We crossed a river, and on the other side, instead of going left, we went right. Unfortunately, after about 50 meters, we met up with a part of the course we had already run, so we started seeing course markings again. I thought we were still doing great, until I came to a distinct turn that I recognized. I stopped for a minute, let Vince catch up, and we decided that we had taken a wrong turn. We decided to continue forward, and just follow the course. Since I didn't have my watch, I don't really know how much further we ran, but I talked to Vince after the race, and he seemed to think we added on around 3 miles.

Well, after I got lost, I picked up the pace, and started pushing. I got to run some great trails, and enjoyed the course immensely. The aid stations were great, and I decided I just needed to not be angry at myself, enjoy the day, and try to have as much fun as I could. I ended up finishing somewhere around 13^th, in 5:26:xx. I definitely crashed a bit in the last 3-4 miles, and was probably running 12:00 miles at the end. Knowing this, I really feel I could have run around 4:50, maybe faster with some competition. I was pretty happy knowing this, especially given my lack of hill training. I definitely will be back next year for this race, hopefully with a bit more course specific training!

My last race was 50's For Yo Momma, in May. I was going for the 50 miler, and again, I was feeling pretty good going into this race. My training, while not perfect, had been going pretty well. I'd been averaging around 45-50 miles a week, and felt pretty good going into it. Again, I was definitely undertrained on hills, but I knew this course was a bit flatter than Mohican, so I was hoping I'd be OK. Well, I wasn't.

Basically, I crashed. Hard.

Immediately after the race, I just thought I might have gone out too fast, but looking back now, I think it was a combination of things that caused me to suffer my first ever DNF. Here's what happened:

First, my fueling might have been fine with adequate training, but not for the effort I was putting out. I decided to try Vespa for the second time (I used it at Mohican), in combination with Generation UCAN. My energy levels were pretty good, until I ran through my glycogen stores. Let's list out the specific mistakes I made:

1. I think I was a little overambitious thinking that I was ready for a 50 miler on only 45-50 miles a week, even with several 30 milers and 50K's over the past few months. I really needed to be around 60-70 miles a week to be comfortable here.
2. The course definitely had more hills than I realized, and I ran far too many of them over the first 30 miles. I ended up going though 50k in under 5 hours, and as I got to the end of loop 4 of 6, I was having problems with just keeping running, even though I was sitting comfortably in 3^rd place with a pretty large gap between me and 4^th. I had burned through my glycogen stores, and I blew up.
3. When I came around to the main aid station at the Start/Finish, I knew I needed to eat some carbs. I walked over to the table, but nothing looked good. In addition, I still was so dedicated to my ketogenic diet that I disregarded common sense, and decided to take another Vespa and UCAN instead. Of course, this wasn't nearly enough carbs to get me going again, and I ended up walking a mile out, then walking back to the Start/Finish, and dropping out.

At first, I was wondering whether I just wasn't tough enough to finish, and whether I really just needed to suck it up. After all, I hadn't run anything over 50K since Old Dominion nearly 2 years before, so maybe I just forgot how hard it was. But now, 3 months later, I think I DNF'ed simply because I was sort of an idiot. If I had just eaten a bunch of cookies, or chips, or anything, really, I probably would have gotten a second wind, and had been able to finish. So, I learned the important lesson that it's more important to be pragmatic in a situation, than to be stubborn as hell regarding diet.

Since May, I've taken time off from racing, and just focused on (mostly) steady training. The NorthCoast 24 is coming up in a few weeks, and I'm starting to feel ready for it! My next post should be coming up in a few days to talk about the last couple months of training, my fueling strategy for the race, and what my goals are.

Until then!

-Dave

Rocks and Roots 50k Race Report

Well, life's been busy, but I figured I needed to post something, and a race report seemed like just the trick!

So, one of my private goals for this year was to do something that I'm not sure I've ever done: win a race outright. I've never been the fastest runner, or even what I would consider a fast runner. But, as I continue down the path of a ketogenic athlete (being in ketosis for around 18 months now), I find my training going really well, and my pace and ability is far exceeding anything I've been able to do before. Could this be the race I achieve my goal?

I started regular training again back at the beginning of September after quite a while of running maybe 25 miles a week. My goal for the end of fall and winter was to keep up a mileage of around 50 mpw, but with a good amount of hills and tempo. I've been pretty successful in that, and other than a bout with the flu at the beginning of January, I've felt incredibly healthy.

Coming into the Rocks and Roots 50k on January 12, I gave myself a couple taper weeks, with maybe 35 miles 2 weeks out, and 15 miles the week of. I tried to just cut miles, but keep running at my normal pace. I was feeling healthy and ready!

For my nutrition for this race, I decided to simply use Generation UCAN. For those not in the know, UCAN is an extremely long chain carbohydrate, which easily passes through the stomach, and then slowly breaks down in the small intestine. It basically gives your body a slow drip of glucose, without stimulating an insulin response, which allows your body to continue burning primarily fat. I don't use it in training, but I've found that it helps me push harder in races, and delays the onset of fatigue. I ingested 2 packets of UCAN prior to the race, diluted in 16 ounces of water, and made up another 4 packets, each mixed into an 8 ounce bottle of water. In addition to the UCAN, I also had S-Caps in my bag at the Start/Finish. The course is a five loop course with 95% on single track, so I would be coming back to my bag every 10km. I would take a dose of UCAN whenever I felt like I needed it. I also decided no to carry water, as the farthest we'd go between aid stations was around 4.5 miles. This ended up working out fine.

So, for the two days prior to the race, we had an unseasonal warming trend, which basically turned the course into a mud pit (I'd like to talk about the environmental ramifications of running this race at the end of this post). So, I had a couple pair of Inov-8's dug out from my collection, including my Bare Grip 200's. I sort of have a love/hate relationship with these shoes. The traction is absolutely phenomenal, and they've definitely given me an advantage on particularly muddy/snowy courses. However, they literally have no midsole, so wearing them for more than 10 miles or so is just hell on my feet. I'm used to wearing more minimalist shoes, but these are crazy, especially on a technical course!

Because I didn't want to wear these shoes for the whole time (and I hadn't yet seen how bad the course was), I started off in my Inov-8 Trailroc 245's. I was hoping the traction these shoes would provide would be enough. We all crowded the starting line, and we were off! This race had finishing distances of 10k, 20k, 30k, 40k, and 50k, so the 30-50k runners all left at 7:30, while the 10k and 20k runners left a half hour later.

I didn't want to go out too fast, but I also didn't want to be stuck behind a bunch of people when we hit the single track, so I followed a guy and was in second when we entered the woods. I went through the first mile in 7:45 or so, which I thought was really reasonable, given the fact that the course was pretty muddy already. I got passed after only a mile or so, first by a guy who was running pretty quick, and then by another kid. I had no idea what distance they were running, so I let them go, and focused on running strong and comfortably.

I basically followed a guy who looked around my age (32), maybe a little younger. Bald guy in red shorts with a hydration pack on. I wasn't running on his heels, but just kept him in my sights. The first lap flew by, but I could already tell that the course was getting torn up, and we were at the front of the pack! Our second loop through would be after about 400 runners had hit that trail, as the 10k and 20k fields were much larger. At this point, I knew I'd be changing shoes after the first loop, even though it would cost me a couple minutes.

I got back to the start line, having run the first loop in just under 54 minutes, which I was happy with, given the conditions, and the fact that I ran it pretty easy. I ripped off my 245's, put on my Bare Grips, and off I went! Luckily there was only about a quarter mile of pavement, because these shoes are NOT meant for roads.

With the extra traction I got, I was feeling pretty fast. I know that during my shoe change, the guy in the red shorts, and another runner (whom I talked to for a bit, from Youngstown) were out ahead of my, putting me in 5^th at most (since I didn't know who was running the 50), so I put my head down and just ran! The next two laps were probably my favorite two. I was still feeling nice and fresh, I had good traction, and while the course was still slow because of the mud, I was managing it well. During these 2 laps, I managed to climb up into 3^rd place. I still had no idea where the 2 folks ahead of me were, and no one at the Start/Finish was shouting out places!

I was feeling surprisingly good at the start of the 4^th loop, but the course was a disaster. The footing was getting really bad, and any runners I came across were just slogging away as best they could. Most were simply hiking at this point. Quite a few runners asked me how I could run through this stuff... thanks, Inov-8!

About half-way through, fatigue started creeping up on me. My shoes at this point probably weighed over a pound each with all the mud clinging to them, and lack of firm traction was starting to take its toll on my ankles, hips, and hamstrings. I pushed through the 4^th loop, grabbed another UCAN, and headed out on the final loop. There's something very lifting about getting onto the final loop of a multi-loop course. No matter how far you've gone, knowing that this is your last time through can make it much more bearable.

That being said, this loop was tough. It was all I could do to simply keep running. I still had no idea what place I was in, and so I just kept running hard. But at this point, running hard entailed about a 10:30 mile pace. I mean, we're talking about 4-6 inches of mud on about half the course, and there was really no way around it. In addition, I was a little worried, as I felt the first twinges of cramping early in the loop in my right calf, and later in my right hamstring. Luckily, I had popped a couple of S-Caps right before the last loop, so as these started kicking in, the cramping subsided. So once again, head down, and move forward.

When I finally popped out of the single track, I had about 600 meters of grass left to run, and I could not have been happier. I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was stop running. I ran through the arch, and bent over, hands on knees. 4:54:17. Done.

After standing like that for a couple of minutes, the race director (Jeff) came over and asked if I was OK. I told him I was fine, just tired! He asked if I was done, and I told him I was. I inquired as to my place, and he told me he wasn't sure. He looked surprised that I had finished the 50k! We walked over to the timing computer, and as he looked at the results, he said, “Actually, I think you might have won...”. I tried not to get too excited until it was official, but he confirmed it a minute later. 1^st place! Woot!

I couldn't be happier with my race, given the conditions. That time is actually a PR for me, which is crazy considering how tough course conditions were. My goal for that race (had conditions been better) was 4:30, and I think that I gave an equivalent effort. It turns out that the two runners ahead of my had run the 30k, though I'm not sure if they dropped to that distance, or intended on running 30k from the beginning. I found out later that I actually almost caught them at the end of the 3^rd loop, finishing 30k less than 2 minutes behind them.

Overall, this was a very successful first race of 2014, and hopefully the first of many. A big thank you to Fleet Feet for putting on the race, and to all the volunteers who made the race possible. Without you guys none of us would ever get to do what we love!

Before I sign off here, I'd like to issue an apology to the Central Ohio MountainBikers Organization. They are the group that maintains the trails at Alum Creek, and I can say without hesitation that we destroyed that trail. There was a huge outcry following the race, and rightfully so. As trail runners, we have an obligation to our environment to maintain our trails, and to make mature decisions regarding their use. I have no excuse for being a part of the people responsible for the destruction of the trail. I should have know better. I am taking responsibility for my actions, and have already put in some trail work to fix the trail, and I intend to help out some more. I encourage everyone who ran the race to consider helping out! You can find out about trail maintenance days here.

Anyway, next race up: Run for Regis! See you there!

-Dave

Weight Maintenance on a Ketogenic Diet - Part 1

So in the two months after my finish at Old Dominion, I took a little time off running. The original intent was simply to recover thoroughly, then start back into training. In addition, I went back to a "normal" diet, as a reward for finishing my first 100.

And then, a miracle happened! My wife got pregnant with our first child!

And I really do mean a miracle. We experienced some issues getting pregnant, and had been trying for a couple years without success. But, things took a turn for the better, and off we went on our new path to parenthood.

And, of course, we both started eating. A lot. Sarah had a good excuse. She was eating for two.

I was eating for two as well. Me and my mid-section.

I gained about 20 pounds over the course of 3-4 weeks. Seriously, 20 pounds. I went from around 160 to around 180 (about a 12.5% gain in body weight). And at this point, I decided to go back on a ketogenic diet.

This 2-part post is really about the use of a ketogenic diet to obtain and maintain a healthy weight. I'll talk in detail about my personal experience with the diet, and tips and tricks the make sure that you stay healthy and feel great while transitioning to this diet.

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, there's some great information out there, including the books by Phinney and Volek, along with good websites like eatingacademy.com. I highly recommend doing your own research into the nitty gritty stuff to get a better idea of how this diet works, as I'll be talking primarily about my personal experiences.

So, I have actually tried to "diet" before. And by "diet", I really mean that I've tried to control my weight through controlling what I eat. This usually meant some sort of calorie restriction. And that makes sense, of course, from a logical standpoint. Calories in must equal calories out, right? But one thing always got to me. One thing I hated.

Hunger.

And no matter what "diet" I followed, I'd be hungry. Which made little sense to me. If we assume that ultimate objective of our brain is to have a healthy body (which I think you have to, although this is something that's up for debate, and perhaps will be discussed in a future post), then why would our brain continue to tell us we're hungry even after we've had a satisfactory amount of calories to fuel the body?

Or for that matter, if we're overweight, why doesn't our brain simply tell us we're full after a restricted amount of calories to facilitate weight loss, and help to achieve a healthy weight?

The answer? Insulin. In short, insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas which causes the liver, skeletal muscles, and fat tissue to absorb glucose from the blood. Glucose is the broken down form of carbohydrate, and can be toxic if its levels in the blood are not controlled. So in that sense, insulin is a good thing. It keeps us from dying.

However, insulin significantly interferes with our hunger reflex. Specifically, if we eat a high glycemic food (such a something high in simple sugars), our body releases a significant amount of insulin to deal with the spike in blood glucose levels. After all the excess glucose is cleared, we quickly feel hungry again, even though we may have just ingested quite a few calories.

So what does this tell us? Well, it tells me that insulin is a great thing that keeps us from dying, and that the body has the ability to produce insulin in order to fulfill the task of occasionally clearing the blood of excess glucose. Notice I said "occasionally". If our bodies had evolved to ingest significant amounts of carbohydrate, causing regular releases of insulin, then why does insulin interfere with our hunger response? Perhaps because we did not evolve to ingest significant amounts of carbohydrates. I'll talk about evolution and my personal theories in a subsequent post. For now, back to dieting...

I hate being hungry, so I found the best solution to losing weight was to adopt an eating lifestyle that allowed me to eat when I was hungry, and stop when I was full. The answer? Cut carbohydrates altogether. Eliminate the insulin response, and allow my brain to use the hunger response to get my weight to what the brain considered to be healthy.

Of course, this meant some wholesale changes in what I ate, and brought up some serious questions about how such a change in macronutrients would affect the metabolism of my body. Phinney and Volek's book gave me quite a bit of insight as to what to expect, and how to go about obtaining all the micronutrients I need.

I'll go into detail in Part 2.

So long!

-Dave

What Not To Do 3 Weeks Before Your First 100

As you've read, I did achieve some moderate success and improvement while utilizing the Maffetone Method. In fact, for someone who is not on a ketogenic diet, I would still recommend this type of training (though perhaps only for a 3-4 month stretch out of the year).

Again, the basic premise behind the Maffetone Method is to teach the body to better burn fat as fuel, and increase the efficiency of the aerobic energy pathways. The problem, of course, is that when you exceed your Max HR as defined by Maffetone, your body reverts to using some glycogen (stored carbohydrates) and fuel itself through the anaerobic energy pathways.

And eventually, those glycogen stores run out.

In fact, those glycogen stores run out relatively quickly, at least in the mind of an ultra runner. Usually, in around 2 hours, if you're usually primarily glycogen for energy. In addition, since you still race and train above your max HR during certain periods of the year, you still have some skeletal muscle tissue that is optimized for glycogen burning.

But here's an interesting concept: what if we just got rid of all the glycogen? (Well, most of it.) We could force the body to use fat as a fuel regardless of our heart rate. I could run as fast as I want and never run out of fuel!

Sound too good to be true? Well, it sort of is. Needless to say, there are some significant, important details that I just glossed over. But you get the basic idea for now. I'll delve into the nitty gritty stuff in subsequent posts.

And this leads me to the biggest mistake I've made in my relatively short running career.

I switched over to a well-formulated, very low carbohydrate, ketogenic diet.

Three weeks before the Old Dominion 100.

Anyone who's been on a ketogenic diet (especially runners) is experiencing some combination of a grimace and chuckle right now.

Turns out there's this thing called adaptation. Generally speaking, there are several periods of adaptation when switching over to a ketogenic diet.

First, your body runs through its glycogen stores, and then eventually switches over to running on fatty acids and ketones. This takes anywhere from 3 days to a week, and you generally feel a little groggy with a headache during this time. This occurs because your blood sugar drops, but your body isn't quite making enough replacement ketones for your brain to be happy.

Second, the way your body handles electrolytes and minerals changes, leading to a quick loss of water weight, and a flushing of sodium as the body tries to balance sodium and potassium levels. This takes a few days, and can be alleviated by extra sodium intake.

I figured that I had 3 weeks, and that was enough time for these first two adaptations to occur. Unfortunately, there's a third equally important change: your body slowly changes the muscle tissue makeup of your skeletal muscle system. This takes a long time. Like 6-18 months.

Yeah, pretty much ignored that part of the book.

Since I was in taper at this point, I didn't really get in a lot of running while going through these adaptations. So I didn't really know how my body was going to react when I ran further than 12 miles. But, after the first few days, I really did feel great. I headed down to Virginia with hopes of running a sub-20 hour race.

We got down there, I checked in, and got an alright night's sleep, considering how excited I was! My wife's family came down to crew for me, and we all got up early to get ready. Before I knew it, I was at the starting line, and off we went!

My goal was to not start off too fast, so I let the front runners go, and ran along at 9:15 pace. But I felt sluggish. 9:15 actually felt a little fast. I wasn't worried at this point, as I thought I was just warming up.

I got through the first climbs, and started to feel better. I fueled for the race with regular ingestion of Generation UCAN (a product I still use), mixed nuts, and S-Caps. Or at least, I fueled with this combination for the first 50 miles. After that, things started to fall apart.

Yeah, OD!

I was tired. I had gotten lost at mile 22, and ran an extra 6 miles. That didn't help. I just felt sluggish and needed energy, so after mile 50, I went a little crazy with the sugar. At pretty much every aid station from that point on, I grabbed as many mini candy bars as I could fit in my pockets, and drank a cup of coke. I struggled, putting one foot in front of the other, running as much as I could, and power walking when I couldn't.

After 23 hours and 49 minutes, I shuffled across the finish line. And to be honest, I was happy. I had finished my first 100, and buckled to boot.

But I felt like I hadn't run to my potential. I really hurt myself by drastically changing my diet so close to a race. Looking back, I'm actually pretty surprised I finished. I really attribute my finish to 3 things:

1. I'm stubborn as hell. Ask my wife.

2. I have a pretty strong stomach, especially when running. I basically gorged myself on sugar for 12 hours, and never had stomach issues.

3. I spent significant periods of time over the previous year following the Maffetone Method, which probably had allowed my muscles to at least start becoming optimized for fat burning (aerobic energy pathways).

So, I basically broke the cardinal rule of ultra running: never try something new for the first time during a race. But I survived, learned from my mistakes, and moved forward.

My next post will discuss a ketogenic diet in more detail, and talk about what happened after my experience at Old Dominion.

Hint: Sympathy Weight.

-Dave

The Maffetone Method and Me

So, about 8 weeks after my stress fracture, Sarah and I took a little vacation out to Colorado, spending most of our time in Boulder. The idea was to eat our way through Boulder (which had recently been named the "foodiest" city in the country by Bon Appetit magazine), and spend our free time hiking and running trails. Thanks goodness that my foot had healed enough to enjoy the tremendous trails of the Rockies!

While we out there, I stumbled across the Maffetone Method while perusing some Runner's World forums. It was an interesting concept, which essentially amounted to periodized low heart rate training. After we got back home, I ordered the book online, and breezed through it in a couple of days. I was certainly intrigued.

The basic idea is to increase the body's aerobic capacity by running (and living) exclusively below a maximum heart rate, which can be estimated using the formula 180 minus you age (There's a few adjustments that you should make based on history and injuries. If you're interested, Google it!). He also espouses a diet moderately low in carbohydrates (around 100-150 grams of carbs a day), which I initially ignored, but later adopted. The benefits are an increase in fat burning (essentially because you're not exercising at a high enough heart rate to cause anaerobic energy production), along with a decrease in injuries. Why a decrease in injuries? Because it turns out that for most people, running at a HR of 180-age equates to a VERY SLOW pace.

My first run finished out at about a 12:00/mile pace. On the road. On a flat road. Which, surprisingly, is actually faster than what a lot of people end up running.

I did expect to be pretty slow at first, so I kept it up, and slowly got faster. I was religious in keeping my HR below 150 (actually, 145, just to be safe). And I found that I really enjoyed the training. Probably because all my runs were now easy runs. I kept up this training for about 3 months, until I had a couple of races, the first being the Bobcat Trail Marathon. The Bobcat is a very hilly single loop course consisting primarily of single track at Burr Oak State Park near Athens, Ohio. The day of the race, it was mud. I mean, MUD. I still managed to finish in 4:20:xx at 12th or 13th overall, and I have to admit, I was pretty pleased with my showing.

My next race was a return to the Bigfoot 50k about a month later, this time in much warmer conditions which brought about even more mud! Thanks, Ohio. Despite problems with footing, I managed to run a 5:15:xx, taking 30 minutes off my time from the previous year, and placing somewhere around 10th. Again, I was pretty happy, and getting ambitious. It was around this point that I decided I'd try my hand at a 100, and signed up for the Old Dominion 100 in June (about 6 months away).

I obviously raced above my max HR during Bobcat and Bigfoot, so I returned to another three month period of the Maffetone Method. I enjoyed the success I was having, and wanted to set another PR at the upcoming Land Between the Lakes 50 miler in March. The only problem was my normal training pace. It was super boring. I had gotten my pace at max HR down to about 8:30-9:00/mile, but I was getting sick of never running fast. Everything that the Maffetone Method promised was happening: I felt good, I had no injuries, even while maintaining a steady 70-80 miles per week. But I didn't have any top end speed. I rationalized it by telling myself I didn't need speed, as my goal pace for 100's was around 10:00/mile. But it was still boring.

In March, I ended up with a great run at Land Between the Lakes 50 miler, a fairly fast course in western Kentucky, with four loops with a few climbs. I ended up running an 8:19:xx, good enough for around 13th overall and a new PR by over 2 hours.

And I was pretty happy.

But something happened at that race that I just couldn't get out of my head: David Riddle. You might have heard of him. I haven't actually met him, but I know he's a great runner. How do I know this? Because I got to watch him.

As he lapped me.

He ended up running a 5:53, which is about a 7:04 pace. That's quick. And I couldn't stop thinking about it. How did he maintain that pace for 50 miles? How did he fuel himself? I just couldn't comprehend it. That was 3:00/mile faster than me!

And so that launched me into renewed research regarding the body's use of fuel, and lead me to an interesting book by Stephen Phinney and Jeff Volek called "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance".

And it was at this point that I made the worst mistake of my running career.

(Well, besides the whole speed work on asphalt thing.)

Stay Tuned.

-Dave

A Little More History AKA Back When I Was a Normal Runner

So, when most runners want to get faster, their choices boil down to two pretty simple concepts: run faster, and/or run further. Training stresses the body, the body reacts by getting stronger, and voila: you can run faster and further. Pretty simple really.

But what can you do during all the time that you don't run? Well, if you're like me, you end up researching the human body, diet, metabolism, inflammation, fuel sources, general biochemistry, etc. etc. etc.

You get the picture.

I want to preface this all by saying that no matter how much research I do, how many papers and blog entries I read, there is absolutely no replacement for hard work and solid training. No matter what you do, you gotta put in the work!

So, away we go...

When I first started running again, I didn't really pay a lot of attention to diet, or training. I basically found a random training plan for a marathon, and followed it as best I could. I tried to run all my training runs around my anticipated marathon pace (my goal was to run around 8:00 minute miles, for a sub-3:30 marathon). I figured I'd slowly work my way up in mileage while keeping my pace steady. This actually worked fairly well, as I ran my first marathon in 3:29:46. Of course, I went out way too fast, and was on pace for a 3:12 marathon at 19 miles. So I pretty much crashed and burned. (Incidentally, I did learn one very important lesson: if you have to pee 3 miles into a marathon, don't try to hold it.)

I basically kept up this training strategy for my first 50k, which I clocked at 5:46 in bitterly cold weather on a fairly hilly course. The only thing that changed was my foray into minimalist shoes (which I'm sure I'll talk about at some point). I was pretty happy.

I decided at this point to run the Glacier Ridge 50 miler in Pennsylvania. I started to focus on "time on my feet", and hitting weekly mileage goals without as much regard for pace, while getting in a long run every other week. I even did some back to back stuff (which I no longer do). I managed to finish the Glacier Ridge 50 in tough, muddy conditions in 10:29, which I felt was a little slow, but hey, it was my first 50 miler, and a shock to my body.

After Glacier Ridge, I was a little burned out. I had spent the past 8 months ramping up to 70 mpw, and I was ready for a break. I took a little time off, and about that point, picked up "The Lore of Running" by Tim Noakes, and "Daniels' Running Formula" by Jack Daniels. I figured this was a good place to start learning a little about why my body did what it did.

Both books are fascinating reads. I decided at this point to follow Daniels' training programs, and see what I could do.

Well, my training program went great. Until I broke by foot. Turns out that if you're wearing super-light weight shoes with no support, you probably shouldn't do speed work on an asphalt bike path.

Whoops.

But seriously, before I broke my foot, I managed to run an 18:36 5k, which, while not earth-shattering, was certainly faster than anything I had run previously.

So, this stress fracture to my 2nd metatarsal in my left foot sidelined me for a solid 8 weeks, ending all hope of a fast marathon in Columbus that year. But no worries, because it gave me a lot of time to think about running, and what I could do to improve.

My next post will talk a bit about what happened after that stress fracture, some details about the little injuries I had over that first year of running, and my first major move into the fringe of running, delving into a little training program called the Maffetone Method.

Until then!

-Dave

Introductions

So, I'd like to introduce myself. My name's Dave. I'm 32 years old, I work in coffee for a living, I'm married to a beautiful woman named Sarah, and I have a lovely 7-month-old daughter named Eleanor.

Beautiful wife, beautiful daughter

I've been running semi-regularly for maybe 3 or 4 years, running various distances from 5k to 100 miles (actually, 106. I got lost.). I've had what I feel to be modest personal success. I'm certainly not setting any course records, but I've laid down some decent middle of the pack times. I've run sub 5 hours for a 50k in tough conditions (and hope to drastically improve that time this year). I've managed an 8:19 50 miler, and I buckled at the Old Dominion 100, running a 23:49, which

Old Dominion 100, June 2012

included those extra 6 miles. I'll come back to that 100 time in a later post.

To set the stage for this blog, let me tell you a bit about my background as an athlete, and from a weight perspective.

I was always involved in sports from a young age. I was a 3 sport letterman in high school (soccer, wrestling, track and field), and continued to pole vault for a year in college before I was forced to transfer. I never had to worry about what I ate. My weight never changed (always around 160), and I burned everything off. I was essentially a human garbage disposal. Seriously, I cannot tell you how many boxes of Hamburger Helper I ate in college.

As I left college, I pretty much stopped all physical activity. And for a while, I was fine. My metabolism kept up with me, and my eating habits never changed. Around the age of 26, that all changed...

When you gain weight, you often don't notice it for a while, especially if you never use the scale sitting in the corner of your bathroom. Changes in my body shape occurred little bit by little bit, until one day I stepped on the scale and cringed a little bit. 197. Only 3 pounds short of the big deuce. That was a wake-up call.

I started off thinking that I'd like to become active in a sport again, and triathlons sounded cool. I had read several places that swimming is a really good way to lose weight and get in shape with minimal impact of joints. So I joined a gym with a pool, and put together a workout schedule.

Well, that only lasted a few months. Turns out swimming back and forth in a pool sort of sucks. I did manage to drop some weight, however, and get down to about 180 pounds.

It was about this time that I started to hear a bunch of stories about ultra running from my wife's father. Turns out he's a grizzly vet who's managed to finish 30+ 100's. Listening to him talk about his races and experiences, I was hooked. I just had to try it for myself. I wanted to test my limits, and see what was possible.

From here, I started training for a marathon (Columbus, 3:29:xx), then straight on to my first 50k (Bigfoot, 5:46:xx). From there, it was on to multiple 50k's, 50 milers, and (so far) a single 100 mile race.

In my next post, I'll talk about diet, training, the awful mistakes I've made, and what curious people do to get faster.

-Dave