I’m glad you asked. This is going to be a lengthy comment but hang in there. I hate the short one or two line comments that don’t answer a whole lot of questions.
I completely forgot to come back and update. When they postponed the race for the hurricane so much time elapsed to the next actual scheduled race it just got away from me.
So the next scheduled race wish to be in a national forest in Ovett Mississippi. It’s always been my favorite race of the season and I was kind of bummed out that I would have to skip it. My ribs were just not cooperating this time.
So they had this one broken down into four test sections. Each about 13 miles except for the last one which was only 6 miles.
I told myself that I was going to trail ride the last section just because I didn’t want to miss the whole thing. Days leading up to the race started to feel like I would not even be able to do that. I decided I would take my bike and play it by ear.
Of course everyone around me knew if I took my bike I would probably end up doing more than I said I was going to do.
Well Sunday arrives and I feel OK. At race registration they tell me I can’t do just the last test section. If I’m only going to do one I have to start the race with test one. Which is a 13 mile test.
Then they drop another bomb on me and say by the way if you do test one, you have to do test two. The reason is, test one ends 12 miles away from camp. And you’re not allowed to ride back on the main roads. So you have to do test two to get back to camp.
So now we’re up to 23 miles that I had not planned on doing.
Trying to shorten the story up a little, I felt great and I ended up racing the entire race. 45 miles in total. Actually ended up having a pretty good day.
So now the rescheduled raced that was canceled in Florida due to the hurricane happened this past Sunday.
I raced that one and had an even better rate. I believe I probably had one of the best rides I’ve had in three years. Possibly ever. I’m still sore LOL.
Now to the diet related stuff…
Energy levels were very good for both of the last races. I did not feel like I hit the wall. I’m still struggling with arm strength, but I believe through the keto diet and not exercising properly that I lost a good bit of muscle tone.
So what have I been doing differently. Well I spoke with Hans Schmid on the telephone after I posted all of this stuff originally. He was nice enough to actually call me so we could speak.
He was a guy that I found here on the forum
I spoke with him for probably 45 minutes. He is a pro level rider that rides the same type of races that I race, we are same height and same starting wait and ending wait . The only difference is I’m not a pro level rider yet LOL
So basically he did agree that he has found in these long races that he has to “carb up “
There just hasn’t been any way to get around that.
And furthermore I think one of the bigger problem is that I’ve been having was not entirely related to carbohydrate intake. It was really more of a caloric intake.
What I think people fail to realize is, when you’re on a ketogenic diet you unintentionally lose calories. By shear design and nature of what you’re eating now, naturally you are fool but it probably a third of the calories you were normally eating.
Let’s face it, broccoli and zucchini and green beans and cabbage just does not have the amount of calories in it that a potato has.
And at least for me, there is absolutely no way I could eat enough food on this diet and stay in Keto to get my calorie intake high enough. I would be vomiting LOL
So one thing I’ve noticed that started happening when I was in strict ketogenic diet mode, I would sometimes only eat one time a day. Because that’s all I cared about eating. I just did not want any more food. My energy levels actually got worse after I originally posted this. I think I started a snowball effect. I got to a point where I was eating so little, that I started to feel bad. And then I would eat even less. There was a point where I almost checked myself into the hospital I was so down on energy and I was so weak.
I was working out of town and I decided to try something. The night before I went to a restaurant and I had a standard steak and a broccoli as a side. Ate about half of the steak and about three bites of broccoli and I just did not want anymore.
So the next day I decided to go completely different. I went to red Robin and I got a bacon cheddar cheeseburger. And a huge order of fries. Well guess what, I destroyed that entire plate LOL
But I didn’t really feel any better over the next day. So I took Hans advice and I started to carb up A few days before the race.
I started adding in more carbohydrates. Things like serving of lima beans. I never did go to anything like macaroni and cheese. Just lima beans, or black eyed pea’s. Or a potato.
My weight has not increased at all, but I do feel tons better right now. And basically what I’m doing at this point is, some days I have some carbohydrates and some days I do not. Like yesterday I had a Subway sandwich. But for dinner I had a low-carb dinner. And I think my calorie intake for the day total still under 1500
Now that I don’t have to do any racing until the beginning of November I will probably get back a little more strict on keto for a week or so. And then I will just carb up leading up to the last race.
I’m still staying away from sugar. And I’m still staying away from empty carbohydrate things like candy bars and macaroni and cheese things of that nature.
Also as an edit. Hans Schmid and I were talking about the caloric intake being a factor probably more than carbohydrate. Think about it like this, you’re not going to drive from the East Coast to the West Coast on one tank of fuel.
You’ve got to make sure your calorie intake will match your output.
You can easily burn 3000 cal in one of these races. Eating a banana and oatmeal the morning before a race just will not cut it.
You have to eat a good bit before, and you have to eat during.
I cannot physically eat enough food for breakfast to get through one of these races. So my last race in Florida I ate pizza the night before LOL.
The morning of, I had two packets of oatmeal, two bananas, and a sausage biscuit from McDonald’s with a hash brown. And I still only had 800 cal for breakfast.
He pointed out green belly makes these meals that are like 700 cal just in that little packet. That is something that I’m going to try and report back
All I know is this, I did the full race and I did not lose energy. My muscles got tired, but I had the energy to do more.
The muscle thing is just something I need to work on in the gym
.