What to do differently next time for a Half Marathon

(Amy F) #1

I just completed a brutal hilly trail half marathon! I finished (yay!) but my keto nutrition and eating plan wasn’t enough to sustain me the 4 hours I was out there.

Any ideas for next time? (If there is a next time I want to be prepared…hah!) Should I have taken in some carbs?

FYI: I had steak and roasted vegetables with butter for dinner the night before. That morning, I had sausage and coffee with heavy cream. I had Nuun in my camelbak, salt tabs, and pink himalayan sea salt. I was feeling bonky early on at 7 miles, so I had an almond butter with chocolate hazelnut packet and pickles at the aid stations.

Thanks for any help or information!

Amy :slight_smile:

(Khara) #2

How long have you been fat adapted?

(Amy F) #3

I’ve been eating Keto for 6 months but have had some cheat days during that time.

(Damon Chance) #4

This podcast has the current 100 mile record holder on it talking about how he fuels for his races. He’s Keto too.

(Khara) #5

Hmm. That’s not exactly a super short period of time. If you had said 6 weeks that would’ve been my thought. My max distance running was 7 miles. I felt with Keto I could go forever energy wise. It was my legs that couldn’t go further. I have heard that with continued training your body will improve running on Keto. Maybe at 6 months you just need more time with it. My understanding of adding carbs is that it is mostly beneficial for sprints.

(Amy F) #6

I was able to complete an 11 mile training run with no problem, but the endless hills really wore me out to where I felt depleted and my legs were shredded. Maybe more weight training would be helpful rather than diet changes???

(Doug) #7

The night before he won the 1972 Olympic Marathon, Frank Shorter downed a couple liters of good German beer.

Not saying that’s any miracle cure, nor even specifically advisable, but you never know.

(Khara) #8

Ah, ya. And, any way to train on hills? Any hilly neighborhoods close by? I am actually the opposite! Hills, I climb right up, passing by the slender runners. On the flats, they sprint right on back in front of me. I am just SO slow on flat.

(Khara) #9

I’ve read good things of simple body weight training too. Squats, one legged if the standard get too easy. And jump squats. Those are a killer, you’ll feel them working.

(Amy F) #10

We did train on some hills, but nothing compared to what we experienced on race day! :flushed:

image
image.jpg1334×750 82 KB

(Khara) #11

Congrats on making it through! I hope you had fun. These cool-ish autumn days are nice out there. I need to get back out.

(Kate M) #12

Not that this is diet related, but I find it helpful to take it easy on the way up and then push it out on the way down. This should leave you at the same average time without straining yourself going up hill.

(ianrobo) #13

My answer here is that if you are feeling truly bonked then you are running at sugar burning levels and not fat burning ones. The clue is when you say you struggled on hills, so do you have your heart rate for this and what is your max HR ?

(John) #14

I agree, it happened to me this weekend. I went on the same 50 mile route I always do, with only BPC, but misplaced my cycle computer (still no clue what I did with it). It was a hotter day than expected and very windy and about halfway through it hit me hard, I had to stop for food and that really wasn’t enough.

The penalty for going into the red too much seems very severe on keto, I can usually manage it well but with heat and humidity up along with wind there I should have taken it a lot easier in the flats. Lesson learned…again.

(ianrobo) #15

remeber if fully fat adapted we are not as efficient in getting carbs and it is vital to be fiully trained to use fat in the higher levels. If you want to go into the red deliberately or not you must understand that for the body to gain some carbs back you need to slow down a lot after the efforts, remeber the carbs will be replaced eating or not.