Then I launched the next phase of the ONER build-up: A progressive build to the CTS 45 miles Ultra which took place on the ONER route itself on 6th December. It started out intended to be a bench mark/recce run but soon raised its status as a major event in its own right. There were various reasons for this: one was that I didn't (and don't) think the ONER is realistically achievable. However success at a 45 mile route on similar terrain 4 months out from the race would be a massive confidence boost. So I began to see it as a 'must do' as part of the ONER build up. Secondly, training for a training run is not exactly inspiring! And finally because it would be my longest ultra so a new PB. (The Equinox doesn't count!)

I stayed pretty much on target until I got into the peak phase - 3 big weeks in a row with long, hilly, off road B2B runs each weekend: 18/12; 20/15; 25/15

During the second weekend I was meant to be doing the '20 miler' but had no energy or motivation. I felt ok so set off but sacked it after 8 miles. Then later that day I became ill and was off work for the next 2 weeks. Barely able to wander up the lane with the dog, let alone do any meaningful training. Week 3 saw me recovered but still coughing constantly and still weak so didn't run, instead, just slowly increased how far I was walking. And that took me up to race week. So my first post illness run was 5 days before the race. I DNSed which was probably sensible but I know from reading other threads that 'hard' runners carry on regardless. For every sensible DNS there is some nutter running with a chest infection and triggering pneumonia!! (But it was worth it because I finished.... ) Or some other nutter finishing an ironman with a busted arm or carrying a broken bike 20 miles into transition.

So here is the thing: I'm not 'hard'. I have a degree of mental toughness, but I can't run while puking, or while coughing hard enough to crack ribs. Don't want to. When ill, knackered and in pain I like daytime telly and Lemsips, not 20 milers in the snow. (Call me crazy but....)

And I am beginning to think that to succeed at challenges as tough as the ONER you need to be HARD. Not just fit with some mental toughness but properly HARD. Can that sort of toughness be trained? Not sure. Do I want it that much anyway?? Also not sure......

So where does that leave me: well I am healthy and more or less injury free. Not a bad place to start. I've decided to stop planning too far ahead: I have a training plan that sketches out a structure to build from now to the ONER. Whether the plan is a) achievable and b) enough for the ONER anyway, I have no idea. And I'm not going to worry about it either. One week at a time and let's see where I end up.....

REPLIES: Thanks for replies. The Equinox is fab. Can highly recommend it!]]>
http://www.equinox24.co.uk/

2014 had been a bit of an endurance write off for me. I did the Equinox 24 last year after a pretty good season’s training and ran 110K – a distance PB of about 26 miles. Not bad!! That was meant to be the baseline from which I launched my campaign for an 80 mile hilly ultra in April 2014. But training was rubbish all through the winter – no energy, no ability to recover. My ‘long runs’ got progressively shorter and slower. Till by February I was exhausted and my ultra ambitions for the Spring were in pieces.

I withdrew my entry and turned my attention to the Equinox Mark Two. 2 marathons in the build-up (1 in June and 1 in July) were both dreadful. Felt cr@p all the way round them, ran over an hour slower for both than I considered realistic and took 3-4 weeks after each one to feel vaguely normal again. These were meant to be training runs! They felt more like peak efforts which left me exhausted.:cry:

I eventually went to my GP who said my iron levels were low. I started taking iron and various other supplements, I improved my diet and by mid-August I was feeling good again. To make up for lost time, I ran hard for 3 weeks while on holiday in August covering 110 miles on very rough, hilly terrain. But straight after the holiday I developed hip bursitis and the pain in my hip persisted right up to race day. I was in 2 minds whether to run or not, but in the end decided I would give it a go to try and salvage something from what had been a dismal season.

The Equinox 24 is a fab event. Very family friendly. Solo runners can camp right by the course so I had my own personal ‘Aid Station’ with MrKP my tireless Aid Station Helper – making me noodles, soup, tea, coffee etc. The kids met other kids and just played all weekend. There was also a bouncy castle and climbing wall. The 10k loop goes past a junction 100m or so from the camping field 3 times so it’s really easy for kids to support.

The race started at noon on Saturday. For the first 2 laps my hip was a bit uncomfortable but nothing significant. However on lap 3 it became much more painful. I spent that whole lap having a raging argument with myself :bonk:

On the one hand: This is my last race of the season and the last chance to salvage something from the season, I can recover afterwards, the level of pain is manageable.

And on the other hand: I am doing more damage. It’s not worth it. Besides if it is this sore after just 2 laps, then going further than last year is completely unrealistic so why do more damage running 5,6 or 7 laps only to end up falling far short of my hopes/targets anyway?

I finally resolved to pull out at the end of lap 3. I know myself well enough to know that only a distance PB would be a ‘good ‘ result. Anything else would be a huge disappointment. And why aggravate an existing injury for a blah/forgettable performance? I explained all this to MrKP when I saw him near the end of lap 3 and he pointed out that I had no way of knowing what was realistic or not at this stage. I would only know that 12 laps (1 more than last year) was unrealistic once I could no longer run. And yes that might happen at lap 5,6,7 etc but I was certainly not at a ‘can’t run anymore’ stage yet. Nowhere near. I realised he was right and so I carried on. And on and and on....

From that moment on I was going for 12. Nothing less would do. The fact that I was aggravating an injury actually became really motivating. I needed to make that decision worthwhile.

The sun set around 7pm and it started to rain. The rain persisted till about 9pm then it dried up a bit. Wet feet resulted in a large blister on the right foot so I started favouring that foot – which then put too much strain on my left foot which ended up swollen and bruised. But I guess when you run for such long distances pretty much everything hurts by the end. The night passed in a bit of a blur. Time gets weirdly distorted in these events. The first 6 daylight hours took quite a long time then the night seemed to pass in no time at all.

I met MartinP again which was great.( Doing the event ‘on a whim, for a giggle’!! ) Plus loads of other people whose positivity and energy made such a difference to my own state of mind. I am ashamed now to realise that I was given a lot more support by my fellow runners than I gave out. I was in a bit of a world of my own for most of the event, just focusing on keeping on putting one foot in front of the other when everything hurt so much. Next year I will make a real effort to be friendlier :P

I was really looking forward to the ‘Sunrise Lap’ – so much so that I think I built it up in my head too much. It was very misty so really the murky gloom just got gradually lighter and the view was not really very new. At the same time I was utterly, utterly exhausted, everything hurt and I was still running. The only change was that now I was running in daylight which wasn’t really much of an improvement in my situation! That was lap 11 and although I had been looking forward to daybreak I actually I found it the toughest lap of all because I knew I had no option but to go out and run lap 12. Quitting at lap 8 or 9 – well maybe. But falling 1 lap short of my goal was unthinkable. I was trying very hard throughout the event not to look too far ahead, but instead just to go from km marker to km marker and lap to lap. But on lap 11 that resolve faltered and the weight of lap 12 was bearing down on me all the way round. I had a bit of a pathetic, tearful wobble halfway round and could hear my inner toddler wailing ‘I don’t wanna do another lap. It’s not FAIR’.

Conversely lap 12 was fine! (This is SUCH a mental game). In fact I was feeling pretty positive and strong on lap 12. I met Pookey who was on her way to 100miles (HUGE respect ) And there were plenty of others who were clearly in a world of pain but were still moving forward who I could have used for inspiration to keep going after the 12th lap. So I thought I might go for it as I still had plenty of time left before the event ended officially. But the instant I crossed the line after 12 laps I knew I was done. My brain said ‘Enough Already’ and everything stopped working within minutes. I found it hard even to walk back to the tent from the start-finish line. I was absolutely wrecked.

So in summary: Great event, great people, great atmosphere. And despite an absolute shocker of a season suddenly I have pulled out my best ever performance – 120K – a new distance PB.
Definitely the hardest race I have ever done. But it was worth it. :airborne:
It has also been great to learn that assuming you can tell in advance what a realistic' achievement might be is a sure-fire route to limiting your potential. As Henry Ford said "Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't - you are probably right!"

Roll on Equinox 24 2015 when I guess I’ll be going for 13 laps .....

Replies
Thanks Magpie for reading. Blogland is deserted these days
But I like keeping a record of all my events in 1 place so I'll keep posting the ramblings anyway!]]>

Why is that bad news! Well because basically for months before the holiday I had been struggling with fatigue and a load of other symptoms and this suggests that a big chunk of the problems I have had are in my head. Not sure how else to explain the sudden form and the simultaneous sudden disappearance of headaches, night sweats and insomnia. The weird thing is that the symptoms have been entirely physical. I am not aware of any feelings of stress etc. But I guess stress is a strange beast. But then again my iron levels have been low and I started taking supplements 3 weeks before the holiday so maybe I have suddenly reached a heathier level which just so happened to coincide with the holiday….. Hmmmm :?

Anyway enough of tedious naval gazing. How’s the RUNNING!
I have been away for 2 weeks and covered 49 miles in week 1, and 29 miles in week 2. All on the ONER route. That included a 15 mile night run with Curry of this Parish. We had considered running 30 but there was the possibility of a bail out at Lulworth Cove – the ‘halfway point’. After about 12 miles I was knackered and also quite weirded out by being on the cliffs at night. Lots of critters about only visible because their creepy green eyes shone in the torchlight. I was trying to summon up enough courage to tell him I wanted to bail out as several more hours of relentless hills in the dark felt a bridge too far. I was mightily happy when he turned to me and said ‘shall we call it a day at Lulworth’. YESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!! I thought while calmly saying something along the lines of ‘ok then’.

So a few days left to go and am planning a daytime 30 miler instead with the walking poles which will be my last big effort before the Equinox 24.

REPLIES}
SOOOOOZ and magpie: Thanks for reading and on-going support!]]>
I have run about 15 marathons. My marathon experiences go like this.

WORST EVER: Last Years's Outlaw Marathon - over 6 hours
SECOND WORST EVER - Outlaw marathon 2010 - 5:30ish
THIRD WORST EVER - This year's Outlaw Marathon - 5:45

As my PB is 4:22 and I ran a 2:08 half marathon a couple of months ago, these performances are ridiculously, ludicrously rubbish.

Poet worked out years ago that the Outlaw run was a killer. I think his phrase was 'it should be fast but it just bl00dy isn't!" I foolishly kept the faith with the race. But never again! (Or not till next year anyway).

KPx]]>

Kids went off mountain biking which they loved. I set off on what turned out to be a VERY long day which I loved rather less :x

The run/walk/crawl went all over the National Park, lots of single track, rocky climbs and descents but quite a lot of well surfaced trails too. But continually up and down which trashed my legs and feet quite effectively. Ouch. Also had my usual GI issues which is a pain. I do much better with savoury real foods like marmite bagels or pretzels than I do with gels and sweets. But I thought I'd be ok as it was 'just' a marathon so did not take anything to eat. 15 miles in, no longer able to tolerate sugar which is all they had on aid stations. Oh dear.

Mind games started quite early on - "I'm so slow, this is too hard, should I quit half way" Yada yada. (the route was a figure if 8 so you ran through the start again at 13 miles). I knew I wasn't going to stop so it was pointless spending mental energy on it, but that pesky voice was as annoyingy persistant as the feckin midges. Had a lovely cheer from TeamKP at the half way point, which gave me a boost for about 500 yards and then I settled back into the task of grinding out a painful finish... Even worse I kept being asked by broom wagons whether I was 'carrying on'. YES. But stop bl00dy asking me or I'll change my mind!!

Finally limped home at a fairly dire 6:58:59. But there were a few people still behind me. So at least I wasn't single-handedly holding up all the marshals and the sweeper!

Actually I am very glad I finished. I have developed a bit of a habit recently of sacking training runs because they aren't going well or I'm not feeling good. The Voice Of Apparent Reason tells me that I should listen to my body etc. But I have noticed that the more I quit the more quitting seems an ok thing to do. Well maybe in training (but even then it's a bad habit to slip into) but NOT in races.

I told myself that if I walked away from this race for no other reason than I didn't much feel like carrying on, then I might as well walk away from endurance sport altogether. Because carrying on when you don't much feel like iis part of the deal. Was I prepared to walk away from the Equinox 24, JCC, ONER and AT 100?
If not shut up and run :!:

Next stop Outlaw marathon....]]>

MrKP braved the freezing, duck-sh1t and weed filled lake and the lonely bike leaving me the pleasure of a nice flat river or lakeside run with lots of crowds and the finishing chute experience!! Bargain

But what was a realistic target for the race? To be honest back in Feb I felt so burnt out, just covering the distance felt daunting. Since then I have re-evaluated work-life stuff and removed a load of stress and am feeling loads better. But how much better? I honestly didn’t know.

However based on my ‘suffer as much as possible in less important races” philosophy I set off at sub 2 hr pace which would have been a 5 minute PB. A little ambitious maybe but I figured I could hang on at that pace as long as possible then suffer as much as possible to limit time losses. Not the most effective pacing strategy perhaps but it served the purpose of making sure it hurt!!

I maintained sub 2 hr pace past half way ..... but not much past half way :x

Then at 10-11 miles I did a 10.56 mile. Oh bugger. But I managed to speed up again for the final 2 miles to come in at 2:08, or 9:40 min mile pace

I was pretty pleased to see 5:39 on the clock as I finished as that seemed a pretty good combined effort. Turned out we did it in 5:08 as Mr KP started in the last wave!! Which looks even better.

Disappointing not to be nearer my PB from Chester last year of just under 2:05 but the Outlaw included transition. And that time is damn sight better than I would have predicted a month or so ago!!

I have re-read bits of my blog and it is clear that harder training this time last year was resulting in speed gains. Somehow the HIT disappeared as I got nearer the Equinox as my focus was on mega-long runs (up to 30 miles). And then somehow I never quite found my way back to speed work after the Equinox.

Lesson learnt: Back to Mr KP’s training plans. Ouch.

Magpie: Thanks for the advice. It’s taken me 2 years to figure out that I just need to earn enough not to earn as much as possible!!
Soooooooz: Thanks 8)]]>
July: "If the road is easy you're likely going the wrong way"

June: "You will get what you want, when you stop making excuses on why you don’t have it.”

May: “It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.” Winston Churchill]]>
So what will it take in practice?

Well, training obviously! But I did that last year and failed to make the start line, so what else needs to be added to the mix?

Key elements for previous successes (eg JCC and Outlaw) were being focused and committed, getting in the miles and never giving up.

I tried to use the same sort of approach for the ONER, so what went wrong?

The main factors are that I got too scared of the race and bottled it, that the rest of my life was very stressful and busy so my recovery was compromised and my training was just not consistent enough or of high enough quality.

So I need a much more holistic approach that keeps my Chimp confident and committed and that facilitates much better training.

So into the mix will be a:

Health & Recovery Plan
Stress Management Plan
Life Organisation Plan
Nutrition Plan
Stretching/conditioning plan
Confidence/commitment/inspiration plan.
PLUS new and improved training plans.

(Blimey, this is becoming a full time job!)

I have already drawn black lines across key training days in my work diary and am trying very hard not to accept work outside of 'work' time. This is really hard because being self employed makes it feel hard to turn work down. I can't help calculating the amount of money I am rejecting and working out how much that training run actually 'cost' me. I need to stop that and just view the figures monthly as frankly that way 80 hour weeks and madness lie! So step 1 is LEARN TO SAY NO!!

That equally applies to unwanted social contacts as I am a hopeless people pleaser

On my first day of learning to say no I agreed to 3 meetings on a NO WORK day. Oops. Still a work in progress then, but since then I have managed to say no to lots of different things. Hurray! And finally I am seeing the gaps appear in my week which I am filling with training. Which is finally starting to feel pretty good again. 20 hilly miles yesterday felt comfortable which is great.

Next stop Outlaw Half Marathon in a relay with Mr KP.

Hope to see some of you there.....]]>
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chimp-Paradox-Management-Programme-Confidence/dp/009193558X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400348543&sr=1-1&keywords=the+chimp+paradox


In it there is an interesting discussion on Commitment versus Motivation.

He says motivation is largely emotional (Chimp) and unreliable. Also that it doesn’t matter much. The key to success is commitment – which is the personal fulfilment drive (human) which keeps you working away and focused on your task whether you feel like it or not on a given day.

He also takes you through a series of questions to help you work out whether your goal is worth committing to, whether a person’s commitment to a goal is strong enough to cope with the effort required. And how much effort that is depends on how challenging the goal is.

So question 1: Do I really want to run the ONER? And more crucially do I want it enough to overcome the huge barriers in the way of getting there?

Oct 2013 – Feb 2014 were a bit grim to be honest. Those months were meant to be all about focused ONER training culminating in smashing it at a February training holiday after which I could start tapering for the JCC and ONER. However by February I was stressed and miserable. I never gave up training – I went out whenever I was supposed to go out - but I felt crap and could not get the distance in as I was so slow. And I was slowing down not speeding up....My 5 hour/20 mile hilly ‘runs’ became 5 hour 14 mile hill-walks.....
I recognise in retrospect that I was psychologically burnt out. Not so much by training but by various separate life stresses that made it difficult to recover from training. And also because the distance scared the bejeezuz out of me. (Still does! :omg: ) So every session became an exercise in trying to work out how far away from being fit enough for the ONER I still was. I think the fear just became paralysing in the end.

I then pulled a hamstring which gave me a few weeks out from sport. It was also an opportunity to regroup and get healthy again in more ways than just muscle recovery.

I gave careful consideration to quitting endurance sport as I wondered if I needed to focus on my family, my new house and my new business. I felt like I was losing control of all areas of my life and something had to give. Surely the ‘luxury’ of ultra running should be the thing to go?

But I don’t think that would have been the right choice: I recognise that there is no intrinsic value in running ultras or completing ironman events. So it makes sort of sense that when other commitments like work and family start making training harder, the training should be the thing to go. But there IS intrinsic value in living in a way that is true to yourself. My happiest memories and proudest achievements have been from setting myself personally tough challenges and seeing them through. And to be healthy and happy (which I also need for work and family) I need to keep doing that. I need to be inspired and it’s the toughness of an event that provides the inspiration. I can run 50 miles a week if I am training for a big event that truly excites me. If I am not I would struggle to commit to 5 miles a week....

If I stop wanting to set goals and stretch limits, it generally means that I have drifted away somehow from who I really am. And when that happens all other areas of life generally suffer too. On the other hand, when I am fully committed to a tough goal, I am better in all other areas of life too.

So in answer to do I want to do the ONER and am I prepared to do what it takes...Yes, and YES!

So on to part 2 of the Peter’s Commitment Exercise.... But that’s for the next blog!

Replies:

Yummy roasties - I’ve missed you.....
Thanks for reading and commenting.]]>
http://www.tritalk.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=95202

It got me curious so I also bought:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Science-Low-Carbohydrate-Performance-ebook/dp/B008BYG7RW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399803287&sr=8-1&keywords=Art+Science+Low+Performance+Volek

As I was keen on seeing some scientific data which the book promises.

I've got a strong interest in nutrition alongside a whopping dose of scepticism as I think the diet/nutrition industry is full of the biggest bullshit and biggest con-artists known to man. However I am also an empiricist so if there is data I am keen to know about it.

The essence of Noakes, Volek, Phinney et al is:
* We are not adapted to eat grains and cereals. They are making us fat and diseased and are often killing us.
* We are designed to eat mostly fat, with some protein
* Therefore if we eat a high carb diet, along the lines advocated in the USA Food Pyramid we will
- get fat
- produce inflammation via metabolic processes that your bodies struggle to cope with which in turn makes us stiff, sore and impedes recovery from exercise
- develop diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancers
- crave sugar and therefore need to snack all the time
- struggle with appetite regulation again making us need to snack all the time
- be unable to burn fat efficiently making us hugely reliant on regular intake of carbs during exercise to prevent us hitting the wall.

Further, the ‘experts’ know this and grain-based recommendations are politically motivated.

On the other hand if we switch to a High Fat, Low Carb diet:
- We will adapt to burn fat giving us boundless energy from the tens of thousands calories of stored fat we all have
- Low glycogen will cease to be a limiting factor in endurance sport: you can run all day in ultras without the hassle of trying to stomach gels etc
- We will achieve effortless weight loss and a lean body composition
- Recovery will be better
- We will have less joint and muscle pain
- We will develop a well-regulated appetite and experience little or no hunger.
- We will have less disease.

Wow.

But really??? Seriously??? What is the evidence?????

Paleo
The 'Paleo' argument does not convince me remotely. It is nicely romantic to imagine we should eat like our Paleolithic Ancestors, but romantic notions are not very scientific.

Firstly I doubt we can make any sensible assessment of the health status of Paleolithic hunter gatherers. And even if we could and it turns out they were phenomenally lean, strong, virile and long lived we could not attribute that to their diet. It may be to do with 1000 other things: the outdoor lifestyle, the lack of environmental pollution, the fresh air, the lack of processed food, the activity levels, sleep patterns, the overall calories (far lower than today one can reasonably assume) the timing of eating (periods of fasting) etc etc etc etc
Second we can't realistically emulate the paleo diet anyway. I browsed a few Paleo and 'Primal' books and sites and discovered things like 'Paleo Brownie Bites' made of almond flour, coconut cream and palm oil (or whatever!) Ie foods in concentrations and combinations never seen by our ancestors. They may not have been eating Hob Nobs but they sure as hell weren't eating Paleo Brownies either!

Evidence from zoos is mixed. Noakes says elephants in zoos do better on their ‘natural’ diets and are obese and sick in zoos that don’t give them that. On the other hand extensive studies on wolves in captivity show that wolves do far better on commercial dog food than on the Biologically Appropriate Raw Food diets advocated by the pet industry version of Paleo. (Yes it really is called the BARF diet!!)

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/raw-meat-and-bone-diets-for-dogs-its-enough-to-make-you-barf/.

So it is unconvincing that Noakes forms his argument along these 'we are not adapted to...' lines. Agriculture has been around for 12,000 years. Wide-spread obesity only for about 30. Not sure how an allegedly politically motivated shift towards agriculture can really be blamed. It seems far more convincing to see the problem as being the ultra modern one of widely available, cheap, heavily promoted, highly calorific nutritionally bankrupt ‘fake’ food. But I guess it is less scientifically interesting to say ‘eat less crap’.

The Noakes talk was also irritating in its relentless use of anecdote as a substitute for data. He roundly condemns 'Association Studies' as being meaningless, even large scale, longitudinal studies that one assumes had a degree of matching. But then he happily cites total nonsense as evidence (if not proof) of the effectiveness of his diet: This cricketer came off his meds! This team scored more runs!! This group of people lost weight!!!

(Incidentally, I have discussed Noakes under 'Paleo' because the basis of his argument seems to be about evolutionary adaptations which is the Paleo one. But in practice I think he is actually High Fat Low Carb....)

High Fat, Low Carb
On the other hand, data IS presented on High Fat, Low Carb. And it seems reasonably robust. The Phinney and Volek book cite peer reviewed intervention studies allegedly showing improved performance, better blood markers, increased recovery etc on high fat, very low carb diets. I have not read the papers myself but they look vaguely credible as they appear in journals as opposed to newsletters etc

Given that I ticked every box on the 'Are You Carb Intolerant' questionnaire and given that I am highly, highly motivated to find a solution to my recent dips in form and given that I work in this area and therefore have an interest in exploring new ideas thoroughly, I decided to give it a go for a month. The diet is extreme. To achieve all these effects you need to virtually eliminate carbs - 25-50g per day only. So I have spent a month eating mostly fat. Salads drenched in oil, fatty meats, fish, eggs and high fat dairy. The promised reward of boundless energy and the ability to run forever was highly attractive as I am trying to be (or rather stay) an ultra runner and I have been seriously struggling with energy levels and with recovery. I also bloat easily and really, really struggle to tolerate gels and energy drinks during long endurance events. The Volek, Phinney books say it take 2 weeks to adapt (Keto-adaptation). I gave it 4.

And the outcome:
- Weight has remained exactly the same.
- Body composition has remained exactly the same
- Energy levels are more stable (no post lunch dip) but are no better overall
- Training performance is way way down. I feel like I am running through treacle
- Appetite is well controlled. I don't snack or even want to and I can go far longer between meals
- I feel vaguely sick after every meal.
- I don’t enjoy the food. (All that grease!)
- Muscle soreness/stiffness are not noticeably different

So all in all, it has achieved nothing particularly worth having and has compromised my training. Anecdotes don't mean a lot and n=1 proves nothing but I can clearly state that the diet does nothing for me so there seems no reason for sticking with it.

But what about those studies? They may be small and rarely replicated but there are some apparently well controlled intervention studies that show the benefits discussed above. How can they be explained? Well I decided to re-visit Matt Fitzgerald's Racing Weight and read that the Atkins Diet (which is basically what Noakes, Phinney and Volek are now advocating) is the best selling diet book in history! This is not a new idea. This is not a small band of scientists in the wilderness, although that is how they present themselves. This concept is wide-spread and been around for decades and has been exhaustively investigated. The overwhelming consensus is that Atkins is unhealthy and detrimental to performance.

http://www.atkinsexposed.org/atkins/75/american_medical_association.htm

So those promising new studies probably represent nothing more than the effect of ‘bottom drawer syndrome’. If you conduct some research and find a result that is new and challenges conventional wisdom there is a strong motivation to publish. If you conduct a trial and there is no effect and you don’t find anything out at all, there is strong motivation to shove it in a drawer and find something more interesting to do.... So small unreplicated trials on their own really don’t tell us very much either. It is when trials are replicated repeatedly that they become convincing.

Fitzgerald also makes the point that the worlds best athletes - such as Kenyan distance runners - eat very high carb diets. So if people can achieve world class performance on carbs then I think they will do for me....

So back to normal eating for me, then.....Phew. Pass the fruit bowl. I'm dying for an apple!! :o

Replies.
Magpie, Carlito, Foggy and Sue: Thanks for reading 'n' advice!]]>