Keto Questions

Oh that was a horrible long 16km run this morning - with a great deal of walking being done; mostly on the up hills, and even the inclines, of which there seemed to be quite a few. A long slow run, at around 8.30/km - how can you run that slowly?! Trying to keep my cadence at 180 and practice my chi running, just seems to push me forward with the end result that my HR shoots up to way above long slow run level and I end up having to walk. And my legs? Buggered! From the word go! They were alright on the downhills and down clines (?!) but anything else and they were just lead weights :-( 

So, this Keto diet thing, can I make it work for me? I love the idea, and the science, behind it, but right now I need to make some changes and find some help and answers. 

I know I am Keto adapted, the little test strips tell me so, although I don't count my carbs. I do check everything that I put in my body, carb-wise, and I eat natural, home-cooked food the vast majority of the time. I'm now wondering about my electrolytes. Can you buy over the counter test strips for potassium and magnesium? Maybe I'm not getting enough sodium, although I do eat bacon just about every day (yum!)? 

This morning I felt a bit light headed a number of times, and at one point, if I'd had some puréed apple and banana with me (organic baby food in a pouch) I'd have troughed it down - which is why I deliberately didn't put one in my water belt pocket! So, I just walked slowly up the very steep hill and thought about how beautiful the morning was :-) 

Perhaps yesterday's food wasn't sufficiently suitable; a smoothie with Greek yoghurt, coconut cream, almond milk and cocoa (before, during and after a 2 hour 40 min gym session which included 50 mins of step cardio), 2 coconut flour pancakes with marmalade butter sauce (mmmmmm!), a small, thin-crust quiche from Bakers Delight, and homemade chicken curry with lots of cream and cauliflower rice. Oh, and some cheese and a glass and a half of red wine - well, it was Saturday night!

So, off to do some more reading - I will not be beaten! 

Feet and Food

Taking advantage of a bit of free time to make a few notes. Sunday evening and long run done. Notice I said a long run, not a long, slow run. Well, it wasn't fast, coz I don't do fast as such, but it wasn't the keep the HR below 130 kind of slow; impossible with hills. Today ended up being a mixture of everything - running, walking, stopping and resting, with some intervals (uphill) and a bit of speed work thrown in (downhill!!) Heart rate got up to 180 at one point! Well, I didn't run on Friday, as I should have, because of family commitments, as well as a sore Post Tib, so I thought I might as well take advantage of my high HR and push it up further - I do like a challenge! All in all reasonably happy with my  outing. On the other hand, or may be that should be foot, I am quite down about my injury. 

It's actually been sore all week, and my orthotics have been uncomfortable, especially in my right shoe - not even my poorly foot! 

That's all I managed to write on Sunday! It's now Tuesday and another 8.5km done to Glenfield College and back, with altered orthotics. Similar tactics to Sunday's run and last Tuesday's - if the HR goes really high, might as well start doing some intervals. Each time I started up again after a rest, I actually felt really strong felt that I was running quite hard, I just can't maintain it yet for any length of time, but I do think I'm improving. 

I am not totally sure yet that my LCHF diet is the best thing for my running. Great for losing those stubborn kilos on my bum, and my abs are pretty visible now, but my legs felt really rather heavy for at least half of that run and I'm sure if I'd eaten some more carbs I'd have felt a lot more lively. However, I'm going to persist for a while yet, and so some more reading about Keto diets and ultra running because I do think the idea makes sense, and I think there are runners out there following this type of diet who are very successful with it. 

There's lots to find out about - Sunday after my 15km long run, although I actually felt great during it, not once feeling the for need sustenance, I kept feeling incredibly light-headed, obviously needing food. That was only after 2 hours, so when I'm out for probably about 10 hours on my race day, I'm going to be needing to eat plenty on the run, and probably some carbs too. So, just in case anybody else is reading this, and you happen to know a bit about Keto diets and ultra running, then please give me some tips!

The weekly round-up

So, it's almost a week since I last had time to write anything. I'm thinking that a weekly round-up is probably more likely to happen than a daily diary, although I guess I can see how it goes. Tomorrow is early morning run day - up at 4:55 a.m. Ugh. Best plan - out of bed in a flash before my mind has time to register the ungodly hour. And you know, once you're up, it's not that bad - you just don't have to think about what the actual time is; until you get outside and turn your Garmin on and see that it says 5:15! But by then you're all wide awake and raring to go!

Last Tuesday was an Easy 5km in Zone 2 - HR 114 - 130 bpm; ended up walking heaps just to keep it below 130. A most dissatisfying 51 minutes. Unlike my Friday tempo run, which was awesome! First time up Rangatira Road since my injury and I was a little apprehensive  as to how I'd be with my breathing and HR, but for the first time in ages I actually felt like a runner! My Chi Running body positions were obviously good as it felt easy running up the inclines, even though my HR was elevated and I needed to walk at times. The downhill was terrific :-) I felt my glutes engage and my stride lengthen, and at times I was flying- oh, for all my runs to feel this good!

Wednesday and Thursday were cross-training days. Wednesday, a 25 minute cardio session on the bike, followed by 10 minutes cardio on the elliptical walker, then my glute strengthening exercises and foam roller for my ITBs. Thursday was an hour's Hard Core followed by an hour of Pilates. Although my core is pretty strong, there is definitely plenty of room for improvement, and my glutes have a long way to go! I had thought they were getting stronger, but obviously not, well, not according to the podiatrist, anyway! Today is my rest day - so I'm not feeling bad about not doing my exercises. After all, how can I give my muscles chance to repair if I don't give them a break! And I did go a long, slow run/walk yesterday.

I'm not a fan of these! I can't do them! My HR goes higher than it should and I have to keep walking - I don't like it! What I'm hoping is that as time goes on, and my cardio fitness improves, and I'm a good girl and keep slowing down/stopping/walking, my heart will learn to beat at the right speed!! But honestly, 2 hours to go 13km, that's pathetic! But if I'm going to run/walk 60km in February, I've got to train at the right intensity now or I'll never last the distance. 

Nutritionally I felt great. When I first entered the Tarawera Ultra I came across the idea of eating a low carb high fat diet. I had previously actually chatted to a runner who followed this eating regime and so the concept didn't seem that kooky, thus I decided to do some reading and investigating for myself. What I read made so much sense, and consequently I'm loving my new bread-, grain-, root veg- and sugar-free food. And, not that I changed my diet to lose weight, but I've lost a good 5-6kg :-) Mainly from my butt and thighs - whoopee! The wobbly bits are just slinking off in disgrace! Strangely, it hasn't been hard to make the change, but I do need to find more recipes and learn how to incorporate more fat into my daily diet when I hike my running kms up, I'll fade away otherwise!

Not quite a complete rest day

As yesterday was my long run day, I got the bonus of a day off training today :-) Not that I particularly want a day off training, I like training, but life's busy and some days it's just calming knowing that I haven't got to fit in a run or a gym session. However, I did sneak in a few laps round the field at work today! Well, it was a lovely day, and the school I was working at have their cross country tomorrow (I'm a relief teacher), so we did a quick 20 minutes practice :-) I know I'm not fast, but I did feel like I was expending quite a bit of effort and clocking up a good pace, until half a dozen 10 year olds charged on passed :-( ! And I couldn't maintain my pace - it was run one, walk a bit, on the pretext of chatting to some of the kids who weren't running! Lots of work to be done methinks, if this 60km trail run is going to be a wonderful achievement rather than a horrendous endurance. Starting with an easy 5km tomorrow morning. Did I say easy? What's easy about getting up before 5 a.m? And no choice of running after work instead - hair appointment at 4.30, so no way am I going to spoil it by having it drip sweat.

On another note, I think I've done pretty well on my low carb Keto diet today. I bought some testing strips at the weekend and was most disappointed to discover that I'm not in ketosis. Although I did eat a fair few kumara chippies on Friday night, so I guess I've only got myself to blame. I'm going to have to be careful with what I eat as I start running longer; I'm pretty full with the high fat food I'm eating at the moment, but I've lost a good couple of kilos in the past week, on top of the two I lost when I first started on this eating regime, and I seriously don't want to look unhealthy. Need to raid Pintrest again for some more low carb snack ideas :-) I'm not missing bread, surprisingly, but it sure is an easy way to get some quick extra calories!

Anyway, this was only supposed to be a quick post, seeing as I didn't do any training today, and I guess it is only short when you read it back, but I seem to have been writing it for a while! I'll need to get quicker or I'll end up giving up - the diary, not the running!

Day One, sort of.

Yesterday I uploaded a workout session to my Garmin! Very exciting to be using it more as a training tool, rather than as just a Heart Rate monitor and information gatherer. I always knew that one day there would come a time when I'd need all the other bells and whistles - it's only taken 10 months.

A couple of weeks ago I got a book out of the library, Be A Better Runner by Sally Edwards, Carl Foster and Roy Wallack. Over the past few years I really have been working on that, and there has been a definite improvement with all the things I've tried, but I'm still not good enough to stop myself from getting injured, nor to run any faster than slowly, nor to run comfortably for a long period of time, and seeing as the Vibram Tarawera Ultra Marathon will be over 25 weeks today, I thought it was about time to really get to work on being that better runner.

I've been using my Heart Rate as a guide to improving my cardio fitness for some time, and it  definitely worked, (but then I've been out with injury and lost a lot of what I gained!) but Sally's book clarified some misconceptions, so I've reset my Garmin accordingly. (Well, I think I've done it properly!) Currently my Heart Rate Zones are: zone 1 - 98 to 114 bpm; zone 2 - 114 to 130 bpm; zone 3 - 130 to 147 bpm; zone 4 - 147 to 163 bpm; zone 5 - 163 to 185 bpm, with this last zone actually split into 3 sections. Unfortunately there's no room on my Garmin to have more than 5 zones, so I just have to remember that if my HR goes above 163 bpm, my 80% of max threshold, (which it rather sadly does a lot) then I either need to get it below again very quickly, or push it up to over 171 bpm to avoid training in The Black Hole! Apparently, this small window of only 8bpm is too high to benefit aerobic improvements but not high enough to benefit cardiovascular strength, which helps with endurance.

So, armed, literally, with my trusty Garmin, and my Chi Running app on my trusty iPhone, (for the metronome which keeps my cadence at 180 steps a minute, and reminds me of body position focuses) I set off this morning on my 12km Long Run/Walk around my local neighbourhood. I'd kept the hills to a minimum, but we do live in a fairly hilly spot so it's actually quite difficult to avoid a few inclines, although when you look at the elevation profile it seems pretty flat. Shame it doesn't feel it when I'm running! My workout was set at 1km walk to warm up in zone 2, followed by intervals of 1km run in zone 4 and 0.5km recovery walk in zone 2, finishing with a nice gentle 1km cool down in zone 2, 12km in total. Easy? Not nearly as easy as I envisaged! I really did think that with all those walk breaks, letting my HR go back down to below 130 bpm, I'd have no difficulty running with my HR below 163 bpm. Ah well, you live and learn. Even when I started walking it took quite a while for my HR to come down, and when I started running it didn't take very long for it to zip back up :-( I think some tweaks to my workout are required if it's going to be the Long Slow Run I need it to be for my training schedule.

My Garmin stats for today

On a brighter note, the new orthotics in my shoes seem to be doing a good job in helping my tib post injury - no twinges in my arch at all :-) Unfortunately, the raise that I also have in my right shoe, underneath the orthotics, to counteract my one-leg-shorter-than-the-other problem, leaves not quite as much room as I would like for my foot! I can feel a bunion coming on, heaven preserve me!


Not sure if I'll work out tomorrow. Only something very gentle if I do. My glutes certainly need a bit of TLC - 3 hours in the gym yesterday followed by my not so easy run today and they're definitely letting me know they've been working. Which is actually a very good thing as they need to be working a lot better than they have been doing if my tib post is going to get better, and if I'm finally going to be able to say goodbye to ITB problems.