Michael: And Speaking of Diet

The blended edges
Of white foam and blue water
Surge toward the shore.

Friday, December 2, 2016

Kimme and I are two weeks away from our very challenging race in Costa Rica; the TNF Ecogreen Cerro De La Muerte. And for me, even after 40 years of racing and nearly 10 years of doing ultras, race nutrition is still a puzzler.

Recently, there seems to be at least two conflicting theories making the rounds. One is to cram as many calories (still predominantly on the carb side) into you that you can comfortably digest during a race to stave off glycogen depletion and shut down. This theory posits that unless you keep stoking the fire you’re bound to run out of muscle glycogen and then you’ll come face to dirt/pavement with the dreaded bonk monster.

The other theory is to eat as little as you can so as not to divert vital oxygen carrying blood away from your muscles and into your stomach. This theory holds that you don’t really need all that much glycogen to keep you going, fat’s there to do that job at endurance pace.

Theoretically, I tend to side with the latter, though under race conditions I’ll  sometimes get nervous and over indulge.

Moreover, I subscribe to this theory not so much because of the muscles’ glycogen requirements, but because I believe that selfish bastard, the brain, is behind the glycogen demand and if it senses that it’s sources are in jeopardy or it won’t be able to spur the muscles to make a run for it in case a perilous situation arises (And isn‘t running already a stimulant that something‘s up?), it’s going to slow the whole operation down and send signals out that it won’t allow the body to pick it up again until it can trust it’s transportation device to get it some food.

Naturally, training is a great place to test this out and see which end of theory your body handles better. Also, the evidence out there is mounting that the brain can be tricked, up to a point, and that just taking something that leaves a sweet taste in the mouth will satisfy the brain that it’s sugar demands are being met. I personally, haven’t pushed this placebo effect to the point of using nothing but sugar free candies or a sweet tasting sugar free drink like Nuun, solely as fuel on runs over two hours, but I am trying to take in less as opposed to pushing the maximum I can into my gut while I’m training or racing.