Fueling for 26.2 miles....

Dory Dory

So, Dilbert's DCM race report has me curious as to how folks around here typically fuel during a marathon - both a stand alone marathon AND an iron distance marathon as I would imagine there might be some differences in the two. Obviously fueling is a personal thing, so it's all about what works for you...I'm just interested in hearing how others approach it....and I'd love for some of our resident coaches to chime in (hello jackyback, Peter, Tunney.....)....and I'd also love to hear from any of the running forum peeps if they happen to stop by our little patch of paradise here.

tunney

I personally prefer gels for most calories. Fluids can be too temperate dependent (ie too cold and won't want the volumes needed - and even hot races can be freakishly cold) and so too can solids (but from a too hot perspective and not wanting solids, additionally the extra waste puts stresses on "clearing it out").

So I like gels, the more diverse the sugar mix the better 2:1 fructose glucose being the most common ones that open up more enzyme pathways.

For a straight 26.2 - three gels an hour, probably an ISO one with water as you want.

For an IM 26.2 - same as the straight 26.2 but recognising the draw of flat coke and Tuc biscuits from about 32 km in.

My 2c

and still ricky villa

I've used the same strategy with varying results.
I did Frankfurt on Sunday but was undone by poor training so can't complain really.
My best results have come when training has gone well, conditions are half decent (rain = ok, wind = my nemesis) and I'm mildly hungry at the start
Good sized breakfast no less than 2 hours before, not fussy what. Generally cereal/toast
Bottle of carbo drink sipped up to an hour before the start. Bulk Powders dextrose/maltodextrin mix
1 ISO gel with caffeine on the walk up to the start line
1 ISO gel every 5km religiously
Sip of water at every aid station
Fruit and water at the finish and once my stomach has settled I make a mess in Burger King

iAcesHigh

I have my liquid mix ready (60ish carbs/hour drink) for the first 10k or so but I never felt like eating that so I ended up starting with gels (2-3 an hour, without caffeine). After 21k soonest or 30k latest I would start drinking Cola and switch to caffeine gels if I felt my stomach is fine (I don't think I took any gels after 33-35k). Obviously, would drink water whenever felt like it and add a bit of banana or orange here and there, more for the "feel" than the "need"...

I never actually did "dry" marathon so I'll keep on reading advices here

zico10

It's been a while since I did a standalone marathon. When I last did though, after one hour running, I tried to take a gel every 20 minutes. Looking back at that race, I think this was too much. I simply couldn't stomach the fourth one when it was time to take it. It probably didn't help that I wasn't getting adequate fluids on board, but in the next marathon I do, I think I'll opt for one gel every 30 minutes instead. I go for much longer in training without fuel, so I'm hoping I'll manage.

For the Ironman marathon in Mallorca, I'd only two gels over the entire run. All my other calories came from Coke (about 1L) and Red Bull (about 500ml). I grabbed the odd cup of water. And I wouldn't touch solid foods, simply because chewing would impair my breathing. Compared to previous years, I took far less calories on board, but it was by far the best run I've done in a triathlon of any distance.

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Gels are my option on a standalone and an IM marathon, taken every 30mins. I try take in 60-80g of carbs an hour as that's what my body can absorb without issue. In an IM I introduce coke around 20k-25k or earlier if really needed (Barca i had to introduce it after 10k). Sip water occasionally but not overdoing it.

I typically do all my long runs with an emergency gel and very rarely have water with me. If its a key long run that has a lot of faster running included then i would try have water and a gel every 30mins.

zico10

Why postpone drinking Coke in an IM marathon?

Enduro

From the perspective of someone who is primarily an ultrarunner:

The last 2 marathons I ran I ate pretty much nothing, and would have drank about half a litre of liquids (think it happened to be lucozade sport or something like that). They were both off-road marathons, so would have taken longer to run than a road marathon, with a hillier course profile as well. I would have accelerated through aid stations to deliberatly disrupt competitors who needed to stop to pick up fuel, or simply to leave them behind if they did stop. The last time I checked my finishing times for those 2 races were still the course records.

Gels are awful gunk, and horrendously expensive to boot. John Tracey's Irish marathon record was set without a single gel being consumed (as they had yet to be invented/marketed as a neccessity). They do have their uses for recovering from catastrophic energy crashes, but then it would be better not to have a catastrophic energy crash in the first place.

mossym

Enduro wrote: »

From the perspective of someone who is primarily an ultrarunner:

The last 2 marathons I ran I ate pretty much nothing, and would have drank about half a litre of liquids (think it happened to be lucozade sport or something like that). They were both off-road marathons, so would have taken longer to run than a road marathon, with a hillier course profile as well. I would have accelerated through aid stations to deliberatly disrupt competitors who needed to stop to pick up fuel, or simply to leave them behind if they did stop. The last time I checked my finishing times for those 2 races were still the course records.

Gels are awful gunk, and horrendously expensive to boot. John Tracey's Irish marathon record was set without a single gel being consumed (as they had yet to be invented/marketed as a neccessity). They do have their uses for recovering from catastrophic energy crashes, but then it would be better not to have a catastrophic energy crash in the first place.

Was wondering if you would show up for this one alright

I assume if recommending the no fuel approach you're basing that on adopting that approach across all training as well....

Enduro

mossym wrote: »

Was wondering if you would show up for this one alright

I assume if recommending the no fuel approach you're basing that on adopting that approach across all training as well....

Oh yeah! I do all my training without eating (and mostly without drinking either).

tunney

Enduro wrote: »

Oh yeah! I do all my training without eating (and mostly without drinking either).

So the intensity the events you do are all well below fat burning upper limits.
Some people will have lower fat burning upper limits, or go at higher intensities though.

Enduro

tunney wrote: »

So the intensity the events you do are all well below fat burning upper limits.
Some people will have lower fat burning upper limits, or go at higher intensities though.

Indeed. It's not for everyone. From what I've read an efficient well trained fat burner can knock out about a 2:40 marathon pace whilst primarily utilising fat as fuel. So anyone intending to run their marathon faster than that is likely to to have to deal with glycogen depletion issues (i.e. will need to eat/drink something).

Fat burning upper limits are not set in stone for people. They can be (substancially) improved by training.

For quite a number of people the marathon is right in the grey-zone between not needing to fuel because the duration of the race is so short that you won't empty your glycogen stores, and not needing to fuel because the duration of the race is so long that efficient fat burning will be far more effective (such as IM). That makes it interesting!

tmh106

Enduro wrote: »

Fat burning upper limits are not set in stone for people. They can be (substancially) improved by training.

Hi Enduro.

Apologies if the answer is obvious, but can you give more detail on what kind of training you recommend to improve fat burning upper limits?

Thanks.

Enduro

tmh106 wrote: »

Hi Enduro.

Apologies if the answer is obvious, but can you give more detail on what kind of training you recommend to improve fat burning upper limits?

Thanks.

For me, in order it would be (And this is no more than my own opinion from my own learnings and experiences): do all training on empty, leave as large a gap as possible between eating and training, err more towards a LCHF type of diet.

That's without modifying the specifics of your training routing. Pushing out long runs/ cycles to be of as long a duration as practical/useful is also going to be benificial, simply because you'll be increasing the volume of your training in the fat-burn zone, which is good specific training.

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

zico10 wrote: »

Why postpone drinking Coke in an IM marathon?

I can only drink so much of it and secondly call it a mini reward and a pick me up for when things start to get a little hairy. Its like magic when it hits the tongue so far into an IM race.

tunney

Enduro wrote: »

For me, in order it would be (And this is no more than my own opinion from my own learnings and experiences): do all training on empty, leave as large a gap as possible between eating and training, err more towards a LCHF type of diet.

That's without modifying the specifics of your training routing. Pushing out long runs/ cycles to be of as long a duration as practical/useful is also going to be benificial, simply because you'll be increasing the volume of your training in the fat-burn zone, which is good specific training.

Plausible.
Eating fat doesn't make you got at burning fat

peter kern

I go for much longer in training without fuel, so I'm hoping I'll manage.

this is also important to consider
its all well and good to come up with race nutriton strategies but without not considering how you train ...
at the end in the marathon its much more aobut the right pacing than the nutriton intake.
and in the IM its still more about the nutrion intake and pacing on the bike than the nutriton on the run .

Enduro

tunney wrote: »

Eating fat doesn't make you good at burning fat

Agreed (along with the widely held belief that eating fat makes you fat also being untrue).

Primarily for me its for my general health. But from from a fat burning adaptation POV it's about reducing sugar intake, and hence reducing dependencies on carb/sugar hits for fueling, whether they be physical or psychological. The HF part is simply that energy has to come from somewhere (And food has to taste palatable to realistically incorporate it as part of your diet), hence more fat substituting for less sugars/carbs. Again, IMO.

Enduro

tunney wrote: »

Eating fat doesn't make you got at burning fat

Actually, have a look at this (Plenty of Tri references in here)...

mossym

Some week to be linking noakes!!!

tunney

Enduro wrote: »

Actually, have a look at this (Plenty of Tri references in here)...

Noakes and his research on LCHF has been completely discredited in the academic world.

Dory Dory

All this marathon fueling chit chat has reminded me that when I did the New York City marathon 2 years ago, I met a gal on the ferry over to the start line who was going to fuel on 3 or 4 dates alone. ("Dates" being of the fruit variety and not the tall, dark and handsome kind! ) She was from Australia and had used this strategy before with success. I have no idea how she did on the day, but her approach made an impression on me!

zico10

Dory Dory wrote: »

She was from Australia and had used this strategy before with success. I have no idea how she did on the day, but her approach made an impression on me!

That's the crucial bit really, isn't it? As Peter already said the most important thing in running a good marathon is pacing. I suspect a lot of people who blame nutrition for a poor performance, get this one crucial thing wrong. I'd say that about myself also. The best paced marathon I ever ran was my very first one, when fear of the unknown meant I ran conservatively. It was no coincidence that I thought I got nutrition spot on that day. I'm sure there are others, but out of all the boardsies over on AR it's this one thing about Krusty's marathons that so impresses me. He's far from a slouch and he invariably finishes with negative or even splits. And his fueling is pretty minimalist as far as I'm aware.

Anyway, another thing that I suspect is sometimes missing in marathon running, and for which nutrition gets the blame, is adequate preparation. And as the thread was started in your honour, Dlibert, I hope you don't mind me bringing you into it now. No offence intended, but I suspect this might have been the case for you in DCM. If you haven't trained properly for 26 miles, then of course you're going to feel like crap when you try run them at race pace.

EC1000

Dory Dory wrote: »

All this marathon fueling chit chat has reminded me that when I did the New York City marathon 2 years ago, I met a gal on the ferry over to the start line who was going to fuel on 3 or 4 dates alone. ("Dates" being of the fruit variety and not the tall, dark and handsome kind! ) She was from Australia and had used this strategy before with success. I have no idea how she did on the day, but her approach made an impression on me!

I fuelled my last few half ironman races (bike legs) using dates. Depending on the size of the variety of date, the usual equivalency is 2 to 3 dates to one energy gel - both provide approx 20g carbohydrate. They are unusual for a fruit in that most of their bulk and weight comes from sugar and not water. Completely useless from a hydration view so balancing water intake and digestion is key! They were recommended to me by a dietician and are a nice alternative to synthetic crap. Edit - having said that I reverted to synthetic crap in Kenmare and it worked out better for me

Dilbert75

zico10 wrote: »

Anyway, another thing that I suspect is sometimes missing in marathon running, and for which nutrition gets the blame, is adequate preparation. And as the thread was started in your honour, Dlibert, I hope you don't mind me bringing you into it now. No offence intended, but I suspect this might have been the case for you in DCM. If you haven't trained properly for 26 miles, then of course you're going to feel like crap when you try run them at race pace.

I don't mind at all Zico and no offence taken. Although I've not joined in the discussion yet, I'm as anxious as anyone to understand where I went wrong - training plan, run training, cross training, rest/recovery in the weeks leading up the day, rest/recovery in the days leading up to the day, nutrition, pacing, focus, target....or a combination of some/all. I know I fuelled more during DCM than I have for pretty much any of my previous marathons. I know I ran a 20m faster and with fewer gels only a few weeks ago and the effort was much more manageable than even the start of Sunday was. I do believe it's possible to run a marathon effectively without in-race nutrition if that's what you trained for - and already 2/3 of my training is done on empty (but I've yet to introduce that into most of my long runs). So I'm learning a lot here but still not narrowing it down much. Like Enduro said on the AR nutrition thread, n=1 so I expect there's an element of experimentation I'll need to work through to see what works for me.

peter kern

the fiber can be an issue racing
but for training very good stuff.

EC1000 wrote: »

I fuelled my last few half ironman races (bike legs) using dates. Depending on the size of the variety of date, the usual equivalency is 2 to 3 dates to one energy gel - both provide approx 20g carbohydrate. They are unusual for a fruit in that most of their bulk and weight comes from sugar and not water. Completely useless from a hydration view so balancing water intake and digestion is key! They were recommended to me by a dietician and are a nice alternative to synthetic crap. Edit - having said that I reverted to synthetic crap in Kenmare and it worked out better for me

Krusty_Clown

From a pure 26.2 perspective, over the years I've been reducing my dependence on fueling during a marathon. Not necessarily a conscious effort, but more a by-product of just coming to terms with the fact that I have less of a need for fuel during training and as a consequence, races. I didn't get to run a marathon this year (fell at the final hurdle), but if I had, strategy would have been:
Day before: Standard diet with a slight bias/increase in carbs
Morning of: Porridge and water/electrolytes (maybe sip on a diluted sports drink)
During race: Water + electrolytes
Break-glass Emergency: Caffeine-based ISO gel and two other ISO gels

I'm not sure that the gels really do anything for me (other than add to post-race nausea), but it's like a superstition - hard to shake off; and placebos do for the most part provide some form of benefit (gels = sugar pills?!), so while I won't most likely take them, it's convenient to know that they're there. So yeah, for the most part, my fueling is water and electrolytes (so approximately zero calories). But it's been a gradual transformation, measured in years, rather than in months, over repeated marathon cycles. Perhaps it's the result of a gradual improvement in running economy/efficiency as a consequence of clocking up thousands and thousands of miles.

When you can run the weekly bog-standard easy 20-22 mile run without water or fuel without significant hardship, it's a pretty good indicator. Similarly for those simulation training sessions of 15-20 miles with 12-15 miles @marathon pace), if you can get through those without the need for carbs/sugar (as well as half-marathons and longer distances races), it's a pretty good signal that you're unlikely to need to fuel-up during a marathon.

Not holding myself up as paragon of marathon running, just sharing my own experience as a runner who has progressed from 3:25 to 2:33 over the last few years and seen my in-race fuel requirements change significantly over the period. Obviously not relevant to multi-disciplinary events. Also, apologies for the non-metric nature of my contribution, but in fairness, Dory Dory is from the land where kilometers are as welcome as Mexicans.

Dory Dory

But, I love Taco Bell!

P.S. Great contribution. Thank you Krusty.

Krusty_Clown

Dory Dory wrote: »

But, I love Taco Bell!

Well make sure you practice with it in training. Don't let race day be the first time you try it out.

peter kern

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

From a pure 26.2 perspective, over the years I've been reducing my dependence on fueling during a marathon. Not necessarily a conscious effort, but more a by-product of just coming to terms with the fact that I have less of a need for fuel during training and as a consequence, races. I didn't get to run a marathon this year (fell at the final hurdle), but if I had, strategy would have been:
Day before: Standard diet with a slight bias/increase in carbs
Morning of: Porridge and water/electrolytes (maybe sip on a diluted sports drink)
During race: Water + electrolytes
Break-glass Emergency: Caffeine-based ISO gel and two other ISO gels

I'm not sure that the gels really do anything for me (other than add to post-race nausea), but it's like a superstition - hard to shake off; and placebos do for the most part provide some form of benefit (gels = sugar pills?!), so while I won't most likely take them, it's convenient to know that they're there. So yeah, for the most part, my fueling is water and electrolytes (so approximately zero calories). But it's been a gradual transformation, measured in years, rather than in months, over repeated marathon cycles. Perhaps it's the result of a gradual improvement in running economy/efficiency as a consequence of clocking up thousands and thousands of miles.

When you can run the weekly bog-standard easy 20-22 mile run without water or fuel without significant hardship, it's a pretty good indicator. Similarly for those simulation training sessions of 15-20 miles with 12-15 miles @marathon pace), if you can get through those without the need for carbs/sugar (as well as half-marathons and longer distances races), it's a pretty good signal that you're unlikely to need to fuel-up during a marathon.

Not holding myself up as paragon of marathon running, just sharing my own experience as a runner who has progressed from 3:25 to 2:33 over the last few years and seen my in-race fuel requirements change significantly over the period. Obviously not relevant to multi-disciplinary events. Also, apologies for the non-metric nature of my contribution, but in fairness, Dory Dory is from the land where kilometers are as welcome as Mexicans. [/QUOTE

it still is quit relevant as in a way the main nutrition happens on the bike.
for most people the most difficult nutritional part in a ironman is the first 30 k on the bike if you miss nutriton there you set yourself up nicely for failure ,especialy if you are a slower swimmer and/or start the bike to fast and around 120 -160 on the bike if you do the right stuff there the run nutrition is not going to be a biggy.
even more so than in the marathon all the diggestive issues are likely not nutrional but pacing ( but its much easier to blame the nutrition)
i did not use a single gel or bar this year in barcelona on the run since i was going so slow, usually i take 1-3
electrolytes would not really do in an ironman but ( enrgy drink and coke are enough if you get the nutrition on the bike right and maybe one or 2 gels. more if the nutrion was not right on the bike or you overpaced the bike .

One of my favortite nutriotnal marathon storries, a shop owner once had one of his employees cycle the dublin marathon course whit him to give him a gel every 20 min. its great if you really believe in the products you sell ;-)

Keeks

Following this thread with interest even though i have no intention of doing an Ironman or Marathon.

One thing I cant quite grasp, and sorry if this is a noob question, but people mention taking on coke or electrolytes during the run.....how is this done? Carried with you from the start? Already at feed stations?

Enduro

mossym wrote: »

Some week to be linking noakes!!!

Is this what you're making reference to (I hadn't actually come accross this until now)?

Really bad mistake there, no matter what your opinion on the trial subject matter itself.

Kurt.Godel

This isn't quite on-topic, but I just want to give a word of caution to anyone considering a LCHF diet (coming from a non-endurance Sprint/Oly perspective, mind). I tried it for 6 months, in large part because of what I read on online sports fora and trusting Noakes. Got bloodwork done after; my cholesterol had gone through the roof. Doc was very concerned, was shocked at my diet, and prescribed statins. I didn't take them, instead moved to a low fat diet (greens, brown carbs, fish) and within 3 months my cholesterol has gone back towards normal levels. I'd treat LCHF with scepticism.

Edit- may as well give my 2c on fueling for a marathon... whatever works in training will work on race day. Train yourself for gels, no gels, bacon sandwiches; whatever works for you in long runs. But if you have a disappointing marathon because of nutrition, its more likely that was lack of preparation in training, rather than a skipped gel on race day.

mossym

Enduro wrote: »

Is this what you're making reference to (I hadn't actually come accross this until now)?

Really bad mistake there, no matter what your opinion on the trial subject matter itself.

Yeah, was referring to his "trial", only in the context that he's a hot topic right now. for all the
Criticism that is thrown at some nutrition experts I don't remember any of them being put on trial

peter kern

Keeks wrote: »

Following this thread with interest even though i have no intention of doing an Ironman or Marathon.

One thing I cant quite grasp, and sorry if this is a noob question, but people mention taking on coke or electrolytes during the run.....how is this done? Carried with you from the start? Already at feed stations?

both drinks and coke radlily availabe at most races in cups ( not a great solution but defo workable
some people take them with them from the start ( for instance 2x 300 400 500 mm bottles )
and some people place people at feed stations that hand out bottles during the race ( usually there is designated aid stations where that can be done )
or also special needs backs.

as with nutriton there is not one fit for everybody approach.

also since it was mentioned if there is one useful test its takeing bloods to check blood ( even more important for females(iron levels ) than guys

Dory Dory

peter kern wrote: »

also since it was mentioned if there is one useful test its takeing bloods to check blood ( even more important for females(iron levels ) than guys

Reading this as I take my morning iron tablet, which was confirmed with blood work!

zico10

peter kern wrote: »

electrolytes would not really do in an ironman but ( enrgy drink and coke are enough if you get the nutrition on the bike right and maybe one or 2 gels.

peter kern wrote: »

both drinks and coke radlily availabe at most races in cups ( not a great solution but defo workable
some people take them with them from the start ( for instance 2x 300 400 500 mm bottles )
and some people place people at feed stations that hand out bottles during the race ( usually there is designated aid stations where that can be done )

Peter, if I wasn't aware of your omniscience, I might think your read my Mallorca report and you're passing off my ingenuity as your own.

peter kern

you are about 13 years late to the party.

zico10

When I first met you, your line was '1g of carbs per kg of bodyweight per hour'. So you were either running very fast marathons or gels were much bigger 13 years ago to have been matching those energy requirements.

There's nothing wrong with admitting you've changed your mind about things over your many years in triathlon.

pgibbo

Kurt.Godel wrote: »

This isn't quite on-topic, but I just want to give a word of caution to anyone considering a LCHF diet (coming from a non-endurance Sprint/Oly perspective, mind). I tried it for 6 months, in large part because of what I read on online sports fora and trusting Noakes. Got bloodwork done after; my cholesterol had gone through the roof. Doc was very concerned, was shocked at my diet, and prescribed statins. I didn't take them, instead moved to a low fat diet (greens, brown carbs, fish) and within 3 months my cholesterol has gone back towards normal levels. I'd treat LCHF with scepticism.

Edit- may as well give my 2c on fueling for a marathon... whatever works in training will work on race day. Train yourself for gels, no gels, bacon sandwiches; whatever works for you in long runs. But if you have a disappointing marathon because of nutrition, its more likely that was lack of preparation in training, rather than a skipped gel on race day.

What was the LDL & HDL breakdown when it was high?

Kurt.Godel

pgibbo wrote: »

What was the LDL & HDL breakdown when it was high?

Total cholesterol was 6.7 (now down to 6). I asked for a breakdown of good and bad cholesterol and was given the figures, but forget them now. However the doc said both were the wrong side of where they wanted to be on the first reading, and better on the second (still a ways to go but she was happy that diet should right it).

*Edit- I'll say no more as its off topic. People can do whatever they want regarding fuelling and diet (and can find supporting info of all types online); I only posted to suggest those who introduce drastic changes, monitor those changes medically.

Enduro

Kurt.Godel wrote: »

Total cholesterol was 6.7 (now down to 6). I asked for a breakdown of good and bad cholesterol and was given the figures, but forget them now. However the doc said both were the wrong side of where they wanted to be on the first reading, and better on the second (still a ways to go but she was happy that diet should right it).

It's an area well worth reading into in depth, as there seems to have been plenty of anti-orthodox research emerging in the last few years. I'm guessing you already have! In general, its not difficult to get ahead of the level of knowledge of most doctors in this area (Not surprisingly).

peter kern

I have not changed my mind on that as a basic rule and still believe that nutrition on the bike is the key.
And the first time I realised a bottle was better than cups was 2003 at Sligo half where they handed out water in 500ml milk cartoons since then I use bottles for the run and I have never taken more that 3 gels on the run for an ironman. I checked 2005 in Roth I had 1. On the run but bonked badly on the bike as I started out to fast but I got nutrition back beetween 120 - 170 k.
One think is clear different people need different nutrition and there is no one fit for all.the one thing I changed is that I would put way more emphasis on pacing to consider nutritional issues.

zico10 wrote: »

When I first met you, your line was '1g of carbs per kg of bodyweight per hour'. So you were either running very fast marathons or gels were much bigger 13 years ago to have been matching those energy requirements.

There's nothing wrong with admitting you've changed your mind about things over your many years in triathlon.

busterjones

On the LCHF point...
I also switched to a LCHF diet approx. 2 months ago before this years DCM and ran last week without gels (had 3 x nuun tabs along the way and had a breakfast of 3 slides of bacon and 2 eggs approx. 2 hours before the race, mirroring my training for the past 10 weeks) - finished with 3:11 (an improvement of 20 mins over last year).
Got bloods done last week and the doctor too said that I had high cholesterol and spoke about statins if this doesn't improve!!!
It was 5.16
From my basic research though, you need to look at the actual breakdown and in my case this may not appear to be as bad as the doctors reporting - any advice/ experience in reading these results please?
HDL at 2.08 and LDL is at 2.77.
I like the LCHF approach and would rather stick with it, although obviously not if its doing me harm.
Thanks,
BJ

iAcesHigh

busterjones wrote: »

On the LCHF point...
I also switched to a LCHF diet approx. 2 months ago before this years DCM and ran last week without gels (had 3 x nuun tabs along the way and had a breakfast of 3 slides of bacon and 2 eggs approx. 2 hours before the race, mirroring my training for the past 10 weeks) - finished with 3:11 (an improvement of 20 mins over last year).
Got bloods done last week and the doctor too said that I had high cholesterol and spoke about statins if this doesn't improve!!!
It was 5.16
From my basic research though, you need to look at the actual breakdown and in my case this may not appear to be as bad as the doctors reporting - any advice/ experience in reading these results please?
HDL at 2.08 and LDL is at 2.77.
I like the LCHF approach and would rather stick with it, although obviously not if its doing me harm.
Thanks,
BJ

don't want to interrupt the conversation, but let me just highlight that asking for advice on boards or anywhere online instead of listening to doctor doesn't really make any sense. If you really don't trust your doctor you should find another one which you trust, but definitely don't believe anonymous people from internet forum more than qualified specialist... (not pro or against LCHF, just pro to listening to people who are actually qualified to comment health issues)

busterjones

Point noted and I completely agree.

I guess what I'm asking for is some context/ understanding on the basics of the breakdown of the total cholesterol reading which can help me discuss results more meaningfully with my doctor.

Enduro

busterjones wrote: »

Point noted and I completely agree.

I guess what I'm asking for is some context/ understanding on the basics of the breakdown of the total cholesterol reading which can help me discuss results more meaningfully with my doctor.

I think this is a reasonable start point. Plenty of links to follow from there.

ooter

Fwiw I ran my pb @ DCM 14 just fueling on dates, can't remember now how many I took or how often I took them but they certainly worked for me, on top of that I took 1 gel and a mouthful of lucozade sport.
Now I probably wouldn't go with dates as I've learned more about digestion during marathons, I used grape juice @ DCM 16 and it seemed to work very well for me, didn't feel the need to go near gels, but having said that I was a lot slower than 14 due to an injury interrupted year and I am nowhere near as fat adapted now as I reckon I was in the run up to DCM 14.

Tec Diver

I do all my training and racing without carbs and have been for four years. They aren't necessary. On my last marathon I only drank water (and it was my fastest). No food during the race, and you shouldn't need any.

Eoin

ford2600

On cholesterol and HFLC you really need to educate yourself to combat "common sense" on the topic.

My father died of heart disease at 84, after a very healthy life but as such I became very interested in why he got heart disease, advice he received from GP/health service in terms of advoiding butter/re meat etc and the promotion of statins/flora etc.

Total cholesterol is an awful predictor of heart disease, and LDL not much better.

If you switch from a typical western diet with circa 60% carb to HFLC for about 2/3 there is a little change in TC but for 1/3 it'll increase slightly. Almost universally HDL will increase and triglycerides drop; both "good" things as heart disease is currently understood.

IMO if your diet is dialed in and clean (whether that means you are sourcing your energy from nuts/olive oil/butter or quiona/millet/wild rice/sweet potato) in won't matter a sh1te to your cardiac health or general health once you have enough protein for your activity level, fats for health and micro nutrients. If you eat a clean diet it's really hard not to get everything you need on board.

The shameful thing about the cholesterol thing is that we still don't know a lot;
1. LDL is bad? Why? How does it act that's harmful.

2. Why is HDL good? How does it protect cardiac health.

Best of luck finding answers to those in the medical journals; there's plenty theories about

For anyone involved in sport, especially a catabolic sport like running/IM etc have a real good think about taking a statin. Cholesterol is produced from the same pathway as Q10. You reduce the bodies production of cholesterol means you reduce production of Q10. Not a good idea for an athlete. Q10 is found all over the body but in particular in muscles where it is an essential component in of ATP process.

If your cardiac health is a consideration the most beneficial things you can do take hard work but don't mean anyone gets rich out of you
* good mental health; really strong correlation between depression/anxiety and heart disease
* sleep more and sleep better
* enjoy your work
* make friends and have a positive social life.

Bar your diet is pop tarts and MacDonalds it probably has got nothing to do with it. Before you base your diet on effect on cholesterol have a read of this
http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2012/08/cholesterol-what-does-the-blood-cholesterol-test-actually-measure/

and still ricky villa

I'm just planning my fuelling for Rotterdam and a link popped up on Facebook for the Hanson's carbohydrate calculator.
Great, I thought, this will remove any guesswork.

Normally I'd have 10 x 23g Carbs High5 Isogels.
If I use the calculator it's suggesting I need at least 800g of carbs, roughly 35 gels!
I am reading this totally wrong?
Even with a very soupy carb drink beforehand I'd still be necking gels constantly

(I know it's each to his/her own and had only intended to use this as a guide)

http://hansonscoachingservices.com/marathoncarbs/