Fueling for 26.2 miles....

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....

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.

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.

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.

tunney wrote: »

Eating fat doesn't make you good at burning fat

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!

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 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 ;-)

mossym wrote: »

Some week to be linking noakes!!!

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).