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Against the grain
Inspired by the enthusiastic lunacy of Sweder and MLCMM on the Monday evening of Almeria, I plunged into the no carb regime with the fervour of a convert. Carb no more. Get thee behind me satiating toast. I reject the you as the wheat of the devil, etc
I managed to sustain this for the impressive period of 5 and a half days through to Sunday evening. In that time, I essayed the Bevendean Park Run, and Sunday morning Twittens and an outing to Black Cap in the bitter cold of the Sunday afternoon.
I realise that Dr Phil calls for slow running as the approach to kick into ketosis (fat burning). But I found I was incapable of even trying to go quickly. My parkrun time was as slow as the first time I'd ever done the Bevy - and my final sprint was merely a sustained downhill flail. In the twittens I convinced myself this was all about slow, but watching John and David sprint lightly up ahead of me, I realised I actually had nothing to give. And - horror of horrors - I had to walk up the final slope to Black Cap summit.
I guess you might say I was doing as the good doctor had ordered and not going quick. But truth to tell I could do no other. Plus I was getting down, crabby, had flu-like headaches ...
So Sunday evening I read up on low carb and no carb blogs and posts. There is quite a lot written out there. And I am now convinced that fat burning can be the answer: if you want to access the 30K of energy stored as fat in your body and not hit the wall at 20 miles, then pursue this course. But I miss toast. And rice. And beer. And I miss having the quick burst energy at the end of a 5k or for the length of short twitten. I am just a carb runner after all.
So reasoning that the biggest improvement I can make is not so much dietary, as sticking to a consistent training regime (Thames River high, Almeria low), I reluctantly put aside the frying pan and eggs, and sat down Sunday evening to a bowl load of carbs in the form of pasta. Yum.
Now about that regular training I promised myself ....
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