Marathon Training

[Keisha Engley]

So, I am a college student and I completed my first Whole30 in February, and then I went home for two weeks for Spring Break right after that and I off-roaded, but I didn't read ISWF during my first Whole30 and I reintroduced too many things and completely made myself sick, so I hopped back on right after those two weeks and did another Whole30 in April, this time reading ISWF. I haven't stopped my second Whole30. It's turned into more of Whole60 and I'm on day 53. Now, I ran my first Half Marathon on Day 20 of my second Whole30 and it went GREAT! It was awesome. Didn't have to carboload or anything. Just kept eating my normal foods.

I'm now continuing my running training to run a full marathon which is on September 7th. I'm pretty much content with running up to 13-14 miles in my training and I'm comfortable with the foods I've been eating, but I know it's going to be EXTREMELY hard to stay 100% compliant through the entire summer. I really want to stay Whole30 compliant as possible, but it will be hard when I am at home for the summer, especially when my parents are still providing my groceries for the most part. I suppose my biggest worry is that if I off-road, it's going to deeply effect my running. I'm trying not to be over the top with worrying about my food like I have been in the past. Can I offroad occasionally without deeply hurting my runs? Or my body?

So, I suppose my question is, should I do a complete reintroduction before I get too far into my marathon training to see what affects my body? Or should I just avoid dairy, grains, legumes, and sugar like the plague? I'm also worried about not eating enough because on the days I long run, I typically don't have much of an appetite. I'm also a salty sweater when I workout and I end up having low salt levels and get kind of nauseous later in the day. How do I fix this? I drink about 4 liters of water a day and I salt my meats and veggies, but it's still been a challenge to get enough sodium. Some people have told me to drink coconut water, but I find coconut water to be absolutely disgusting. I've had the chocolate kind, which is reallly delicious because it tastes like chocolate milk, but I know the chocolate kind isn't Whole30 approved. And it's a bit pricy for a broke college student. Help a young 18 year old girl out

[Physibeth]

My advice would be to do a slow, careful reintroduction of the foods you think you will likely encounter this summer to see how it affects your body and your training so you know what is worth taking a stand on and what might be ok to be more lenient about when it isn't completely in your control. Definitely better to experiment with foods earlier in your training than later.

I use coconut water when I do long runs and races but I mix it with water at about 1:1 ratio. I get ONE brand which I find palatable this way.

[orca_chick]

I make my own electrolyte beverage with the juice of 1 orange, water, and salt. I also add glutamine powder to mine to help with recovery. I've used it during my two W30's and had a lot of success with it. The fresh orange juice is just enough to help mask the salt that I add to it but not enough to be super sweet and spike my blood sugar like crazy. I usually drink this with my post-workout meal.