W30 before or after marathon?

[wendydnew]

HI,

I am running my 2nd marathon in exactly 2 months from today. I am just starting to get into the longer runs of my training plan (15+ miles each week). I have done 2 Whole30's before, but never during marathon training. I am thinking about starting a Whole30 in about a week and it would end a couple of days before my longest run (20 miles). I am just wondering if this is a bad idea because I hear people can have a hard time during exercise for the first couple of weeks, and I don't want to sacrifice my performance. I want to do a Whole30 to get my eating habits back in check because I've gotten a little off track, but do you think it would be better to just wait until after the marathon? Or if I do the Whole30, do I need to adjust my training schedule to avoid the longest runs for the first couple of weeks?

[Fenderbender]

Lots of marathoners and ultra runners are W30 compliant even if not currently on w30/60...whatever

You know the drill as you've done two W30s..... Personally I don't know how eating off plan would benefit performance, I believe it's all about proper recovery and good sleep. As your runs increase up your starchy veg post workout and continue your recovery at least double the hours of your run ( say you run for two hours....eat lean protein/ sweet potato immediately post and add sweet potato up to four hours post run for max benefit ....

As an aside, some of the worlds most successful runners,cyclists,tri athletes ..... Build there cardio/fat burning engine, by staying under their anaerobic threshold.... Building billions of intracellular mitochondria that do nothing but burn fat to release ATP thus sparing stored glycogen .... As they get used to training/ using fat theory heart rate don't go up but their time drop dramatically ....they know they have maxed out when times no longer decrease ..... Come race day you can go out burning unlimited stores of fat and save your limited glycogen for hills and a strong finish ....

Really up to you as you have the experience, but if as you say your diet is slipping.....no time like the present and since you have done W30 multiple times I doubt you will take a hard hit like some do....your body will probably welcome it

[dnewc]

Hi Wendy,

I am way behind the curve on this because I am halfway through my first Whole30 and about 6 weeks into a 16 week training for my first marathon. I can just tell you what I have experienced so far. I noticed right off the bat a sudden and huge decrease in performance. I felt like there just wasn't any fuel in the tank at all. Even if I felt really good starting out, that would only last about a mile and I would totally crash and be huffing and puffing. I was running in the morning after a reasonable pre-WO meal. I started reading about endurance training on low carbs and felt like I kind of had a choice here, I could either carb up a little more to get better performance or I could make an effort to encourage fat burning at least while I'm on Whole30 and just see how that goes. There are lots of opinions on the subject but folks pretty much agree that you cannot burn fat at the same rate as carbs, so you will be slow, but your body has huge reserves so you should be able to run forever without having to supplement with carbs midrun.

So I guess the choice is either lots of sweet potatos, squash and bananas pre and post meal - then raisins and dates, possibly babyfood? during the run - and try to keep your carbs up for speed and performance, or sacrifice speed and fat adapt.

Now I am running in a fasted state (with just coffee and coconut milk) in the morning. I supplemented my last LSD with some energy balls I made with almond butter, unsweetened coconut, coconut butter, chia seeds, dates and cocoa powder, but I don't think I've quite got the long runs solved yet and started to feel a lactic burn towards the end of the run so I stopped about a half mile shy. I 'm not sold on this method but it's interesting and definitely feels different. Since this is my first marathon my goal is just to finish, time is less important.