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Dropped Performance (Running)


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[i'm aware of the other string on a similar topic, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting enough to eat. Well over 100 grams of protein per day, plus 80+ of carbs, with plenty of fat too.]

Hey everyone,

I'm on Day 12 of my Whole30 and loving it. My energy levels have been much more stable (e.g., not waking up ready to eat my own arm), but my running has been a LOT slower. How much slower? My "easy" pace is a full 1 to 2 minutes slower. I just don't have the gas in the tank to do more than that an "easy" effort. Now, I noticed two things on my 7 mile "easy" trail run today: (1) my "easy" pace is right at my Maximum Aerobic Threshold (based on feel and guestimating my pulse), and (2) If I just gave into the slowness, I felt great running that slower pace. But if I tried to pick things up, I got over worked pretty quickly (within 1 mile).

As a vegetarian it was not uncommon for me to eat three cups of cooked rice in a single sitting. It's hard to keep up that carb intake on sweet potatoes, butternut squash and whatnot.

My guess is that my body is still adjusting to burning fat and that's why I'm so sluggish. Does this sound familiar to any of you or do I need to tweak something?

My training has been stable (though easier miles than before the Whole30) and I even took four days off with active recovery last week.

Any thoughts?

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Yes, your body is still getting adjusted. When I first went Primal in April this year, my workouts suffered greatly. I'm very active, I do Turbo Fire and run on the weekends and I had to really scale back my workouts the first few weeks.

My suggestion is take it easy for another couple weeks, give your body some time to adjust and if you are still not seeing improvement, then up your carbs. 80g of carbs isn't really that much at all. It's been almost three months for me and my workouts didn't improve until fairly recently.

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For a frame of reference, Mike, I'm 5'2", 105lbs and I get almost 200g of carbs per day. I realize that's probably on the high end for people on this forum, but... with my experience, the following works for a guideline:

if you feel tired during the day, add more fats

if you feel sluggish during your workouts, add carbs

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Mike, are you tracking your intake? I'd be interested to see what you do, since I also have this problem.

I was also speculating while on a run yesterday that for you, as an ultra runner, if you have a very low body fat percentage like most ultra runners (single digits?), perhaps with the distances and time you're running, your body doesn't have the fat stores to use? So you might have more difficulty flipping that internal switch... That may be my ignorance showing through, but it's worth putting out there to get more info.

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As a runner myself, I'd say more carbs. 80g is technically considered a low carb diet. A healthy adult on a 2000 calorie diet should be getting somewhere around 40% of his intake from carbs - or around 200g of carb per day. That still allows you plenty of fat and protein, too.

So eat some fruit or a sweet potato or something like that before you run. I suspect it'll help a lot.

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