[dhsysusbsjsi]

Stop eating carbs about 2 months before. I did this and went from a 2:06 to 1:58 with minimal training. My body carried several kg less weight and felt like it could consume its own fat energy more efficiently and I didn’t get the 2/3 slump.

I also started last, ran down the 2hr pace guy, then tried to stay 100m ahead of him. It felt primal being chased down by somebody and kept the mind sharp.

[kashyapc]

Uh, "stop eating carbs 2 months before" sounds like bad advice that needs a lot of heavy caveats. As you know, carbs are precisely we need when going the distance. I know long-time runners who even eat pasta for breakfast before a half-marathon!

I'm ~64KG and 180cm tall. And I feel light when running; I have almost zero excess fat. If I reduce more weight, it would be unhealthy. As it is, I could be called (healthy) "skinny". This is one thing that's unmissable with marathon and longer runners (including the "elites"): many of them look unhealthily thin. I want to avoid going that route.

    • • •

I'm thinking of trying gels. In my last half-m, I broke the "golden rule" of not trying anything new on race day, and paid a small price. Here's my embarrassing story, if you want to have a laugh:

I only trained once with an "isotonic gel" during a training run, and that time I took the gel right before the run. The gel is supposed to provide a small dose of carbohydrates as fuel. Now, during the (half-m) race, I put the gel in my back pocket (which I didn't try out in training). At around 15KM mark, when I reached for it, I felt the goddamned gel slowly leaking in my back pocket! I managed to fish it out and down the gel, but jeez, my hands were incredibly sticky for the rest of the 5KM. (Plus: the backpocket side of my running shorts was so sticky from the fricking gel-leak that whenever I sat down after the run, I had to forcefully detach my shorts from my skin!)

Now, I'm not even sure if the damn gel helped me. I suspect it even slowed me down a bit! (I'm judging this based on the pace of my last 5KM.) Luckily it wasn't a disaster, but an annoying distraction for about 5 KM. To be fair on the gel, my body was just not sufficiently used to it. I need to experiment more on how my body reacts to it. Some runners don't ... gel well with gels.

[haspok]

> As you know, carbs are precisely we need when going the distance.

This is completely false. You deplete your carb stores after a few hours (depending on pace etc), and then YOU ARE RUNNING ON KETONES, whether you like it or not. You physically cannot eat and digest enough carbs to sustain your pace for any longer period of time.

Carb depletion can be a real shock for the first time. What happens is that your body is not accustomed to burning fat for energy, and so it just doesn't know what to do.

But if you prepare it will learn how to do it, and do it rather efficiently. Unless you are a pro athlete (in which case you have your own dietician anyway) you will benefit from going keto for long distance endurance sports. Yes, your sprints will be slower, but in exchange you will simply not be hungry, or feel loss of energy (actually, a marathon is not really that long distance, if you are fast enough you won't even deplete your carb stores!).

It takes a few days, maybe a week or two to switch to keto. You can speed up the process by fasting, it will not leave your body any doubt about what is going to happen :) You will feel very weak at first, but this will pass, and then you are in long distance nirvana. You just need to watch out for proper hydration (not too much, not too little) and mineral replenishment. You can even do your sport fasted, it won't make any difference! Highly recommended for those having digestive issues.

As a matter of fact, I'd rather say it is highly irresponsible of anyone doing endurance sports NOT on keto. But as many other things, this is not taught at school, and people have to experiment for themselves to find out what works for them.

[infamousclyde]

This is kind of curious. Isn't that 2/3 energy slump usually associated with the marathon distance, as your body exhausts glycogen reserves? You shouldn't be bonking at 15k. Moreover, I would never recommend to stop eating carbohydrates as a distance runner. I think it's great you lost weight and hit a PB, but I would lean towards consistent training with key workouts and a balanced diet leading up to a race.

[dhsysusbsjsi]

I’m 92kg +/-, 187cm. Run 2x a week 6.5km like clockwork, plus extra fitness 2-3x a week. So heavy guy. I do about one 1/2 marathon a year and train up to 15km. Heart sits at 180-185 by the end. The 18km is definitely a hump where it’s not aerobic fitness but feels like need to push through a mental wall. I don’t think I have the physique for a full marathon without proper preparation but may try next year.

[kashyapc]

Yes! On "diet" — as the saying goes, "you can't outrun a bad diet."

I want do some strength training besides the usual bicycling and running 3-4x a week. But I keep dragging my feet with it.

[swalling]

This is egregiously bad advice.

There is zero evidence that keto or low carb/high fat diets improve running performance. There's actually consistently reproduced evidence that it impairs performance at high intensities. Studies: https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/JP278928, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16357078/, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26553488/, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32497061/

Summary if you don't want to read all the studies: https://trainright.com/should-endurance-athletes-go-keto-ket...

[12345hn6789]

Do you have any citations for your bro science?

Runners have been eating "gel" for years during races. You don't run out of carbs if you properly prepare for a marathon

[john___matrix]

> Stop eating carbs about 2 months before. I did this and went from a 2:06 to 1:58 with minimal training. My body carried several kg less weight and felt like it could consume its own fat energy more efficiently and I didn’t get the 2/3 slump.

You would likely get the same results and time drop just by running consistent training mileage for 2 months instead of a big diet change like this.