tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2375743119306394670.post7985891483216905070..comments2023-05-30T09:15:26.291+01:00Comments on Trossachs Trail Runner: Ups and Downs of Training for the West Highland Way RaceRobert Osfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16960356368117573952noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2375743119306394670.post-35337553128994131212014-03-28T16:34:39.138+00:002014-03-28T16:34:39.138+00:00Thanks.
I haven't been fasting for most day...Thanks. <br /><br />I haven't been fasting for most days in the past two months. I got a cold back at the end on January and decided to eat breakfast as to avoid my Cortisol levels rising too often and risk suppressing my immune system. <br /><br />Through February and March I have been teetering on the point of over training with pushing my weekly mileage higher than I ever done before, the extra mileage risks pushing my metabolism too often into a Catabolic state where it breaks down muscles rather than build them. To help push things back towards an Anabolic state where my muscles are building up I've added breakfast on most days. Breakfast is low GI so as not to spike my insulin levels, and contains a source of BCAA's to help support protein synthesis and avoid my muscles being broken down whilst running. Scrabbled eggs is a good natural source of BCAA's, and certainly a lot tastier than the powdered BCAA's that I tried for a few weeks.<br /><br />Once my body settles down a bit more - i.e. no big spikes in my effective efficiency, I'll look at adding fasted runs in. If I don't run one day I'll miss breakfast and typically fast till lunchtime. Robert Osfieldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16960356368117573952noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2375743119306394670.post-47807426054966164172014-03-28T14:37:41.725+00:002014-03-28T14:37:41.725+00:00Congrats on the marathon. How has the fasting you ...Congrats on the marathon. How has the fasting you blogged about a while back panned out ?Keithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00298435244008193577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2375743119306394670.post-58351169755974420402014-03-24T22:39:22.868+00:002014-03-24T22:39:22.868+00:00 Congratulations on the marathon PB; especiall... Congratulations on the marathon PB; especially on achieving it in a relaxed mannerAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2375743119306394670.post-43936636924820289722014-03-24T10:04:49.102+00:002014-03-24T10:04:49.102+00:00Thanks for the comments and thoughts, and best wis...Thanks for the comments and thoughts, and best wishes. It helps give more ideas of what might be going on with my body, and what to do to adjust training/recovery.<br /><br />One aspect that I didn't mention in my post was that stress levels outside of training have been fluctuating up and down. My sleep patterns have also been fluctuating up and down. I also at times struggle with insomnia, and through this period have struggled to get a regular 6-8 hours of sleep most nights in the past three months, The insomnia is certainly partly down to stress, but also seems to be correlated with some form of hormonal interaction that I haven't been able to settle - my body quite often seems prevented from shutting down not due to mental process but blood chemistry.<br /><br />For the estimates of efficiency, I need to publish the model, but it'll require a proper write up. As I do lots of different routes of differing lengths I have to build in factors to account for elevation profile and heart-rate drift, the model I've tuned to fit my training/racing logs are able to smooth out my "Effective Efficiency" quite while so day to day fluctuations tend to me down to the physiological factors rather than the nature of a specific run. Periods when my body seems more settled I do get far more flat "Effective Efficiency" values, so the ups and downs in the above graph are primarily down to what's going on in my body in response to training and general health/stress.<br /><br />My marathon went very well yesterday. Finished in 3:26:50, a PB but almost 6 minutes, and apart from the last three miles was run as a training run with very controlled pacing averaging around 8:00 min/mile pace for a very undulating course. My average HR was 157 well below what I was expecting, and well below the around 169 value I've seen in my previous slower and less hilly marathons. My "Effective Efficiency" was just over 80 calories/mile, which was one of the best I've seen in the last four months and during a race too, where I'd normally see elevated levels due to the effects of Adrenaline. <br /><br />The half marathon test run I did at the start of hinted that my HR drift was pretty low, the race totally cemented that. My takeway is diet and training approach have been very successful at adapting my body to metabolising fat right from the start of race through to the end. This is exactly what I was hoping for. Other elements like structural resilience were a bit of problem yesterday though and am feeling the effects of having run a road marathon today. I will do a full write up of my marathon this week, will take a few days for it all to sink in as it was a real breakthrough performance a bit like my Devil race last year where I exceeded my expectations.<br /><br /><br /><br />Robert Osfieldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16960356368117573952noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2375743119306394670.post-60275927958941406672014-03-22T23:44:13.464+00:002014-03-22T23:44:13.464+00:00It is likely that your somewhat higher resting HR ...It is likely that your somewhat higher resting HR than in previous periods of training at a lower total training load does indicate that you a little more stressed this year (and hence have higher sympathetic tone) but the fact that there is a gradual overall downward trend as your training progresses indicates that the stress is settling rather than building up.<br />There are many possible causes of the day by day fluctuation. Although I do not know exactly how you calculate efficiency, i t appears to me that what you call efficiency is a normalised measure of beats / mile after adjustment of altitude gain, total duration, and perhaps other circumstantial variables. However there are many factors that affect beats per mile that are probably not precisely corrected in your adjustment. <br /><br />The energy consumed by your muscles per mile during running can be expressed as the product of the following factors:<br />1) heart beats / mile<br />2) cardiac stroke volume<br />3) proportion of cardiac output directed to muscles<br />4) fraction of oxygen content of blood extracted by muscle.<br />5) Metabolic conversion factor which relates energy generated per unit of oxygen.<br /><br />If you assume that your mechanical efficiency remains constant, the product of these 5 items will remain constant. <br /><br />When you begin training the biggest early change is increase in stroke volume as blood volume increases, thereby stretching the heart and promoting more powerful contraction (Starlings Law).<br /><br />Over a sustained period of training, there should be an increase in fraction of oxygen extracted by muscles (due to increased capillaries and to increased mitochondrial enzyme activity). This accounts for a substantial portion of the gradual decrease in HR as you get fitter.<br /><br />Since fat combustion requires more oxygen to produce a given amount of energy , increasing the proportion of fat in the fuel mix produces a tendency for heart beats/mile to increase but this effect is usually small and gradual, and is a beneficial adaptation for an ultra-runner, for whom fuel efficiency is more important than efficiency of oxygen use<br /><br />Thus predictable monotonic increases in items 2) and 4) during training produce predictable decrease in beats/mile, while increased utilization of fats produces a small trend in the opposite direction.<br /><br />However the proportion of cardiac output directed to muscles ( item 3) can fluctuate quite wildly according to various physiological processes – eg increased vasodilation in the skin in hot weather; increased blood flow to deal with inflammation anywhere in the body; increase in whole body metabolism due to hormonal changes or cytokine changes; increased flow to gut to digest food. The fact that you are training near to maximum capacity probably increases the likelihood of fluctuations mediated by hormones and cytokines. But provided you are recovering well it is probably reasonable to assume that these are transient features. Your strategy of allowing extra recovery when signs of stress occur appears to be working well. <br /><br />Good luck with tomorrow’s marathon. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com