It's just that some - through personal Emails - kinda let me have it about my 23 miler with 18 at MP

Holly, I wish you'd quit picking on the poor guy. Let Tim be Tim.

Barely time to run. Little time to read. Almost no time to post. 5 miles, 50:25, 10:05/mile. But I would like to say that I quite enjoyed the recent mother's day photos.

hey Harriet... are you involved with the Atlantis/Hubble project??

I have several comments. Tim, no question that writer was paying you a compliment, but if you are getting flak about your training from others, why not post what they said, names excluded of course, and let us pick at that. As for your pace of about 7:50, Holly summed it up as I had for you some time ago. I believe you are a bit faster, but we were working to protect you in your first marathon. Believe me, the biggest challenge you will have in your marathon will be running the first mile between 7:55 and 8:10. I bet you ten bucks you don't nail it. My expectation is also that for your second marathon you focus on getting under 3:17, or about 7:30 pace. I think this is achievable down the road, but I would not advise you to risk it in this first one. Let's get around a 3:30 under your belt first. Now as to you Holly, yes, those 6x paces are a confidence-builder but they are also useful training for form and practicing a quicker leg turnover, so this workout has its pluses at your stage of training. I don't like to see runners doing multiple quarters at such a pace very early in track work however. For you right now, i sense you are having fun with them and it's a great workout for you in May with a June marathon coming up. dg, what fun it is to see you running and fit again. Great job. Reminder, when you have a success, don't put it at the end of the daily. Learn something from me, will you. Craneium makes a good point about the value of healthy debate, which all of you know I prefer here. I want to continue this discussion tomorrow. But before I do, let me share a story with you. I was doing my core work and someone suggested I incorporate pushups. I bet I hadn't done pushups in 20 years! So I tried to do a few and was embarrassed to learn I could only do 4! But every day I kept at it, until I got up to 20 which I can now do pretty easily (except they hurt my back). So let me ask the group to guess how it is that someone can practice doing something and get better or stronger at it. If we can all agree on the common sense logic of the body adapting to the application of stress, which is what training actually is, perhaps we can have a more informed debate. About 4+ this morning slow, as I have my track session tomorrow. As I was doing my flex workout a woman I barely know stood over me and said, "Do you have a lot of bugs at your house?" What would you say to this? I had no idea what she was talking about. While forming a sensible reply it occurred to me that she has a son in Riblet's class and the boys are doing a science project in which they have to catch about 20 insects, mount them and add a legend stating what they are. Good thing I remembered in time to say, "Yes, we now have our full quota of bugs." Spareribs

nonoruns thank you so much for the references. It is easier to find academic articles if you have one to start with and so I have at least now found something! Alas, not much but here we go. For those with only an interest in the conclusions go read the last part of this post that starts with, "So if you view . . . " I went off and read some of Pedersen's work the author whose work is discussed in the blog post nonoruns linked to. That paper was written in 2002. Her latest article on the topic (2009) is titled, "Glucose ingestion during endurance training does not alter adaptation." The abs tract's first sentence is, "Glucose ingestion during exercise attenuates activation of metabolic enzymes and expression of important transport proteins" and its last "We conclude that glucose ingestion during training does not alter training adaptation related to substrate metabolism, mitochondrial enzyme activity, glycogen content or performance." I have not had time to really read either article in depth but there do seem to be some conclusions here: 1. If this is the latest evidence for training without ingesting glucose (i.e. gels and sports drinks) is a good idea then there is basically little research to suggest it is a good idea. Even the authors of the study concluded the treatment and placebo group did equally well as far as they could determine statistically. 2. The sample sizes she has are tiny 13 in the 2002 paper and 9 in the 2009 one. This naturally makes it difficult to draw out many conclusions with any conviction. In fact, most of the tests result in the conclusion that there is no statistical difference between one treatment or another. The blog poster and (naturally) the author focus on the one or two that show some differences. Bet even these are spotty with multiple conclusions being possible mostly as a result of an experimental design that mixed up pre-exercise treatments of various sorts. One group did one legged exercises the night before, the second two legged ones. Only the two legged ones were then put on either a high or low carb diet the night before. The results for the second group alone show no indication that the pre-exercise carb depletion did much since changes across the two treatments appear to be about the same. 3. The 2002 paper actually has nothing, and I do mean nothing, to say about whether or not it is a good idea to take in fuel during prolonged exercise! In the test the treatment was a low or high carbohydrate diet the night before the exercise was conducted. If you want to know if a low carb diet the night before your long run is a good idea this article may tell you something (which is basically who knows) but if you want to know if taking gels during your run is a good idea the article is not helpful. 4. Subsequent research, with seemingly better designs, do not support the conclusions in the Pedersen 2002 study cited in the blog. For example, the article by Arkinstall, et. al titled "Regulation of fuel metabolism by preexercise muscle glycogen content and exercise intensity," in the Journal of Applied Physiology concludes in the abstract that, "in moderately trained individuals, muscle glycogen availability (low vs. high) does not influence rates of plasma glucose disposal during either low- or moderate-intensity exercise. " 5. An article I am not even going to come close to vouching for, that cites Pederson's 2002 paper is a 2007 survey article by Nimmo and Ekblom, "Fatigue and Illness in Athletes," in the Journal of Sports Sciences. So FWIW here are their conclusions: Summary of guidelines for fatigue and illness Consensus for: . Maintenance of a diet to ensure sufficient calories to meet the energy expenditure demand. . High pre-exercise glycogen stores and glucose feeding during exercise. . Use of vitamin C to offset immunosuppression. . Use of fluid replacement strategies to ensure euhydration. . Holistic monitoring of athlete stress. Consensus against: . Abrupt increases in training load. . Diets that are too high or too low in fat. Issues that are equivocal: . Accurate biomarkers for overtraining. . Accurate diagnostic criteria for overtraining syndrome. . The role of IL-6 and IL-6R in overtraining syndrome and immunosuppression. So if you view their survey as unbiased and authoritative (and I have no reason to believe either way about either) then you would conclude that you should fuel during a long run and maybe even on somewhat shorter runs as well. Finally, I personally do not really care whether the answer is fuel or do not during a long run. My only interest is in knowing which prepares you better for an upcoming race. My reading of what I have looked at so far, including the survey article's text beyond the conclusions I listed, is that the truth of the matter is the evidence one way or the other is very spotty at best. If you want to err on the low risk side then fueling is probably a good idea. Repeated fatigue increases the chances of injury and illness. So, while fueling during your runs may not help with race day performance it will likely help you get to the starting line. If I find out anything new via this research thread I will let the group know. Ok, we now return you to our regular programming.

Today's thread has hurt my head, but I can report that I ran 8ish easy miles this morning, and I'm supposed to do another 4.5 easy (aka, 'go to the post office') this afternoon. If it isn't raining.

Today's thread has hurt my head

And it rhymes, too! Lemme see, since I do a crap job in the fueling depart for the most part (I'm getting better), I guess you could say that, subconsciously, I've been training myself to do without. Yeah, that's the ticket!

sit by the river bank and enjoy some quiet time. Will RAW today.

mari - I did one in the warm waters of the Kuroshio at a seaside villa today too, I mean tomorrow. tammy - sign mari up for midnight madness swim with us.

I do a crap job in the fueling depart for the most part

hold on fizzy, i'm bring back more of the pocket tissue promotionals they give away at the train stations. timless - you're doing so great on your training even I have to admit you'll probably do just fine on the endless ascent up at mile 16 to the top of Aurora Bridge at the Seattle RnR. Just keep practicing uphill as much as possible and save your quads for Seattle. <>sdraw ret fallihnwodg nih sarht-dauq)>>>t

arigatou for saying that robato-san. Some of 'em are pretty stuck up and i get rejected a lot too (even when I try to trick 'em and return again mixed in with a crowd). Some things can never be figured out over here. eta/ps - did you get to do any marathons over here?