At what distance/duration, do I start adding more than gels and water during run? (Read 293 times)

Hmm, a beer ultra?

Hmm, a beer ultra?

that's called Friday night in Chicago. hey-o!

To answer the original question...You don't ever NEED to consume more than gels and water (maybe some electrolytes too).

Personally, for anything at/around 4ish hours I like to pack a sandwich or plan on a gas station stop to eat something real. I use it as a reward.

Didn't bhearn eat something like a hundred GUs in a race once? I think he way lying about that.

I've done 100 milers on only gels and water, plus the little cups of coke at the aid stations. I take half a gel every 10 minutes (calibrated in 6-gel flasks, so it's easy to stay on track; one flask lasts two hours). I prepared 72 gels for Western States this year, but only got through about 60 of them. I had to slow the rate down around mile 70 or 80, and by 90 I was gagging and had to stop.

For Cascade Crest, two months later, I started getting sick of them earlier, and switched to mostly real food by 70 or 80, I forget. It is getting harder and harder to choke them down.

I decided after Cascade Crest that my fueling would have to change in the future; I was planning to eat more real food. WG's reasons to prefer gels are good, but the reason I've been using gels -- up until Western States 2012, I ate "real" food at the aid stations -- is that I know exactly what I'm getting, and how many calories. I was planning to get solid in my head the caloric content of everything I expected to eat at aid stations and start adding it up.

But. Six weeks ago I started a new experiment; I've gone low-carb. The idea is to train my muscles to burn more fat, so I have to consume less in ultras. Seems to be working, though I am worried about losing speed for my next marathon. In the past few weeks I've run a 50 miler and a marathon, both with about half my normal caloric intake, and no carb loading, with no problem. I never felt any mental fatigue -- at the end of the 50 I felt the same as at the start, except with sore muscles. This is a supposed advantage of running ultras while "keto adapted", and in my limited experience so far (those races plus long runs of 20 and 18 with no fuel, and at zero stored glycogen), I have to say that that part at least works. Really it's quite shocking.

I keep hearing about consuming 300 calories  per hour for long duration. Consuming a gel every ~45 minutes means ~125 cal/hour. I guess I would need to worry about it if/when I am able to be out there a lot more than 6 hours or so.

Yeah, 125 cal / hour will not cut it for very long runs. Unless, perhaps, you are keto-adapted.

...

But. Six weeks ago I started a new experiment; I've gone low-carb. The idea is to train my muscles to burn more fat, ... 

This is a supposed advantage of running ultras while "keto adapted", and in my limited experience so far (those races plus long runs of 20 and 18 with no fuel, and at zero stored glycogen), I have to say that that part at least works. Really it's quite shocking.

...

Is this similar to the idea behind "fat-loading"? Will you stick to low-carb on a long-term basis?

There is a book about marathon nutrition by Matt Fitzgerald, who advocates a 10-day "fat-loading" period that precedes the normal 3-day carb-loading period before a marathon. The goal during this fat-loading is to get ~65-70% of calories from "healthy fats" (avocados, nuts, salmon, and, uh, I think that's about it). The rationale for it seems the same as you describe, bhearn -- to train/force your body to get better at burning fat as fuel. But an article I read about high-fat diets described a group of Arctic(?) explorers that lived on fatty sources that they caught (e.g., salmon, seal), and it took them 2 to 3 weeks of feeling really sluggish and weak before their bodies adapted to the mostly fat diet. Once their bodies adapted, they were fine and their energy levels returned to normal.

It seems like this concept would be more beneficial for races longer than a marathon. I may try an ultra for the first time next year, so my interest in this is real.  FWIW, I had trouble sticking to the fat-loading plan when I tried it back in April. I got real sluggish and irritable, and quickly gave up on it. If I were convinced of its merits, I might be more willing to stick with it.

Anyone else try such foolishness?

I went 'low-carb' (not sure what that means except that I rarely eat breads/rice/pasta/potatoes anymore) in 2007.  I never noticed any negative effects on my running at all, not even the first weeks after I started.  The only conclusion I can draw is that I must have been massively overindulging in unnecessary carbs.  The carbs I get from other foods must be enough to sustain my running.  I did drop from 165-170lbs to 150-155lbs after three years of it and that's been my weight since then.   Sometimes I can push myself to 147 or so and I run really well there but that weight is not sustainable at all for me.

No input for the OP except to listen to the Ultra people's advice on this thread.