I've been paleo/primal since November.

My one concession is beer - had to draw the line somewhere.

And, I'm loving it!

I was already close to that diet. For me, the biggest difference has been the addition of fruits & vegetables ... I'd always had good intentions, and a crisper full of rotten produce at the end of the week. Now, I actually eat the stuff! And, I'm loving the variety. Some days, I'll have more than 15 different kinds of fruits & vegetables - in the same day, sometimes before noon.

I felt good on the diet. Noticing a bit of an improvement right off the bat.

Then, a few weeks ago (maybe more than a month now), I had a huge breakthrough and am feeling monumentally, magically terrific. (Could be the diet. Could be the way I've been training. Or both.)

I don't do calories on runs under 2 hours.

If I'm going longer (3 or more), I start the carb drip at the 2-hour mark and keep it coming. For this, I do use processed sports products - typically Hammer gel plus my own blend of BCAA and ammonia scavengers (added to water).

Been running 80+ miles a week for the past 6 weeks without altering my diet and am feeling great.

Saturday, I ran 44 miles in 7 hours using the routine described above - no problems during the run and recovery is going fine (right back to my regular diet (with a few extra doses of BCAA for good measure) and carrying on with my regular training load).

FWIW, the bulk of my daily carb intake comes from fruit in my post-run breakfast smoothie - one banana plus strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. The rest comes from beer. ;-)

Sorry to hear you're feeling run-down.   Must need more beer!

Was just about to add that I've been training Maffetone style (for me, HR below 137) ... so, sustained low-intensity efforts that aren't burning through my glycogen stores

For me, this has been critical - recovering from chronic injury and overtraining, managing stress loads.

The other part of the Maffetone stuff that's been invaluable is warming up and cooling down - which helps eliminate stresses from the sudden stop/start and helps to keep from becoming a glycogen gobbler (jumping into exercise cold, body going for those cheap & easy sugars for fuel - and then tending to stay in that sugar-burning mode).

I've really enjoyed his book, The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing - it's not just about his Maffetone training method, but also diet (very similar to paleo/primal) and injury/recovery. It's a big book (really) - I have the Kindle version, so it's easily searchable and I've highlighted and added notes to a bunch of sections.

I'm not familiar with the book you've mentioned, but will take a look. I have another friend who's recently gone primal - triathlete & adventure racer; he's doing well on the diet, but hasn't been doing his usual training this winter (P90X instead).

Mark Sisson, the primal guy, would be down on the notion of fruit (or more carbs in general)... but he's against most endurance training efforts (having burned himself out as a young marathoner).

I've been following Steve Gangemi, aka SockDoc, for awhile - he's been active in the barefoot community. He posted a nice article on paleo for athletes awhile back - although I would imagine it duplicates much of what's in your book.

MTA: re timing - I do time my primary carb intake to be close to my workouts. Most of my daily carbs are had on the heels of a workout, when they're most easily used to replenish stores. And, of course, during a workout, I do whatever is needed to keep fueled.

Thanks WG

Read the book "Paleo for Endurance Athletes" and have increased post-workout cab intake signficantly after workout (amount and duration dependent on the length/intensity of workout).  I feel really great.  Took about 4 weeks for things to kick in but feel very good now.    Do eat a bit more low GL fruit, too, during the day.

Bonus - off a couple of medications.

Another really good read:  Primal Body, Primal Mind.