Juneathon day 10: calves survived longest run in a while (just!)

Written Jun 10, 2013, tagged under post,flute,foam rolling,health,juneathon,low carb,running

I have two conflicting views about today. On the one hand, I'm delighted that I managed my longest run since my calves started giving me agro (4.37 miles in 44:31) and they stood up fine. This was done during my "piano slot" (when the kids have lessons and I have an hour), and was lovely! And I had even managed a "fast walk finishing with a run when I realised how close I'd cut it for the train" alternative way of getting to Marylebone on the way back from dropping off my flute for a service in the morning - 1 mile in 12:53.

The other side is that, for whatever reason, the run felt SOOOO HARD! And this was on a distance that, even a few weeks ago, would have been entirely comfortable. The heart rate chart on the piano run says it all - once I had gone from a fast-walk warm-up to some drill and upwards, my heart rate increased on a flat line from 140 to 165 over 4 miles. Speeds that, two weeks ago, felt pretty comfortable were this evening entirely out of my range.

I think what's going on here is that I'm now 1 week into my very low carb experiment - a kind of DIY paleo LCHF (low carb high fat) approach I'm making up as I go along. I believe I'm sticking below 50g of carbs per day - possibly well below, as I'm not really counting but just avoiding anything with carbs in! At this point, my body doesn't really have a good deal of carbs/glucose knocking around, but my body isn't fully adapted to burning fat. So it's a bit like driving a car starved of fuel - it's not going to go well.

I read that it takes 2 weeks or more for the adaptation to complete; this week, while I get the 2nd week under my belt, I suppose I should probably not push things too hard.

That counts for sleep too, especially after the last two days: night all!

Juneathon contribution: walked/run 1 mile, ran 4.37 miles (and some foam rolling, just for good measure)