You can see that for the first 5 miles, I was flying along nicely. No fatigue, no carbohydrates, just a little bit of water. I was actually faster than my required pace despite being on the hilly portion of the course.

For 10 miles, I was still almost two minutes ahead of schedule and I felt great.

For 13.2 miles, I fell off the pace a bit. I was supposed to be at 1:39:14, but I began to cramp in my calves.

Now, the wheels were flying off. I got to 15 miles and my legs were cramping so bad that I couldn't take a full stride. My hamstrings, quadriceps, calves, you name it, they were almost literally locked. This was despite the fact that I had plenty of energy, I wasn't thirsty, nor was I winded or out of breath. I also did not have the lactic acid burn in my legs. They were just cramped.

I made it almost to mile 17, and I was finished. I got to the medical tent and the doctors said that my sodium levels were low, so they gave me bullion. After some message and salt, my muscles finally released their choke hold, but by then, I was mentally out of it.

Of course, when I returned home, I got back into my studies and found this article:

Ketogenic Diet and Physical Performance by Dr. Phinney.

I knew from his studies that the endurance athletes in his studies were able to recreate their performance on a high fat diet, just as they did on carbohydrates, although their "sprint" performance was compromised. The one thing I missed was that those athletes, as well as Stefansson, when he did the Bellvue study, where given supplements with bullion and sodium supplements.

I know for instance, that meat contains every nutrient that the body needs without the need for supplementation when the carbohydrates are severely reduced or removed from the diet. However, when you cook, boil, roast, grill, etc, the potassium is lost often times in the broth. That part, I didn't know. This lack of some of meat's nutrients causes the muscles to lose nitrogen. In Phinney's words:

When meat is baked, roasted, or broiled; or when it is boiled but the broth discarded, potassium initially present in the meat is lost, making it more difficult to maintain potassium balance in the absence of fruits and vegetables. Because our research subjects were accustomed to eating meat, fish, and poultry prepared as something other than soup, we chose to give them most of their sodium separately as bouillon and a modest additional supplement of potassium as potassium bicarbonate. With these supplements maintaining daily intakes for sodium at 3–5 g/d and total potassium at 2–3 g/d, our adult subjects were able to effectively maintain their circulatory reserve (ie, allowing vasodilatation during submaximal exercise) and effective nitrogen balance with functional tissue preservation.

So, I'm running again in two weeks at the OBX Half Marathon and I'll be supplementing with bullion each day. That should take care of my potassium and sodium. I'll let you know how it goes.

Let me say this much to you. One does not have to run a marathon to be healthy or fit. I can easily handle a fast half-marathon without any supplementation as I have run several this year. If I need sugar to run beyond 16 miles fast, then it's simply not worth it to me to do that. However, I think that if I have my potassium and sodium balance right, I can run to the moon and back! What do you athletes think?

Charles

Thanks, Curt.

So far so good with the bullion. I have been drinking a cup of that with dinner, and I have a potassium supplement. For a large part of this year, when I lie in bed, if I turn over and stretch, my muscles sometimes would severely cramp. This happened the day before the marathon as well. However, since I've been adding the supplements, I have not had this problem. I'm really hoping for good things at the OBX Half Marathon next weekend. I'll let you know.


Charles