How to train yourself to metabolize fat at marathon pace ?

SMJO wrote:

The Masai used to routinely run 20 miles each way to a fight before any grain products entered their diet.

That must have been a long fight.

They always won when beating up on the grain fed farming communities. ;)

Konchella probably is too......

Generations of high fat and high

protein diet made Rudisha who he is.

The Masai used to routinely run 20 miles each way to a fight before any grain products entered their diet.

The point is that there are human groups who are perfectly capable of performing high levels of activity without a high carb diet.

There are a few guys on here like 800 dude who are of the white sugar generation but that doesn't mean everyone is.

You just don't get it. There are no humans who can sustain high intensity aerobic activity without substantial carbohydrate reserves. None. Not the Inuit, not the Masai.

Whatever the Masai may have been capable of, they weren't running 26.2 miles at under 5 minute pace. Abundant availability of carbohydrate is one of the many factors that allow modern humans do do things with their bodies that people living a stone age lifestyle could never dream of. Make no mistake, there's nothing natural about what top level athletes do. You may very well live a more natural, healthy life by imitating our paleolithic ancestors. But you're also slower than you could be.

Actually I'm not. I've tried both ways over a 20 year period.

All my PB' s were set on low carb diets.

I ate bacon and eggs for breakfast before my half marathon PB. No toast.

At one point there was a paper floating around from Hadd, where he detailed his trai ing of a 2:40 or so marathoner. Took him down to low 2:20's I believe. I could be remembering incorrectly, but I thought one of his primary goals was to build a base with much easier running to get the body accustomed to burning fat. As the athlete ramped up the intensity, they ended up running much faster at the same heart rates as before, thus burning more fat and less glycogen at the same pace. This extended the glycogen supply out to the marathon distance i stead of the typical 18-20 mile mark. I would hit up google for Hadd marathon training, or Hadd headt rate training.

Not a Doc wrote:

To summarize:

- Don't eat carbs before you run

- Go gluten free

- Long slow distance

- Sugary drinks before and during runs

- You can't train yourself to metabolize fat

- Eat carbs after running

- Run fast

- There's no need to train to metabolize fat

- Get a coach

- High fat low carb diet

- High intensity training

- 150 mpw

- Drink blood

Don't worry. The best known coaches and physiologists also disagree.

I like you.

Monkeys typing wrote:

SMJO wrote:

Where exactly are the Inuit getting their grain products from? Guys in Kayaks ended up in Scotland without taking gels and Clif bars.

Which explains the Inuit dominance at the marathon distance.

HAHA. Exactly. East African dominance for many years in high carbs so what problem are SMJO and Xfitdude solving with their nonsense?

I live in Scotland too. Don't see many Inuit going about.

Also how do you know that many 1,000 of years ago some ancient dude kayaked to Scotland or ran 20 miles before a fight? And even if they did are you saying they did this routinely, started eating rice and then stopped? If I could find ONE PERSON that did those activities with carbs would you concede your examples prove nothing???

These guys probably lived to barely 30.

What relevance does any of this have to running a fast marathon? Its actually hilarious. So even if you did set your half PB With bacon and eggs, I set my last 4 with porridge and cliff bars. AMAZING.

The question was how to burn fat at marathon pace.

That was answered.

You can see the Inuit kayaks in Scottish museums.

The Masai exploits are well documented from less than 100 years ago.

You need to eat more bacon and lay off the porridge.

But WHY? That's what confuses me. let's take a random goal, like a 2:30 Marathon. let's say that prior to the no carb movement of the last few years thousands of runners ran this time with a carb heavy diet. Then let's say ONE person runs it on a high fat diet - great for them, but it hardly invalidates the many who have run that goal on high carbs.

I get what you're trying to accomplish, but making egregious claims about elite athletes an carbohydrates doesn't help.

http://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/nutrition/paleos-latest-converts-20130618

Tim Noakes tweeted this magazine article this morning. There's nothing scientific about it but it's still an interesting read.

Dave Zabriskie was riding on a vegan diet, and now eats a high fat/low carbohydrate diet. His coach says it works. He's sustaining very high intensity aerobic activity without carbohydrate reserves just fine.

They talk about other athletes in the article I just didn't care that much to read on.

Side note: I don't advocate paleo or high fat diets, I'm a vegetarian. I just think you're making a poor argument without evidence.

Lighten up Francis wrote:

At one point there was a paper floating around from Hadd, where he detailed his trai ing of a 2:40 or so marathoner. Took him down to low 2:20's I believe. I could be remembering incorrectly, but I thought one of his primary goals was to build a base with much easier running to get the body accustomed to burning fat. As the athlete ramped up the intensity, they ended up running much faster at the same heart rates as before, thus burning more fat and less glycogen at the same pace. This extended the glycogen supply out to the marathon distance i stead of the typical 18-20 mile mark. I would hit up google for Hadd marathon training, or Hadd headt rate training.

The paper can be found here.

Ex Phys wrote:

I get what you're trying to accomplish, but making egregious claims about elite athletes an carbohydrates doesn't help.

http://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/nutrition/paleos-latest-converts-20130618

Tim Noakes tweeted this magazine article this morning. There's nothing scientific about it but it's still an interesting read.

Dave Zabriskie was riding on a vegan diet, and now eats a high fat/low carbohydrate diet. His coach says it works. He's sustaining very high intensity aerobic activity without carbohydrate reserves just fine.

They talk about other athletes in the article I just didn't care that much to read on.

Side note: I don't advocate paleo or high fat diets, I'm a vegetarian. I just think you're making a poor argument without evidence.

BOOM!

Read the The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance by Phinney and Volek. If you switch to a high fat low carb diet you become keto adapted and can burn fat very efficiently, up to 120 grams per hour. The one problem is that if you consume enough carbs to produce an insulin response you go back to step one and lose your keto-adaptation. You also feel like crap for a week until you become keto-adapted. The guy who recently set the record for the Western States 100 is on a high fat low carb diet and he only ate like a thousand to 2000 calories during the race. I am not sure how well a high fat diet works for high intensity performance versus relying on glycogen. You might be better off relying on glycogen stores since you are running 2:40 marathon but events for over a marathon fat might be a better source of fuel since intensities are lower and your fuel tank is infinitely bigger.

The key is to figure out how to run the entire marathon on your glycogen storage. Fat is not relevant to this conversation.

To the OP.

I presume you were looking for training tips rather than faddy diet bs posts?

If so, for marathons, get used to long tempos of 12-18m (after warm-up of a couple of miles) run at about 20-30s per mile slower than current marathon pace. It may take a while to work up to 18m at this effort, depending on your current training.

Try to get some of your runs done in the am before breakfast (long ones occasionally if you can).

Generally, depending on how much you're doing already of course, try to run more mileage, but don't add extra quality workouts. Jogging or easy running to build your mileage is fine.

No need for gels or any kind of nutrition during your runs either - just use water (outside of your specific long runs over the last few weeks before race day).

fat-burner wrote:

If so, for marathons, get used to long tempos of 12-18m (after warm-up of a couple of miles) run at about 20-30s per mile slower than current marathon pace. It may take a while to work up to 18m at this effort, depending on your current training.

How is this a tempo? That's more like a moderate long run.

xenonscreams wrote:

fat-burner wrote:

If so, for marathons, get used to long tempos of 12-18m (after warm-up of a couple of miles) run at about 20-30s per mile slower than current marathon pace. It may take a while to work up to 18m at this effort, depending on your current training.

How is this a tempo? That's more like a moderate long run.

Ok Sid Literal. Sheesh. I suppose you think a tempo can only be a 3-4m run @ threshold?

Tempo - the rate or speed of motion or activity; pace.