Adelaide City To Bay – Keto Style

I’ve been doing the 12km fun run for the last 5 years, and also running my legs ragged for a few months prior to the event doing the Corpulent Cup (4.5km) and running in general a few times a week.

As of last year though I went low-carb, then very-low-carb ketogenic for most of this year – but with plenty of alcohol to blunt too much weight loss *cough*.

I’ve long thought the whole “you gotta carb up bro” thing was a load of shit, not only does it not make any sense – why would we evolve to perform better (ie, hunt game) with a belly full of crap that isn’t even necessary to survival – and when I’ve tried it I’ve felt like shit.

In the mean time I’ve read The Art & Science Of Low Carbohydrate Performance, along with many studies and reports of people doing athletic events in a ketogenic/fasted state, and these things ARE making sense.

So for the last couple weeks prior to the event I went basically zero carb/extra high fat/low-moderate protein, and the last meal before the event was a big fat pork belly for lunch the day prior which was basically 90% fat. I wanted to do the event in a completely fasted state (18 hours), excepting a cup of bouillon beef broth with a knob of butter one hour prior to the event – according to the literature this will boost potassium and electrolytes and shit so that your muscles don’t seize up and stuff.

My other training? Zip. I haven’t run more than 1km straight since last year. I’ve gone hiking a couple times a month and that’s it.

So how’d I go? Not Bad. 1h 14m 23s.

The first year I did it, I trained hard for a long time beforehand, but just ate my normal shit – that year I did it in 1h 20m, and managed to make it as far as 7km before having to stop for a rest. I’m now five years older and far more sedentary, and I managed to run the whole thing without stopping, no hurt, no damage, and didn’t even require fluids until after I finished. Sure, it’s not going to get me to the Olympics, but that’s not the point – just knowing I can run 12km no problem without training or effort is enough for me.

TL;DR

…still able to just get up and run 12km straight with absolutely zero preparation.