After a couple of months of race recovery (and softball injury recovery), I’ve been enjoying gorgeous weather and fall colors while gradually getting miles back on my legs. My husband and I are starting our next training block on Monday. We signed up for Arches Ultra 50k In January and Black Canyon 100k in February. With unseasonally high temperatures, Black Canyon 100k was a bit of a disaster for me this year, so I’m hoping for cooler temperatures and a bit of redemption.

Training officially kicks off on Halloween and will be a bit different this year.  Since both of us are training this time around, Josh wanted to try one of the training plans from TrainingPeaks, which is where he works. We both purchased the same 16-week 100k training plan to see how that compares to having a coach. It isn’t as personalized, obviously, but it is a more economical choice, and they have a ton of plans to choose from depending on experience and the time you have before an event.

Beyond this new training plan, we are doing a pretty big nutrition experiment. Through his work, Josh got us signed up for a study looking at continuous glucose monitoring in athletes. The company is called Supersapiens, and although it is being used among athletes in some European countries, it is not yet commercially available in the US.  We wear sensors that monitor real-time glucose levels. This is the same technology used by diabetics; however, in this case, it is used to enhance athletic performance.

When Josh first told me about it, I thought it was ridiculous. We aren’t elite athletes, and who could possibly need that much data? Then as he started using it, I became very intrigued. Essentially it is a science experiment evaluating how we process food as individuals and what happens during exercise. It is absolutely fascinating to see how glucose levels fluctuate with different types of food and how the timing of carbohydrate intake dramatically affects blood glucose levels during runs. I’ve had very low blood glucose levels during a run, even after a full breakfast, simply because of the timing of that breakfast.  It is also very interesting to see how Josh and I respond differently to the same foods.

I’ve only had my sensor for the past week, but I already realize that it is impossible to know what your blood glucose is doing without the sensor. What I assume will spike my glucose often has no effect. When I eat an apple, my glucose spikes to the very top of the normal range, and then as insulin is released, it crashes and then becomes very unstable for the next hour. Of everything I have eaten this last week, including cookies, pastries, ice cream, and pasta, there is nothing that spikes my glucose like an apple, which is unfortunate because I typically have an apple with peanut butter for a snack almost every day. Apparently, eating proteins and fats before carbs can affect the rate of absorption, so I’m going to experiment with having some cheese or nuts before I eat my apple (instead of the peanut butter with it) and see if the spike softens.

The Supersapiens app provides information (videos/articles/podcasts) for the first two weeks to help interpret the data and makes suggestions on what to experiment with. The main takeaway I have after this first week is that I have a lot of room for improvement, and I’m probably under-fueling.  There is a difference between adequate carbohydrate intake for maintenance and ideal carbohydrate intake for performance. Based on my current glucose readings, I am far below the ideal carbohydrate intake for performance, and quite frankly, there is a lot of time that both Josh and I are just plain low. When blood glucose is low,  pushing hard during a run is impossible. It is only with adequate fueling that we can push and make gains.

Josh and I will continue to experiment over the coming months to see how what we eat, how much we eat, and when we eat affects how we feel during training runs, races, and day-to-day life. It isn’t just about how one workout feels, but when fueling is inadequate over time, that is when general fatigue, reduction in performance and injuries happen. I’ve seen several people using the Supersapiens app write about recognizing their own under-fueling and seeing major performance gains, and even weight loss (not that I am currently aiming for that), by increasing carbohydrate intake.

Earlier this week, a friend sent over the International Society of Sports Nutrition Position Stand: nutritional considerations for single-stage ultra-marathon training and racing. This is aimed toward male physiology because there isn’t as much information available about women. Published a couple of years back, this article suggests a carbohydrate intake of 5-8g/kg per day. For me, this equates to 272-436 g carbs per day. I decided to see how my current intake stacks up to this recommendation, granted I am not currently at peak training.

Example of current carb intake:

Before a morning run:
Banana – about 30g carbs or English muffin – 28 g of carbs

After my run:
One serving of oatmeal (1/2 cup dry) – 34g of carbs.
Two tbsp maple syrup – 27g carb (although I’m probably not using 2 full tablespoons, we will go with that)
One large pear – 30g of carbs.

Morning snack:
cookie or pastry that someone has brought to the office – I’ll be generous and say 20g carbs

Lunch:
leftover stir fry – One cup rice- 45g carbs, plus ground beef and veggies.

Afternoon snack:
One large apple – 30g of carbs, with peanut butter – 9g of carbs.

Dinner:
Pork tenderloin with butternut squash, bell pepper, kale, and pepitas. (Thanks, Green Chef) – 20g carbs.

That tops me out at 218 of that 272-436 recommended grams of carbs per day. WHAT????

The good news is that there are 243 g of carbohydrate in an entire 9oz bag of candy corn.  Basically, I need to add a 1/2 to a full bag of candy corn on top of my typical daily carbohydrate ingestion. I mean, it is in the name of science, really.

We will be wearing our sensors for at least the next few months, and I look forward to seeing how nutrition adjustments will affect our running and races this season. I feel like we already eat an obscene amount of food, and I might need to pick up more hours at work, or set up a GoFundMe, just to pay for our grocery bills. Luckily, carbs are cheap, so in comparison to my experiment with ketosis to try and help my brain injury a few years back, this should be more affordable.

16 weeks to the next TBI to 100(k).