The Gun Run 2013 Race Report

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What an event. The Gun Run 2013 is definitely a gem on the running race calendar. Its well organised, with plenty of volunteers and lots of support from the public. This year the marshals adopted a marshal theme which kept things entertaining en route.

The Gun Run has something for everyone. 5km, 10km and 21.1km Half Marathon.

Every year they seem to up their game and this years event was no exception with great side events at the finish and plenty of vendors catering to runners and spectators.

So from a personal perspective. Both Wesley and I were intent on running personal best times on this route. We of course expected the start to be congested and probably walked the first 200m and slow ran the next kilometre.

There was quite a hold up from the start till we got off Bay Road and the promenade and onto Beach Road (3km mark) . I had to re-asses and thought my PB shot was out the window because of backed up runners in the first 5km of the race. Once we hit the Waterfront and Dock Road gaps starting to open and we could start to stretch our legs.

The course is pretty much flat so a fast time is achievable. For some reason “The Hill” which starts at the corner of Clarens and Kloof Road and goes up for about 2kms, felt a lot easier than last year. I think what made the difference for me is I had a record of my previous Gun Run on Endomondo  which I studied and I realised the hill was only 2.5kms long.

Once the hill was over and done with it was time to charge and make up the lost time. As I came off the top of the hill I realised that I was well within my target time as long as I kept my pace.

I was definitely feeling the pace and was tempted to slow up or even grab a bit of sugar at the last water station. But with 3kms to go I decided to run past the water station.

Gonna Fly Now from Rock II

That's when the Rocky theme song started to play in my head (I watched Rocky 1 and 2 for inspiration the day before). I blasted to the finish and smashed my PB half-marathon time by 5mins and my bettering my Gun Run time by 12 minutes

Its exactly a year ago now since we’ve adopted a real food lifestyle. You can call it what you want, Low Carb High Fat, Paleo but we like the simple philosophy of Vinnie Tortorich. No Sugar, No Grains. So for people think that athletes need heavy amounts of carbs and sugary gels, for ourselves anyway, we’ve proved that this is not the case.

Thanks to the folks at Curds & Whey our post race snack was organic Greek yoghurt  with almonds and honey. Its great having a real food option at one of these events.

All in all, this years event did the 21st anniversary of the race justice. Well done to all the competitors, organisers, marshals and volunteers. Thanks for a great event!

The Gun Run

Vinnie Tortorich

Curds & Whey

Endomondo

Cape Town Marathon 2013 Race Report

The organisers of this year’s Cape Town Marathon really did a great job with the event. The marketing around the event was great and the finish area was more festive than the previous year. This event is going from strength to strength and will in time become a major big city marathon.

On the day the weather was great. The temperature was relatively cool with not a cloud or hint of wind in sight. With the course being flat and fast the conditions were set for lots of attempts at personal bests.

Water stations were well manned by plenty of volunteers cheering the runners on. I try to thank every marshal that I run past since these guys are giving up their time to volunteer and make sure the event goes smoothly.

There were a few complaints after the event.

The most important and one that bugged me a bit was the extra distance. Although the front runners ran exactly 42.2km, for traffic management reasons the course was slightly altered and the rest of the field ran an extra 500 meters or so. In the grand scale of things it doesn't seem like much but when you chasing a cut-off and with this race being a Two Oceans and Comrades qualifier that extra 500 meters makes a big difference.

The other issue was the lack a of decent goodie bag or any goodie bag for that matter. The event itself clearly made up for the goodie bag but its a tradition to have a goodie at big events. Hopefully with the marketing of the event being such a success the organisers will be able to pick a big corporate title sponsor that could help them with that.(HINT: FNB is moving into their new fancy building smack bang in the middle of town.)

From a personal point of view both Wesley and I did less actual running for this event than we did for past events. We focused more on strength training, trying to find a balance between cardio and resistance work. Even with my shift in training methods I still managed to run a personal best of 4:30:11, about 20 minutes faster than my previous PB (I am still super pleased). However, I felt that I could have pushed harder than what I did in the final 10k but my calves were starting to cramp up and I had to back off the pace.

I’m convinced that the supplement answer to cramping (magnesium and electrolytes) is BS. I emailed Nicholas Tam at Sports Science Institute of South Africa who told me that according to the research that they’ve done, cramping is due to a lack of fitness and conditioning. And supplements has no effect on preventing cramps.

So for the next marathon which will the be Cape Peninsula in February 2014 we will be training more specifically as endurance athletes and not generalists. We’ll let you know how that goes and what training methods we intend to implement.

See you at the races!

Links:

The Cape Town Marathon

Joe Friel - Muscle Cramps and Mythology

Sports Science Institute of South Africa

Post workout night time tea

Here’s our original post workout tea that ensures you get the maximum benefit from your workout and recover quicker.

 

The ingredients and benefits:

Green tea

Green tea is known to promote fat oxidation and improve insulin sensitivity (aids fat loss)

Green tea extract ingestion, fat oxidation, and glucose tolerance in healthy humans.

Ginger

Ginger is great for any post workout aches or pains and has an anti-inflammatory effect.

Ginger (Zingiber officinale) reduces muscle pain caused by eccentric exercise.

Cayenne Pepper

Cayenne pepper not just adds a bit zip to the tea but is possibly a good prevention tool for prostrate cancer.

Hot Cayenne kills prostate cancer cells in study

Mint

Mint is known as a powerful pain killer. Its especially good for headaches, stomach pain and breaking a fever. We added it to the tea cause it simply tastes great!

A Cup Of Brazilian Mint For Pain Relief

PnP Knysna Forest Marathon

So the PnP Knysna Forest Marathon has come and gone. What an awesome experience. Before the run I pretty much thought I had this race all summed up.

I did the proper training and tapering. I did plenty of conditioning runs on Boyes Drive in Muizenberg (hills, hills and more hills) and spoke to a few people who ran the Knysna course before.

My nutrition was good, I was stocked up on UCAN Superstarch and coconut milk which worked like a charm on the run.

I was quite surprised at how well I felt at the 30km mark and was planning to speed up and hopefully run my target time of 4h 45mins. Up until that point there were lots of uphills and downhills which I managed well. But the last 10km was mostly steep downhill and that simply killed my knees slowing me down to a crawl. At times I thought I was going to do serious damage to my knees.
I eventually finished in 5h 12mins well over my target time but I was happy to finish!

I was pretty sure that I won’t be putting myself through that next year. The more I thought about it the more I wanted to go back and conquer that course. So now I have decided to take on Knysna again next year and fix my dodgy knees.

I recently read an article that claimed that barefoot running lessens knee pain. So as part of my weekly workouts I will be adding a 5 to 7k barefoot run. I’ve done one barefoot run so far and the experience was quite enjoyable. I have to run a short while on road to get to a park near I live. Running on the grass barefoot is quite relaxing.

I found that you have to pay attention more and rarely watch where you go or risk stepping on a sharp stone or something the local dogs left behind. And running barefoot is completely unlike shod running. There is more side to side action as you can’t simply step on or over something.
Barefoot running is one the therapies I am going to try. So lets see what happens!

Show me the Fat!

When starting a Low Carb, High Fat lifestyle the focus of your diet is on the 3 macronutrients (Carbohydrate, Protein and Fat) and the quality of your food. In this article we will be looking at Fat.

The consumption of fat has been so vilified to the point where people actually have a “fat-phobia”. If your goal is weight loss then the greatest percentage of your calories should come from fat. This sounds like an easy task but in realty trying to eat 70% or more fat in relation to protein and carbohydrate can be quite challenging. In part because we have forgotten what good sources of fat are.

As always we advocate that your food be unprocessed and as close to its original source as possible.So what types of food should be considered “processed foods”?

• Canned foods
• Foods containing preservatives, colourants and flavourants.
• Foods with ingredients that you do not recognise or can’t pronounce (first find out what those items are)
• Reconstituted food products – Food that is made of up various other types of food (viennas, meat rolls)
• Any product where Fat has been removed and replaced with other ingredients (Low-Fat products)

What might these foods look like?

 

 

Back to the Fat. What does easily accessible high food fat look like?

 

Double Cream Greek Yoghurt

Double cream yoghurt is high fat and can be eaten any time. Great for breakfast and snacks. Be creative with this and mix in your favourite berries and nuts.

Sour Cream

Sour cream is also a very versatile ingredient. This is great for a base in sauces or used as a dip with some veggies or bacon.

Cream

Replace milk in your diet, which contains lactose, with fresh cream. Tastes great in coffee.

Avocado’s

Eat avocado's when they are in season. Its awesome when added to any salad.

All grass fed red meat with good fat content

 

 
As far as possible eat red meat that comes from grass fed animals. This is typically meat labelled free range.

Cheddar Cheese

 

Any cheese fits well into a low carb, high fat lifestyle. Read the nutrition label carefully and make sure the cheese you buy is preservative and additive free.

Coconut Oil

 

 

 
Coconut oil comes in 2 varieties. Extra Virgin Coconut Oil and Extra Virgin Cold Pressed Coconut Oil.
Extra Virgin Coconut Oil is great for cooking.
Extra Virgin Cold Pressed Coconut Oil is a bit more expensive than the non cold pressed variety. It does retain its coconut taste.

Almonds

Makes a good snack. But be careful with this as its easy to over consume.

Macadamia Nuts

Pecan Nuts

Olive Oil

Consume cold and do not heat. Good with salads.

Butter

 

Everything tastes great with extra butter.

Oily Fish

This includes fish such as cod, salmon, tuna and sardines

You aren't what you eat (or are you?)

After many requests we've decided to publish what we eat in a typical week.

We were a bit hesitant to do this because we firmly believe that everyone is different and therefore should eat differently. The way we eat shouldn't be a strict model for others to follow.

However having said all that we also understand that it might be useful as an example and to give people an idea as to what a Low Carb, High Fat diet looks like.

This particular week we decided to be a bit more strict with our macro-nutrient ratios. We of course are both amateur endurance runners and were planning on doing a marathon sometime next month. However we found that in our current state we are depleted of fuel after 3hrs of running. As we understand it, and we also discussed it with Professor Tim Noakes, one needs to be in a stable keto-adapted state for sustained energy.

My own ketone readings show that although I am in nutritional ketosis (>0.5 mmol/l) , the best ketone level for endurance athletes is 1.5mmol/l, (someone please fact check this for me, its quite late while I am writing this.) according to research done by Stephen Finney and Jeff Volek.

To achieve this we decided to increase the percentage of fat in our diet from about 65% to 75+%. So lets see what that looks like.

Click each image to enlarge.

Day 1
John	Wesley

Day 2
John	Wesley

Day 3
John	Wesley

Day 4
John	Wesley

Day 5
John	Wesley

Thats what we ate this week. Our goal with this plan is to get into a stable keto-genic state at a level suited for endurance athletes.

So far so good! We will do another article as we progress and focus on keto-adaption and running. We hope this information is helpful and gives you an idea as to what you can eat.