Anyone out there doing keto or Fat-enabled running as promoted by Phil Maffetone or others like him?
Thanks for your input. I’m almost 2 months into HR training and keto. Will see how it goes at my 24 hr race in Dec
Long-term keto dieting can cause quite a number of issues. It might be worth doing in the run-up to your A race(if it's an ultra) to improve your fat-burning, but be careful otherwise. At the very least, do some diligence so you know what problems to watch for ...
Don't know if I'll ever go as far as Keto but I did work to become fat adapted this summer and am really liking the results. I'm not "bonk proof" yet but maybe that takes more time. Still, I do seem to go quite a lot longer before bonking so something's working. I did successfully reduce my easy breathing pace from 12:00 to 9:30 (my Maffetone Method aerobic threshold is 136). I also lost the middle age spread and am back to my 21yo weight at the age of 44. I've never really had much of a sweet tooth or huge love for bread and pasta so perhaps it wasn't as big of a change for me as compared to others.
I'm still recovering from Sunday's marathon but once I do I'll be switching up my training to incorporate more speed and tempo runs as I've really just focused on building that aerobic base. Now that's been nicely achieved so I want to build up speed to get my easy breathing pace even lower.
To really know if it's going to work for you requires a bit of time. Most people feel really sluggish at first and especially if they bail on the aerobic base building too early. I'd say give it at least 2-3 months and never let your HR get over your aerobic threshold during that time to actually see what it does/doesn't do for you.
... I can comfortably run a 12 min mile breathing through my nose only - not working very hard. My race pace is normally around 9 minute +/- mile. However, my heart rate spikes up to 145/150 when I'm under 15 min/mile, unless I slow down to about a 17 minute mile...