It Worked!

The little pickle juice experiment was a success. So much so I now realize how much nutrition plays into the whole exercise equation. I took Da Fish's advice and stayed away from eating pickles while exercising.

Pre-Run Nutrition

Friday Night 7:00 pm
Mt. Olive pickle spears with Garlic
325 mg sodium x 5 spears = 1625 mg sodium

handful of pretzels
320 mg sodium x 1 = 320 mg sodium

Total = roughly 2 G of sodium or two tablespoons of salt.

Saturday Morning 5:00 am

Emergen-C Electro-Mix
Calcium 100 mg
Magnesium 120 mg
Manganese 2 mg
Chromium 20 mcg
Potassium 408 mg
Stevia 10 mg

Emergen-C Tangerine Multi-vitamin and multi-mineral
Sodium 60 mg
other minerals and vitamins

Nutrition on the Run
Accelerade Gels (2): sodium 200 mg, potassium 80 mg, carb 40g, protein 10g
water on the 10-mile course

Post Run Nutrition
Immediately after run and while soaking in the 68-degree Barton Springs
Kashi Chewy Ganola Bars (2): sodium 210 mg, 40 g carbs, 12 g protein
Accelerade powder (24 oz.): sodium 380 mg, potassium 130 mg, carbs 42 g, protein 10 g

Thirty minutes later at home.
Mt. Olive pickle spear (1): sodium 320 mg
Spaghetti sauce (100 g): 590 mg sodium carbs 9g, protein 1.2g + handful of crushed broccoli.
Spaghetti noodles: 1mg sodium, 43g carbs, 8g protein
V-8 8 oz.: 480 mg sodium, carbs 10g, 2g protein

I started to get somewhat of a pre-headache after eating the pasta and drinking the second glass of V-8. I get sodium headaches after eating heavily salted French fries that include too much salt. At that point I backed off eating and just drank water until the pre-headache went away which wasn't over 15 minutes. I felt great the rest of the day and the only indication I had ran was felt in my feet and a little in the knees. This was the best recovery ever. Using pee color for over or under hydration and the sodium headache as an indicator of too much sodium I should now be able to determine how much sodium I need on the long runs and what my sweat rate is and more importantly, how much and often I need to replace electrolytes. This is huge for me.

Switching To Gels

One of the TO-DO items on any runner's list prior to an endurance race is to see what their stomach can tolerate and digest. This isn't too important for a 5K and I'd say if anyone ate A N Y T H A N G before a 5K they'd be asking for it. I've eaten pretzels, Twizzlers and drank most of the major sports drinks, along with chicken soup and even a couple of beers at mile 25 of the Austin Marathon. Most of the drinks upset my stomach upon contact. One or two more than others. Accelerade didn't upset my stomach and also had the magical 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein. As I have a high sweat rate I've found I really need to take in more than just water.

Last week I ran with two NUUN vials filled full of Accelerade powder. It got me through the run better than water alone and recovery went from eight hours with just water, after a 10-mile run, to six hours of recovery using Accelerade powder. The weather conditions were the same at 6:30 am; a temperature of 80 degrees F, with 84% humidity and little to no wind. We've been in the same weather pattern all summer it seems like. So improvement with the powder.

Last weekend I ran with two Accelerade gels. I wanted to see if I could tolerate the gels as it would be easier to run with water and carry a couple of gels, rather than mixing powder on the road while running. I took one after 45 minutes and another 30 minutes later. While soaking in the 68-degree Barton Springs, I drank a little of the powder. After I got home I drank more water and ate about 15 salty potato chips and a bowl of plain red-sauce spaghetti to replace the salt. The result was a three-hour recovery. Dang! And this was after having three tequila shots the night before so I was feeling less than normal to start with. And P.S., I added a four-mile run the day before so that made the Sat. long run a little longer.

I had heard Desiree Ficker talk about dialing in her nutrition before events and I can see what she was talking about, although she has it tougher than I doing longer distance events, combined with being gluten intolerant. "I have often the thought if I could just change one thing physically about myself it would be my celiac disease or gluten intolerance and overly sensitive stomach. It has caused me much strife, said Desiree from her Web site.

I don't have celiac disease but do have a high sweat rate that causes me to lose to much of my electrolytes and a sensitive stomach for salty drinks. For the past two marathons it's been a huge problem when trying to press on past mile 20. Even for the weekend 10-mile runs it causes quite a long recovery. I think my nutrition is finally getting dialed in.

Good recovery video on YouTube. Olympian athletes ran a tempo run and then went to the stream with 60-degree water. Olympic Marathon Trials Training Camp in Mammoth Lakes, CA. 2004 Olympic Silver medalist Meb Keflezighi, Olympian Dan Browne and marathoner Josh Cox.