Dawn - Sometimes An Ultrarunner

Dawn - Sometimes An Ultrarunner

March 26, 2019

Oura Ring: Effects of Fasting and Ultrarunning on HRV and Sleep



The One Ring to Rule Them All  


I've been wearing the Oura Ring since November 2018.  I take it off for Spartan races, rock climbing and Crossfit workouts, otherwise it doesn't get in the way of doing anything.  For those of you who haven't heard of Oura, they make a wearable ring connecting via Bluetooth to your phone, which measures activity, sleep patterns, heart rate, heart rate variability, temperature, and breaths per minute, among other things.  The app on my phone then analyses the data to let me know how it all interacts to give me a readiness score, with sage advice such as "Take it easy today, you had a hard workout yesterday and you aren't recovered yet."  or "Go big, your readiness is off the charts!"

I've been wearing it long enough now to notice some trends, and want to share some data I got during a recent 5 day fast, after eating wheat for dinner one night (I don't usually), and after a 50k ultramarathon.


Fasting

It's hardly disputed that fasting can be good for the body.   Weight loss, detoxing, etc.  But now that I am recording my own statistics, I can see the effect on my sleep, heart health, and overall readiness.  I am particularly interested in Heart Rate Variability (HRV), which is the space between heartbeats.  This shouldn't be a metronome at all...healthy people have measurable variability between heartbeats.   I started fasting the evening of Mar 11 and had a small meal the evening of March 16.
My HRV climbed to about as high as I've ever seen it
My Deep Sleep usually hovers between 30-45 minutes, but reached 1 hr 30 on the 3rd night of fasting



Respiratory Rate (Breaths Per Minute) average for me is 14.1 but dropped each night while fasted

I live at 4500 feet and usually don't see 55 beats per minute unless I travel to sea level for a few days...unless I'm fasting

Heart Rate and HRV Data from a night of fasting


Effects of Food on Sleep Scores

I haven't been eating too much gluten or carbs, by following a low-carb diet and avoiding gluten when possible.  But I ate at a friend's house and couldn't turn down potatoes, pot pie and cake for dinner.   My sleep scores that night went way down from the day before, and I hadn't exercised much  or had any other reason for lower scores.  In fact I was tapering for my 50k and didn't do much at all.   Usually when I take it easy my scores go up because of the rest and recovery factor.   Not after this meal...my average HRV and max HRV both dropped significantly.

As a side note, I've actually seen this happen before when I drink alcohol, even one drink.   Alcohol has a very depressive effect on sleep and heart rate scores, and this has been commented on by many Oura ring wearers...most of them lamenting that it greatly reduces their enjoyment of alcohol, after seeing the bad effects documented on their Oura!

Scores the night before I ate gluten
Scores from after eating gluten



Post 50k Ultrarunning Scores

My 50k took me 6 hours and I was running (or hiking uphill) as fast as possible the whole time.  Red-lining, in other words.  Slight dehydration and legs very sore afterwards.  The hardest run I've done in a while.   Here's the data the ring recorded during the day of the run







A normal, average night of sleep for me

My sleep after the 50k Run, notice I didn't get any deep sleep


                                     

Here's the same data as seen on my Oura phone app


Although I've seen enough data to know that my heart rate data is going to plummet the night after a hard run, these are the worst scores I've had in 5 months of wearing the ring.   Time will tell how many days it takes to get my numbers back up to their normal levels.  

A normal HRV graph
HRV graph after the 50k

I was amazed when I saw how flat the graphs were for both Heart Rate and HRV.  

A normal resting heart rate graph
Heart Rate graph also gets very flat

Heart Rate and HRV the night after the 50k...compare to these same graphs (above) when fasting. 

But....

....a day later, so 30 hours after the race, my heart rate and HRV bounced back A LOT, and I got good sleep scores too.  So the depressed functions aren't a long term side effect but rather an immediate change which then corrects itself.  


March 25, 2019

Antelope Island Buffalo Run 50k, 23 March 2019

Sneaking through

Threading the needle

Shooting the gap

I might not have a perfect saying for the weather window that we had for this years Buffalo Run 50k.... but needless to say, we got lucky as can be.   As I was packing for the race on Friday, it was raining.   As we drove to the race on Saturday morning in the dark, it was raining.  As we sat in the car waiting for the start, it was raining.   As I sit here now with sore legs the day afterwards, it's raining.   Hard.  Is that snow?!?

But for the daylight hours of March 23rd, we had glorious, calm, cool weather perfect for a long run.  The sun might have even peeked out. 



This was Jim's first 50k, and I was so happy that he would have great weather for it.  There's really nothing worse than preparing for something and then having it affected by something out of your control.  Weather is always a factor in big races, but this time we were blessed.

The 50k on Antelope Island, Utah is two laps of a very runnable loop around the lower slopes of snow-covered Frary Peak.   On our training run the week before, the trails had been perfectly dry, but lots of rain this week brought made them muddy, a little slippery, and all the snow was gone.



I was treating this like a very fast race, and went out with no pack, no food, and just a empty bottle in my pocket with my powdered homemade drink mix.   I think of it as rocket fuel.    It was cool and cloudy so I wore a shirt and arm warmers too.  I don't overheat easily so that would be fine for the first loop.   Each loop was 3 equal sections between aid stations.   I was hydrated so I didn't need any water on the first section, and even though it was uphill, I managed to run most of the gentle gradient.  Five women passed me at that point, and although I kept them in sight for half the race, there was no reeling them back in.

At the first aid station, I filled up my bottle and set off on the tough middle section, a nice mile and a half down hill and then switch backs up again.  I was wearing Merrill Barefoot shoes for the first time in a race (or at all for that matter!)  I had tested them in a Spartan race, liked them, and worn them hiking once.   They are so light that my foot turnover felt so easy.   I ran a 7:05 mile down that next mile, which for me is amazingly fast.    My average speed over an ultra is about 11- 12 minute miles.   I even managed to run a lot of the gentle switchbacks back up again. 

As I headed back down to finish the first half, a buffalo ran in front of me!   They had been out in force this morning, but mostly just standing or laying around.  This one was running, faster than I could run, and crossed the trail.  I played it safe and stopped well back to give it space.  Jeez, they are big...I waited until it went over the hill, and then tried to have eyes in the back of my head to make sure it didn't loop back around and run after me. 

The last section back down to the start/finish is VERY runnable, and I was feeling great this year, finishing the first 25k loop over 15 minutes faster than my time last year.   I think a little bit of anemia was slowing me down then.   At the midpoint, I tossed my shirt, hat and arm warmers, drank the last of my water and took a couple Essential Amino Acid tablets and other supplements.   I grabbed a new empty bottle of drink mix and was out of there within a minute.

Thirsty.  I took off knowing that I should have stopped and drank a little more, but felt confident that I could make it another hour to next aid station.   I walked a little more of the hill this time around, and could feel soreness creeping into my legs. 

It felt amazing to fill my bottle, and I set off with a 1/2 liter of water.  I drank half of that almost immediately, and ran a 7:17 mile down that same section, which still amazed me as my legs were now pretty sore.   My water ran out on the switchbacks, which I now had to walk as I was feeling winded, tired, and thirsty.   My legs no longer had that "spring" which had allowed me to dodge puddles, hop over rocks, and avoid trail hazards.    The next few miles stretched out into agony.

The aid station appearing was a relief.  Until I walked up and they said they had run out of water!  More coming but I couldn't afford to wait.  Ouch.   Thirsty and dry.   The girl there poured my bottle half full from her personal water bottle, and they had plenty of soda so I ran off with a can of Coke.   I drank a little, filled up my bottle, smashed the can and put it in my shorts pocket.  Yes, it fit 'cuz I had huge pockets in my Gypsy Runner shorts

Then I started looking for Jim.  According to my calculations, if we were both on pace for our goals, we would meet up just after this aid station.  Sure enough, there he was, powering up the hill with his poles!    He was feeling tired, but moving well, and happy with his race so far.

I now had 5 miles left and less than an hour to make my 6 hour goal.   My quads and calves hurt, my lung were burning, and I knew I would make it only if my brain could force my tired legs to keep going.   I had to walk the last short uphill and then I could run all the way to the finish.  Unfortunately I found myself just in front of a guy making the worst phlegm sounds I've ever heard.  I didn't know if he was having a baby or hacking up a lung!  I couldn't get ahead of him walking on the hill,  and I couldn't shake him running the last few miles either.   You know who you are, blue shirt, blue hat guy!

I couldn't slow down and let him pass me, so I suffered through his hawking and snorting and spitting almost all the way to the finish.   I wasn't sure I could make it under 6 hours, but then saw the cars and had 12 minutes left and knew I had it.  Barely.  I finished in 5:58:36.

A whole group of apprentice massage therapists had their tables set up at the finish.  I ate twizzlers and drank root beer (awful I know) and then got a massage.  It got all my muscles loosened up a little as I waited for Jim to finish.  He came in a full 12 minutes ahead of his goal pace and ran all the way to the finish line.   Amazing!


I didn't carry my phone this race, so I borrowed some photos from the Wasatch Mountain Wrangler's Facebook page.  Thanks everyone, nice photos!



March 24, 2019

Fuel and Supplements for Endurance Racing


Let me say that I was first an ultra marathon/adventure junkie, and I'm now getting my master’s in nutrition and functional medicine.    It’s been a learning process, and how much do I wish that I had a lot of this information when I was doing the my Ironman Triathlons, 5-Day Adventure Races, and the Red Bull X-Alps!    I’ve been refining my fueling strategies for 15 years now, but just in the last couple of years, I’ve had some great breakthroughs in what works consistently, time after time.    Last fall, after I qualified for the Spartan World Championships in Tahoe, I raced the Beast on Saturday (14 miles) and then the Ultra Beast on Sunday (30 miles).  I finished respectably on Saturday, but then came back on Sunday to win my division by over 3 hours, against women who hadn’t raced the day before.  More importantly, I felt amazing the last few miles of the race, and only ate 900 calories during the 9 hours I was doing the Ultra Beast.    What I did though, was make sure every calories I took in, was of the highest quality I could get, and added some key supplements to keep my stomach happy and my muscles going strong.   

Of course there’s a hundred different nutrition strategies and supplements you could go after, but I’ll just point out a few that will have the most bang for your buck, and help you recover and go harder the next day while feeling fresh. 

There are three macronutrients, we’re all familiar with them; fat, protein, and carbohydrates.    Your goal in training and especially a long race, should be to get the highest quality of each that you can buy, so that there is less waste for the digestive system to process, and then more of what you need gets delivered right to your working muscles.


PROTEIN

The body breaks down the protein we eat into amino acids, which it then uses to make the proteins we need to support our body functions.   The proteins in food aren’t very well absorbed, with eggs being the highest (49% of protein absorbed, the rest as nitrogen waste) and most whey protein powders and BCAAs being the lowest (17% down to just 1%).  That’s a lot of waste products the body has to deal with.   See graph below.

It’s now possible to get all of your protein needs from a pill.   They are called Essential Amino Acids, and they come in the right formulation that just 30 grams of them in a day is all the protein building blocks that you need.   This is what the Tour de France riders use to come back stronger every day.      These EAAs come in pill form or powder to be mixed into a drink.  I would advise 5-10 grams a day on training days, and a full 30 grams each day of a long race.    There's a great article by Ben Greenfield (below) explaining why they are so amazing.

What's the Difference Between Protein Sources?
Quality, quality and quality.
  • The chart illustrates the Amino Acid Utilization (AAU™) that PerfectAmino offers, dramatically greater than dietary protein sources.
    • At the low end of the spectrum are branched chain amino acids – only 1% of their content is utilized by the body with 99% resulting in waste that your body must then process and eliminate.
    • Whey and soy proteins – only 18% or less of their content is utilized by the body with 83% leaving as waste.
    • Food like meat, fish and poultry fare a bit better with 32% being absorbed and 68% being wasted.
    • Eggs are the winners in the food stakes with 48% being utilized and 52% converted to waste.

    Now compare those numbers to PerfectAmino – a massive 99% is put to work by the body, with only 1% leaving as waste. Not only that, but PerfectAmino is absorbed by the body within 23 minutes! And there is only 0.4 of a calorie per tablet.



  • https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/article/how-to-use-amino-acids-supplements/




FATS

I follow a mostly keto / low-carb diet with some higher carb refeed days.     I think for longevity it’s a good thing, because it controls blood sugar and insulin and that is a key factor in overall health.  However, if you are thinking about this type of eating and have a big event coming up, be careful to start it early enough to be fully adapted.  A couple of months minimum and 3-4 months would be even better.

Regardless of your normal eating habits, what you can do during a race is give yourself high quality, quick digesting fats.   The rest of the time, I do advise adding in more good fats (olive oil, avocado, coconut oil, meats) and avoiding anything with corn oil, canola oil, or anything deep fat fried, especially 48 hours before the race.  Bad fats will make you slow and sluggish.  

MCT oil is a super quick digesting derivative of Coconut oil.  The liquid form can be hard on the digestion, however in powdered form, which is easier to store anyway, it seems to work amazing during my races with no gut issues at all.  

CARBOHYDRATES

So I don’t eat many carbs normally, I think regulating my insulin will help keep me feeling better in the long term.  Before a big race, for a few days, I will add in good carbs like white rice and sweet potato, not tons of it but just enough to top off my glycogen stores.    These are two great carb sources in between multi day events, too.   

The morning of and during my races, I use UCAN super starch, this product is a super long chain of carbs which digest slowly and don’t spike your insulin, meaning you won’t have a sugar crash during your race.   They come in bars or powder, I use both. Peanut butter chocolate bars tastes the best, but the cinnamon bars don’t melt, I carry them racing as they survive better.   I use the powder in my drink mix, comes in a bunch of flavors.

The science behind UCAN is amazing.    https://www.generationucan.com/superstarch/





I mix up my own race drink mix, which includes:

UCAN powder
Essential Amino Acid powder
MCT oil powder
Electrolytes  (Skratch, OSMO, or Wilderness Athlete).  Get something low in sugar and high in the actual electrolytes. 
Colostrum (see below)  

Get a small funnel and mix a serving of each item into disposable plastic water bottles.  It’s chalky and hard to clean out of a container otherwise.  Do NOT mix ahead of time, drink within a few hours of adding the water.   I 

It tastes meh, but not horrible.   Word to the wise, get complementary flavors of everything you mix together.  I’ve found it all in Berry flavors, whereas chocolate with lime with raspberry doesn’t really go well together!     

If you want to get a premix, try this one.  I haven’t used it yet as it’s a new product but all the ingredients are what I was mixing up myself, although the carbs aren’t UCAN but a similar sort.

Perfect Aminos Power Meal


Colostrum

The biggest issue I’ve had in my history of racing is gut problems.  You drink too much, eat too much of the wrong things, and your stomach is sloshing and you are forced to walk.  The biggest help has been colostrum.  I load with it in capsule form for a week before a big race, then mix powder into my race mix too.  Voila, my stomach is happier.   It coats the stomach and keeps the intestines happy.   Read about it below. 



Rocket Fuel

I also carry little baggies of pills in my pocket during my races.   In these baggies I carry Spirulina, Essential Amino Acid tablets, Enzymes, Colostrum tablets, Electrolyte chews and capsules, Caffeine Mints, Alt Red Nitric Oxide supplements, Qualia Mind capsules and whatever else I have at the moment that might keep me alert, strong, and quick.   I swallow or chew a handful every couple of hours.


So, that's about all I eat even during long races.    By all means, I eat a potato chip at an aid station if I am craving them, but mostly I alternate my homemade drink mix with my supplement baggies and UCAN bars, and have run up to 9 hours.  For multi-day events you will want a real meal occasionally.    I never seem to get as hungry as I think I will, and now I trust that I really don't need that much.  I once packed 10,000 calories a day of food for a 5 day event (!), and brought most of it home afterwards.    I don't have a long event on the horizon now, but if I did, I think I could be fine with just a few thousand calories and my gut would be happier too.




Daily Vitamins and Minerals

Ok, then a few basic supplements and vitamins, that as an athlete are fairly important.   The best thing you could do apart from this, is find a Functional Medicine doctor who will give you a basic blood test and suggest other supplements based on those results, like Iron and B Vitamins.


Vitamin D & K

Get your blood checked if you are curious, ask for the 25-OH Vitamin D test.   You should aim for your level to be above 50.   Regardless, just take 5000 IU in the morning every day, especially in the winter.  D and K are important vitamins in the body for many reasons.  

Magnesium

Magnesium is absolutely essential for athletes.  Most people are deficient in it.  It helps with so many body functions you can’t list them all, including muscle cramps.  It will also help you sleep better.   Absolutely essential.  Take 2 every evening from now until the race ends.    Magnesium Malate, Magnesium Threonate, or Magnesium w/SRT, don’t get other forms as they can give you diarrhea!


Multivitamin

There’s a lot of minor micronutrients that it’s easiest to get in a multivitamin.  Here’s the best one money can buy at the moment, it’s worth it to start a bottle of it the month before a big race.   3 in the morning, 3 in the evening.  

Creatine

Science says that everyone should supplement with creatine.   Take 5 grams a day, half in the morning half in the evening.   Don’t load it, you don’t need to cycle on and off, that’s a myth.   5 grams a day will keep you topped off and help with strength, recovery and muscle mass.  


Beets

Nitric Oxide is a vasodilator, which is super important during races.   Eat lots of beets if you can tolerate them.  If not, try a powder or pill.  Load for a week before a race, and then take some during the race too.  I don’t have a favorite brand yet, they come in pills or powder, 


This company claims that it's the red color of beets that give an athletic advantage, and have the studies to back it up


Enzymes

Enzymes speed up chemical reactions in the body.  In some cases, reactions without enzymes would take a million years, but with them, take microseconds.   Enzymes help with digestion (those big meals at night during the race) but on an empty stomach they also help with recovery, wound healing, and aches and pains.   I would take 5 every morning of the race, and 5 more before your big meals.    They will also help you recover from injuries faster.  I personally take 30 a day when I’m injured and heal up super fast.  Here’s the best money can buy, and quality matters with enzymes.




Spirulina and Chlorella

Algae.  Packed with vitamins and minerals and amino acids and omega 3s.    Amazing superfood.    Spirulina is good for exercise, Chlorella is great for recovery.  This is where fish get the Omega 3's, so you can get it straight from the source without eating the fish or fish oil.  You can take them separately, or get them together.  Either way, take about 75 of these tablets a day a multi-day event or long race.   Haha you think I’m kidding but that’s what I would do if I were racing something long, or doing a backpacking trip.    So beneficial.   





Ok, if you’ve read all the way down here, you may have sticker shock from the amount of things in your amazon cart, and you will feel like you are taking a handful of pills morning and night.  My husband complained about all of this too…until he started feeling better, sleeping better, and racing double Spartans on the weekend with me while feeling stronger than ever.  Oh, and he’s over sixty so that’s no mean feat.    The truth is that the food we eat these days doesn’t have the amount of nutrients it used to, and we are subject to toxins like never before.  Not to mention the amount of stress put on the body with long days of vigorous exercise.  The few hundred dollars for supplements will pay you back in spade during the race as you are stronger, recovering faster, and going harder at the end than your competitors.  

You notice I haven’t said a lot about what you could actually eat beyond a drinkable mix during races.   You have to experiment with foods that you like that are easy on your gut.    These days, steak and sweet potato or sushi as a meal the night before a race works well for me.   Everyone thinks of carb loading with a huge plate of pasta, but that can be hard on the gut.   The more high quality stuff you can eat while racing, the less junk you will need to eat otherwise.  That plate of pasta will just clog up your digestion, and you won’t sleep as well which means you won’t recover as well.    That being said, go with your own experience and don’t try anything exotic.  Eat when you are hungry and drink electrolyte water.   

Here’s my blog post from 6 months ago, which says some of the same things and adds a few more too.   Notice I've cut out some of the expensive stuff like Vespa and HVMN Ketone Ester....doesn't mean they don't work and I might try them again someday, but unless you are doing the basic supplements first,  I don't think these are worth the expense.  


Happy Racing!  


March 21, 2019

Spartan Las Vegas, Mar 9-10, 2019



Coming back for a second year to race in Mesquite was for a measure of redemption.   This time last year, I was a bit anemic, not very good at obstacles, and in fact this was only my second Spartan race ever.   What was I thinking back then, racing in the Elite category?   I got schooled.   Since then, I've raced another 18 Spartan races and obstacles are no longer a problem.  I enjoy the challenge of the harder obstacles and I practice the spear throw in the backyard.

This year, I brought some friends!   Michelle and her daughter Emily, Karen and her son Micah, and Jim and I all did the Sprint on Saturday.    I set off first, with the goal of finishing my Age Group lap so that I could run again in an hour with everyone else.  Karen was next off in her age group.  She would hurt her hand and wrist part way through the race, and end up doing burpees for what should have been some easier obstacles....she did 220 burpees by the time she finished, and she was beat up.  But, she still won her age group!    This was one her second Spartan, the first being a Beast some years ago.   She was very happy to limp up to the podium to get her 1st place medal!

But I didn't know any of this yet, as I set off on lap one.   The course took us out to the Virgin River, which was still flooded from recent rains and snow, although the high water line was another three feet higher still!   We didn't actually go into the river (good call Spartan) and skirting the edge of it got us enough mud and water without being swept downstream in a flood.   Much muddier than last year (I heard that the Hurricane Heat participants last night earned their coins by digging the Atlas Balls out of the floodplain where they had gotten buried).  We didn't do the Atlas ball carry, needless to say!



The route was backward from last year, thank goodness, the dunk wall was near the end.    The hills were too, stacked up with the bucket carry and the rope climb.  I almost slid back down the rope, but gritted my teeth and got to the top.   No burpees and a bloody knee.   46 minutes for 3.7 miles.


Sprint Round 2

A quick stop at registration and I had my second timing chip and headband, so I found Jim, Emily, Michelle, and Micah.  We set off with the next wave of Open racers and suddenly I was in a race again but not racing.  It was kinda fun!    Jim and Michelle took off ahead with some extra energy, but Emily, Micah and I stayed together for the whole race.  This was their first Spartan Sprint and they seemed to be really enjoying it.   I enjoyed watching them do burpees a few times for missing the spear and the rope climb, but otherwise they were great on the obstacles.



Jim, Karen, Tom, and Michelle were cheering us on at the finish, and we shared stories and war wounds.   Karen had the best by far, sheesh!    Michelle had that look in her eye like she had just gotten the Spartan bug too.  She's already signed up for her next race, in the Age Group this time!  Everyone stuck around to watch Karen get her first place finish, and I ended up 2nd so I was happy with that.


Spartan Super

On Sunday, Jim, Sylvia and I raced the Super.  It was about 8.5 miles, and turned out to be a very runnable course.   Sylvia had raced Elite with me last year on this course, but wanted to do it for fun this time.  This was still only her second Spartan race.   She floated around the course, chatted with me before the rope climb, did 120 burpees, and seemed to be in no hurry at all....yet still beat my time by 13 seconds!   She's a world class runner who will compete in the Olympic Marathon Trials this time next year.   I keep saying she could be a very Elite Spartan competitor if she really wants to be...

Jim finished looking beat after back to back races, but was happy to get the spear and climb the rope and keep running through to the end.   His first race was this one last year, and I thought that might be his last!  But he really likes them now, and also likes finishing 1st or 2nd in his age group most of the time.

I was second again, by just a few seconds this time, but mostly happy that this was my 4th race in a row with no burpees.  I might forget how to do them!   Oh, but no, Crossfit training sessions will always have me do more....

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