Episode 452: High Carb - My First 8-Weeks

After using a low carbohydrate for 14 years over my ultramarathon racing career, I decided for my next 100 mile training cycle and race, to try high carb. I outline why and how the first 8-weeks have gone.

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Timestamps/Topics:

00:00 Introduction, Subscriptions & Sponsors

01:53 Training & Nutrition Recap

02:52 Switching to Higher Carbohydrate Diet

05:19 Approach, Goals & Assessment

09:00 Early Experiences After Diet Change

13:24 Adjusting Carb Sources & Digestion

14:27 Impact on Workouts: Intervals & Hill Repeats

18:06 Observations on Easy & Base Runs

21:45 Long Runs & In-Session Fueling

27:00 Performance, Predictability & Future Experimentation

31:00 Typical Day of Nutrition & Schedule

36:01 Update Schedule & Final Thoughts

37:00 Sponsor Usage

40:35 Outro & Thanks

Episode Transcript:

Alright, everyone, welcome back to another podcast episode. For this one, I am going to dive into some training and nutrition recap over the past couple months and just fill everyone in on how things are progressing in the training and kind of race outlook coming up. So after I fully recovered from my Achilles tendonitis issue that I had earlier this year, I started getting my training volume back up from the running side of the input back to kind of into maybe the lower end of the average ranges that I would hit from, like weekly volume and started kind of shifting some of the bike volume I'd been doing prior to that, more towards running. And as I was kind of getting to that spot where I was ready to put a timeline down, at least in terms of what I thought would be reasonable to build up for another 100 miler. I was just organizing how I wanted to make that look and what I wanted to kind of do along the side of that. So one major change I decided to make for this next 100 mile training cycle was to try out a moderate to high carbohydrate diet in an effort to essentially be able to tolerate more carbohydrate during the race itself. A few reasons for that. One is I have never done a 100 miler with a moderate to high carbohydrate approach. I've been doing low carbohydrates for 14 years, and when I switched over to that back in 2011, I had only done 50 milers in ultramarathon racing and things like that. So my experience with moderate high carbohydrates previously were more lined up with the kind of more traditional distances that I would have raced in, like high school, college, and then some of those early ultramarathons of the 50 mile distance. So it's been a while. I've never tried it for a 100 mile race. So some of it just curiosity, especially with some of the new changes that we've seen in terms of how athletes are stressing in race, carbohydrate consumption as well as the different products on the market now that are possibly, maybe a little more beneficial in terms of how we're able to use those to get up to some of these numbers that we're seeing people do. And I thought, why not give it a try? One of the things that I remember thinking when I switched to low carbohydrate back in 2011 is, hey, if it doesn't work, I don't like it. I can always switch back. So I'm sort of taking that same mindset with this one. There's really only one way to find out. So I'm going to give it a go. See how my body responds to it. Report to you to see how that goes and let you know kind of what I'm thinking, how I'm feeling, and how that all goes, and dive into it and see what happens. So for those of you interested, I did write up a kind of article on this on my Substack. So if you head over to my Substack, I'll link that in the show notes. You can see the written version of that if you want, or if you're curious and you're maybe a little newer to my prior protocols. I do have an episode series that outlines kind of how I used low carbohydrate, and how I realized that throughout the different training inputs that I'll typically do when outlining a full build up towards something like a 100 mile ultramarathon. So I'll also link that video series in the show notes, video and audio series, its podcast, and YouTube in the show notes. So if you're interested in going and checking that out because you're either curious and trying low carbohydrate, learning more about it, hearing how I did it and get my perspective on that, that'll be available as well. So. A few things to kind of kick things off. Here is the way I'm looking at this is I want to pay attention to a few things, because I think a lot of times with these things, we look at things through the lens of like performance, performance, performance, which I get, especially when we're in the world of like professional athleticism and things like that, where lifestyles are totally controlled around optimizing training, optimizing nutrition, optimizing into race, fueling strategies and things like that. And, you know, the competitive pressure in some events nowadays just is such that you're living a lifestyle that you're pushing the fringe of what is probably considered healthy in a lot of cases in order to reach maximum performance and things like that. So I kind of want to share where my perspective is with this in relation to how I want to kind of assess this input versus what I had been doing prior, and maybe ultimately guide how I use it. If I use it, what combination of what I've done in the past and what I'm going to be doing now kind of lines up with my own kind of views with that. So performance is definitely one of them. I think I do want to try to take a shot at running a faster 100 mile than I ever have before, and I think I probably have a few years left, so realistically do that. So I want to try to make sure I am trying everything I can to optimize that, whether that be through newer shoe tech, dietary strategies, and make sure that I am also sort of evolving along with the sport as we learn more and, you know, at least giving things a shot that I think have the potential to maybe yield a little bit of an additional benefit purely through the performance lens. Outside of that, I really want to make sure that the way I structure any dietary input is sustainable in the sense that I feel like, all right, I can do this without too much trouble to the degree where I feel like my compliance can be met without taking up a bunch of extra time and attention away from other things I like to do. So I want to assess how that is going along the way. Like, is this something that I feel like I can stick to the optimal strategy within it, close enough that it's just something I can. Rely upon doing over and over again if I choose to. In future races and things like that. And then the third thing is just kind of quality of life and health outside of performance and outside of just the actual sustainability of being able to do it and adhere to it. So things like how I am feeling over the day when I'm doing the other things that are non-training and racing related like recording podcasts, coaching, responding to emails, doing consultation calls, socializing, all that sort of stuff. So I want to make sure that I'm not necessarily like doing things nutritionally that make one aspect great and other aspects terrible, or at least finding where that may be. Net benefit is in total. So generally speaking, the way I view any changes, dietary or even with training inputs is to view them as sort of opportunity costs in the sense that you could always be doing something different. So it's not always about what did this do for you, but what would something else have done if you had done that? Would that yield a better result? Or another way I like to look at it is none of these things are going to be all like 100% positive or 100% negative. Oftentimes these things will have strengths and weaknesses and ultimately become the combination of those strengths and weaknesses paired to the individual and their lifestyle. That likely will determine which input is going to give them the best out of that for whatever their goals are, whether that be performance, quality of life, health, things like that. So. I've been doing it now for eight weeks, so I have some kind of introductory details to share and experiences to share. I do want to dive in deeper on this as I go along the way with things that are maybe a little more objective, like getting blood draws or doing some fat oxidation tests, finding out kind of where those have changed and things like that. So people can kind of know some more specifics versus just kind of where I see them going and like the training data and my and then my self-reported state of well-being, so to speak. So I will plan on doing some of that. I want to wait until 12 weeks to do a blood draw, just so I have enough time in the diet to be able to maybe accurately reflect what it's doing in a little bit more of a longer duration thing versus, you know, just like, you know, switching this for like, say, a week and then getting a blood draw and trying to make some sort of comparator with that. So in a future episode, I'll kind of report back with some of that stuff. And you can, you can take a look and see if I'm doing a bunch of damage, or maybe I'm optimizing or whatever happens to be in terms of how those blood panels look. I also think that sort of information might be useful for me, too, in terms of determining the different types of inputs. Uh, one thing I've always said, kind of with the low carbohydrate diet, which I think is also true with high carbohydrates, is we are spoiled with options. So there's plenty of different ways you can organize the different inputs to hit the macronutrient totals you're looking for. So if something looks like I'm lacking and I can just change some inputs, maintain the macro profile, I'm totally open to that. So I want to kind of make sure I'm monitoring that along the way too, and make sure I'm checking all the right boxes and giving this an actual best case scenario when it comes to just kind of how that side of things works, too. So that'll be a future episode. Uh. Now let's just jump into some things here. So like I would say, the first thing I noticed and I anticipated some transition there in terms of just kind of like changing the food inputs by a pretty drastic degree, that it wouldn't just be like smooth sailing out the gate. I figured there'd be some playing around at the individual level, finding out what preferences I have when the foundation of my diet is carbohydrate versus fats and learning kind of what that's going to be, and that would probably take a little bit of time. So the first couple weeks, I noticed that one of the biggest things that I needed to just adjust was like carbohydrate sources and their fiber content. A lot of the carbohydrate sources that you find that in the general kind of health and fitness space are considered like healthy options tend to be like fruits and vegetables and things like that. And those types of carbohydrate sources oftentimes come with quite a bit of fiber. And when you are living a lifestyle like I am, where I might have at times. To 20 hours of training volume per week when you add up running, cycling, strength work, any accessory work, mobility and all that stuff. So I carry a pretty high energy output for my size and you know, that can be 2 to 3 times my resting metabolic rate. So if I'm just eating a bunch of quote unquote, like healthy whole carbohydrate source foods, it just doesn't feel comfortable for me. It feels like I get full way earlier than I would like to in order to hit the totals I'm trying to get to from a caloric intake standpoint and just digestive. It doesn't feel great. Um, you know, it's just like, I don't really want to tolerate feeling like I'm constantly digesting food and tolerate having to go to the bathroom a bunch more times than I would have in the past and things like that. And that's certainly not going to be something that is inconsequential from a performance standpoint either. You know, if I'm out there chasing a fast 100 mile time, I'm running for, you know, historically 11 to 12 hours, you want to have that stuff all dialed in in a way where that's not becoming a limiter on that into. So the first couple of weeks, I sort of recognized that some of those carbohydrate sources I needed to limit and replace with ones that were a little more refined or a little lower in fiber. So I subbed out a lot of the fruits in more kind of tuberous vegetables for things like white rice, honey, uh, sourdough bread. And then with intra workout fueling, I was actually getting a little more calories in than I normally would because I'm just doing more carbohydrate fueling during training sessions. So, uh, those are all very refined sources. There are a lot of sports products and things like that. So just kind of like lining that stuff up. I will give you some examples of what that looks like at the end of the episode. I'll actually go through kind of like an example of what a typical weekday might look like in terms of like, kind of what I'm doing over the course of a weekday, as well as when and what and where. I'm kind of putting the food inputs from this type of stuff in there, and kind of give everyone an insight of just where the starting point is here. Uh, before I get to that, though, I just want to kind of run through the, the experience outside of just kind of the simple input adjustments to try to find that sweet spot that so far, I think I found a pretty good spot in terms of how it feels, in terms of can I stick to this without too much trouble and does it feel good digestive? Or how does that impact me? But again, like I was saying before, that may change as I get more information specifically with things like blood draws and stuff in the future. Um. So one of the spots I'll start with here from a reflection standpoint is just kind of the workouts. So I've been very fortunate over these first eight weeks that I'm in a stage of training where I'm doing a wide variety of different types of intensities along the aerobic intensity spectrum. So everything from like easy runs to bass runs that can be like high end of zone two, maybe a little bit in a zone three at times short intervals that I'll usually do kind of right around near my VO2 max or long intervals that'll do around lactate threshold and then some long runs and things like that. So I've sort of had opportunities to test a pretty wide range of different things and get an idea of how my body's feeling during those, or how things have changed during those, versus what I would have normally sensed when I was doing a lower carbohydrate input. So I'll share some of that. Um, the intervals were probably the most interesting one, but also perhaps maybe the more predictable thing where I think when we look at things higher on the aerobic intensity spectrum with short intervals and long intervals, most people would assume that a higher carbohydrate input is going to improve the performance of those. And I definitely did notice that, uh, one example I had that was maybe a little more surprising than I expected was I've got this hill here in Austin that I'll use for, uh, interval sessions, and I'll use you, I'll use it for a variety of different intensities. Um, but I have a lot of data on it. I have, like, just under 200 reps from workouts on that. And I can kind of look back and see when I'm targeting this intensity and these conditions. What type of pace am I hitting on that hill? Repeat. And the hill itself is about a quarter of a mile long, between 9 to 10% incline. So I went out and I did a session there where I did eight reps of that with an easy recovery jog down. And when I do a workout like that, I go in with the goal of this is the intensity I'm going to target for those reps. And then I look at the data afterwards so that I'm sort of normalizing perceived effort and then using seeing what the data says or shifts how the data shifts to kind of guide whether I'm heading in the right direction or not. So when I got back after that workout, I didn't expect it to necessarily be anything great, because I would say going into the workout, I felt average to maybe a pinch below average as to what I would normally feel like going into a session like that. But when I looked at the data, not only did I have my fastest split ever on that climb, all eight of those reps were faster than my prior fastest one. So that was, you know, pretty surprising. Uh, my fastest rep, I think, was about four seconds quicker on that roughly quarter mile, 9 to 10% incline hill. And then like I mentioned, the other seven were also between 1 to 3 seconds faster than my last fastest split prior to that. So a little thing that's probably worth considering here too, is this is the first training block I've done where I've maintained consistency in terms of having bike programming in, and I had a huge foundational base of biking to where, when I was at the beginning of the Achilles tendinitis issue, I was doing everything on the bike and putting in weeks, like about 15 hours on the bike in some cases. So I do think that my climbing has gotten a lot stronger, and it's likely to do a lot to the bike, the biking and the mechanics that are specific to that versus what it would be like on an uphill versus, say, like improvements that would translate from that over to like more flat running. So it's possible that some or a good chunk of that improvement was just from like the training specificity differences on this build versus ones I've done in the past. That would make up for some of that. But again, generally speaking, I think we would expect to see a little bit better performance at that intensity and that type of a workout structure. So that that seemed to be something that was like maybe a, you know, a check in the box of, okay, if I want to put in a high, if I want to put it in like high quality short interval work or something like that, that's maybe where you'd see a benefit here with the different dietary approach targeting higher carbohydrate. Uh, the other ones were really interesting to me, like the easy runs and the base runs specifically. It was something where when I would start these runs, I'd get up to speed a little bit quicker. And what I mean by that is like when I was low carb, I would notice. It would take me maybe a little bit longer to kind of warm up and get into the kind of the pace or the intensity that I was targeting for that session. Once I got there, it was very durable, like I'd gotten there and I felt like I could just sit there forever, as long as it wasn't super hot and I was neglecting hydration and electrolytes and things like that. It felt very predictable, very durable, not a lot of change. I didn't have a lot of dips, a lot of highs and lows. It was just pretty flatline with the higher carbohydrate. I felt like I could get up into the goal intensity really, really quickly. And then once I was there, it would be a little more sporadic where I'd get these moments where I would just feel like going faster, where at times I would be just basically paying a little closer attention to pace so that I didn't exceed what my goal was for the training session. And I have to kind of monitor that a little bit closer or on the other end. Every once in a while, I would feel like, oh, just for whatever reason, my legs feel like they got a little heavier and I'm working a little harder to maintain the pace I was hitting prior. And those would happen like in a lot quicker timeframes. It wouldn't be like this gradual degradation or gradual rise up, like what I would sometimes see with lower carbohydrates, where the changes were more subtle and kind of more drawn out. Uh, in terms of what I did about it, if it was something where I was feeling compelled to maybe go faster than I should, it was just kind of monitoring myself and making sure I didn't do that. On the other hand, I noticed if it was like a shorter run, if I just did like a brief acceleration or like a stride or something like that, it seemed to pretty much normalize that. If it were something like a little bit of a longer run, where I'm less likely to just randomly throw in strides and things like that, uh, I found like that was just probably a sign of, you know, given your dietary inputs. Now, this would be the optimal time to maybe take in some carbohydrate. So in those scenarios, I would do that if I wasn't already doing it. And I'll get to that in a bit here when I talk about the long run stuff. But that seemed to normalize it as well. So if I wanted to kind of summarize that one, I would say, like, performance wise things are great. Um, can't complain about it logistically. And just predictability, predictability wise, it's maybe a little less convenient, uh, with kind of those less, uh, less like long, drawn out, subtle changes. Um, to the degree that that matters is probably just dependent on the person in terms of what they're willing to tolerate that for me, like at this point, I haven't really found any compelling reason to not tolerate it. If I'm feeling good on the runs and things like that. I am curious on how that will play out over the course of longer runs, as I get into more kinds of ultra specific long runs and then ultimately race to, uh, because that could have a cognitive repercussion to it. If I feel like I'm burning a bunch of mental energy just trying to manage those logistics and manage those, like maybe more sporadic changes in kind of how my, my perceived effort is feeling at a given pace. So another thing, I'm going to kind of keep an eye on, a close eye on based on that, that initial experience with that. Next is the long run. So this is one where I need to get more data on. I have the least amount of data at least specific to kind of like my ultra running peaking phase. I do have quite a few just traditional long runs, which are typically for me, like, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of like two hours, two hours and 15 minutes or so in the neighborhood of like 20 miles, uh, is usually a good end point when I'm just building out my my traditional long run versus my ultra specific long run. And for that, I just need to kind of gather a little more information to probably give a really more clear idea of what I have. I do have some experience though, so I'll share what I've seen so far with that, with the mindset of to be determined in terms of like some of this stuff, or maybe it's a little bit less bolstered with as many experiences with it. Um, the long runs have felt when I'm loading up on carbohydrates, that it is just a little bit more smooth in the faster end of the target range for that. So if I'm pushing into like the mid six minute per mile pace or at times low six minute mile pace in those types of sessions. I feel like it's just a little more smooth. Like, I don't feel like there's a shift there. It's just like, kind of getting a little bit faster and I don't really notice too much change in my perceived effort, which has been very nice. So to some degree, like you start stacking those on, maybe get more quality runs at a little bit of a faster pace, which you would hope would yield a faster average 100 mile pace in the best case scenario there. Um, digestive. It hasn't been too problematic yet. I haven't noticed, like, oh, I'm feeling like my stomach is really upset with the fact that I'm, like, forcing away more carbohydrate than I would in the long run in the, in prior. Uh, but it is not at a point yet where I would be very confident about, like, okay, if you take that and you five exit for the duration, you're going to be out there for a hundred miles. It's just going to stay. Okay. Um, actually, if anything, I would predict that I have more work to do in terms of training my gut and getting it used to the inputs that I'm going to need to do on race day to make that not potentially become a problem for me, because when you look at it historically for a 100 mile race, when I was low carb, I'd be targeting around 40g of carbohydrate per hour, you know, maybe a little bit more in some cases. My best performance came right at about 40g per hour. So given the context of this next one, I'm probably going to need to get closer to 80g as sort of a baseline. And then if I want to get really curious, I could test higher and try to get up into some of these like larger inputs. But I think like 80 is probably the spot where I need to get to. And then above that maybe is a bonus, but 80 is what I'm thinking about. Again. If I can get in and get into some fat oxidation test and kind of get an idea of where my fat carbohydrate metabolism is at. Comparative to the goal pace. I'm going to target. Then I'll have a little more specific data. So that's something that I can talk about in the future when I have that information. But again, I want to kind of get a little further into the approach before I go and collect that data, because that is a moving target to some degree. So, uh, generally speaking, the closer to race day I can get that the better the accuracy would be. Um, although to the degree that I need to do it that close, if I don't change a lot, I probably don't. So there could be some value out of getting it a little bit sooner. So I have those numbers and can work with them in training a little more specifically. Or it could get multiple to so but again those are things I just don't have yet. So I'll be working on those and do those in a future episode. But just for an example of like what I would do for one of these long runs is for one of them, I had, uh, three scoops of beeping, 1 a. m. for go gels, three regular, one caffeine, half a pack of development, about a liter of fluid. And that was a long run. That was maybe just a little over two hours. So, you know, for that type of a fuel input I was looking at right around. 650 to 700 calories, basically all carbohydrates for that. So I'm starting to get up there, but I probably need to inch that up a little bit further. So one thing I'll be doing in future long runs will be kind of continuing, stressing that up a little bit and trying to get up a little bit closer to that 80 plus gram number and then hopefully get to a point where I feel like that's a pretty comfortable thing to do, so that when I extend it out well beyond the long runs that I will do, it feels sustainable. Um, but I would say, generally speaking, with the long run stuff, especially some of the long runs I've been doing to have had a little bit of a faster second half. I do some of my long runs with a group here in Austin called Rogue Running, and if I jump in with some of their marathoners, then they may be doing or say, a 20 mile run where the second ten miles, they're working on some blocks of marathon pace. So for some of those, we're pushing down at times, even under six minute mile pace for some of the miles. And for that, I think, like I'm noticing, the biggest difference is that they feel pretty smooth and not a lot of challenge to hit there. So once I start kind of getting into that pacing range, I think I start noticing the benefit of having that much fuel on board, especially when I'm also on top of hydration and things like that. So a few other things outside of just the performance side of things is sleep has been an interesting one. So when I first switched to low carbohydrate, one of the things I noticed in my sleep quality improved. Prior to that, I was having scenarios where if I wanted to sleep for eight hours, I would need to block off like say ten hours of time, because I just knew I was going to wake up a bunch of times over the course of the night. And that was just super inconvenient. And when I switched to low carb, that normalized, I'd go to bed. I'd basically stay in bed the entire time and sleep for like around eight hours, and I'd wake up. So that was like a huge value add for me personally. I don't know if that's necessarily the case for everybody. I've talked about this topic a bunch of times with other folks doing low carb in the past, and it seems to be a little mixed as to whether their sleep improves or even gets worse. For me, it got better, and that's just been something that's been pretty standard since then over that course of 14 years, pretty predictable. So when I switched to high carb, I didn't notice a reversion back to that sleep disruption pattern. At least not yet anyway. But what I did notice is I just have been sleeping less. So I'll wake up in maybe 45 to 60 minutes. Earlier than I would before. So I don't know if that means I'm setting myself up for failure long term by not getting enough sleep, or if that means, for whatever reason, my body is just recovering quicker. I'm refreshed soon and I'm getting out of bed. Um, so at this point in time, I'm optimistic that it's a positive because I've felt like energy levels have been great first thing in the morning. In fact, I would say I feel a little bit more ready to go when I get out of bed in the morning. I feel just a little more excited, a little more, uh, shot out of a cannon, so to speak. First step out of bed. And so far I haven't noticed any sort of sleep deprivation type symptoms that you'd maybe expect with a reduction in sleep. Um, who knows though? Maybe that'll even just normalize too. As I get further into it. Maybe I'll start sleeping a little bit longer on average and things will balance themselves out. Um, the hope is that I don't go back to the disrupted sleep that I think would be a big net negative, relatively speaking, uh, at least from the sleep side of things. And I would have to try to figure out something to do to mitigate that if it were the case. Um, you know, within the context of moderate to high carbohydrate, for as long as I'm going to run this, this experience for anyway. But right now it's, uh, it seems to be fine. The other interesting thing too is like my caffeine intake has come down, so I'll usually start the day with a cup of coffee. And after going to a moderate high carb, I'll have a cup of coffee and it's probably about 100mg of caffeine. And that's about it for the day. I basically stop after that, whereas before I would maybe have another cup of coffee or some caffeine source, like late morning after my first training session. I basically just eliminated that. I'm not even touching caffeine after that first training session. The only time I'm really having more caffeine than that first amount in the morning is if I'm doing like a longer run and I have a caffeine source during that long run. So for that longer example, I had one of those go gels as a caffeinated one. I think that was like 70mg of caffeine. So there's like a day, maybe two per week where I'll have a little bit more, a little more caffeine compared to that first, first amount in that workout. But after that workout, I just haven't had any desire or any feeling like I need to have it. So, uh, hopefully that is a good thing in the sense that, uh, maybe it'll be more sensitive to caffeine, it'll be more impactful on race day and things like that. I don't see how it could be a negative at this point in time. So I'm kind of looking at that as a positive and at least a short term. So that is basically kind of how the initial experience has gone. Um, the other thing I will add is I talked about the short intervals I have or I'm sorry, not the short intervals the hill repeats. I have done quite a few other interval sessions too, that we can compare to that one, just to maybe give an idea of just how that one workout could be averaged out over the course of things at that intensity. And I do have data on a lot of those as well, just from historically doing workouts on tracks or on flat terrain and things like that. And I would say the biggest difference I've known with like interval sessions outside of the Hill, one I described is I'm not faster than I have been in the past, and at points in time when I was low carb, I was as fast as I've been producing in some of those sessions now, but I'm definitely like trended towards the the higher end of where I've gotten to with low carb on those. And the other difference I've noticed is if I'm doing say like a shorter interval, I feel like it takes less focus to hit the split. It's not necessarily the sensation like, oh, I'm working less hard. It just feels like cognitively maybe a little easier to get into, like a flow within that short interval. Whereas within the low carb, I've kind of felt like there's maybe a little more cognitive pressure to, uh, to kind of maintain the intensity. So maybe describe that as like the durability of the intensity or the ability to kind of tolerate it seems to have improved a bit. Um, that would be the other thing I would add to that. And I have had that experience kind of reconfirmed over a series of different intervals too. So it isn't just like maybe that was just one random good workout, or I'm less likely to think that the short intervals on flat ground are going to be as influenced from an improvement standpoint by the biking as the uphill stuff is. So that maybe adds a little bit of context to that one that I'll share before diving into, uh, kind of that sample day. But. The sample day is again. It's just going to be kind of like a rundown of what a typical weekday might look like. And when I'm kind of eating what I'm eating, and you can get an idea of just kind of like the frequency of things there. So I usually wake up between like 4: 30 or 5 in the morning, uh, have a cup of coffee or tea with a half pack of chocolate, some honey, and two cups of currants. And then I'll head out for that Am training session, which is usually about 90 minutes in duration. And as I've kind of described right now, that's ranged from easy runs, base runs to interval sessions. So that's either like solo, if it's something that I'm trying to do specific to my goals, or three times a week, I'll usually run with a rogue. So sometimes I'll be running with them, either doing whatever workout they've got on the plan or just logging miles with them. So usually I'll finish that up and then have, uh, kind of the first real meal of the day at around 8 to 9 a.m. and that's usually like a smoothie with a scoop of probiotic berries, honey, milk, some sourdough bread. Maybe a little bit of salmon, olive oil, and salt water. If it's like an interval day or a long run day where I'm hitting some faster paces, I'll have a shot of delta g ketones after that session as well. Then from 9 to 11 a.m., I'm usually kind of kicking off a lot of work related stuff. So emails, calls, coaching programs, that sort of stuff for a couple of hours. And then after doing that, I'll usually have another meal, which is a lot of times something fairly simple, just like rice, ground beef, salsa, something like that. And then I'll hop into another work block where I'll be doing things like podcast recordings or editing, social posting and planning emails, calls, coaching, programming and things like that. And during that time frame, I haven't been really eating anything, but I have been making sure I'm just like sipping on water throughout the course of it just because it's so hot in the summer here in Austin, if I kind of get into cruise control and work and neglect that, I find that I'm just maybe a little bit dehydrated from the morning session going into the afternoon one. So I'm usually sipping on right around a liter of water during that time frame. Then between 3 to 5 p.m., I'll have some more food. Uh, usually something like grapes, melons, kefir, maybe an element sparkle and some water just to make sure I'm topped off on water and electrolytes and things like that before the afternoon training. And then I'll go into something a little more low intensity. That's, uh, or easier on digestion anyway, which is usually mobility, stretching, massage, strength work, uh, or any accessory work I might be doing before doing my second training session. That is usually either a one hour bike ride or a 45 minute run at this part in the training program. So at that point I'm finishing up, usually around 5:00. So from 5 to 6 p.m. I usually have a quick snack after that training session, which is usually just something kind of random, like fruit, maybe another smoothie or an energy bar or something like that, and then kind of finish up. Any lingering work or calls that I have on the schedule for that day. Then 6 to 830 is usually the range of when I'll have dinner and just kind of start relaxing, hanging out with Nicole and kind of getting set and ready to go to bed at, at, at a, at a good time so I can rinse and repeat this the next day, more or less if it's a weekday. So dinner during that is usually something like maybe a potato, some scrambled eggs with a little bit of cheese, stout, sourdough bread, salt water. And then like I said, kind of like when I'm in my best routine, I usually have that a little closer to the beginning of that block. So I have some time to maybe digest it before I start kind of turning down and getting ready for bed. But after that, 8: 30, 9:00 is usually where I'm, I'm heading to bed in kind of trying to shut it down for the day and get ready for what's coming up next. So that's what I got for this one. Uh, like I said, I will be doing some updates periodically throughout this experience, let you know how things are going. And maybe once we get further into it and I'm able to pull more, more concrete data in terms of how my experience is, start thinking about how this maybe will or will not be utilized in the future and things like that. But in the meantime, if you have any questions, any feedback, or any just general curiosities around this or this topic, feel free to reach out to me and I'll make sure to take a note of it and try to maybe address on a future podcast or a Substack post, or just chat with you online about it. If it's something that you find interesting.