Yesterday, 14th February 2016, was my 50th birthday (also it was my twin brother, Graeme’s 50th birthday-Happy Birthday Graeme!). I love running on my birthday and I had sought out a marathon for the day. That marathon was the Birch Bay Marathon, not too far from home. It’s a low key marathon on a lovely course and takes in all that is beautiful about the Pacific North West. However, yesterday there were no ocean or mountain views, just chilly constant rain but I had a fantastic day. Peter and I travelled over the border on Friday evening and had a weekend away. As always Peter cheered me on from the roadside and had warm clothes for me at the finish.
I ran 4 hours 4 minutes and the second half was 4 minutes quicker than the first. A negative split! Pacing improves with age no doubt! I felt a wee bit tired throughout the event as I hadn’t tapered at all, this being a training run/birthday treat. I was ready for the bonk but it just didn’t happen. I finished feeling just a bit worse than the start.
All I ate during the 4 hours was 3/4 of a tiny sample-size Cliff Bar (I looked at the wrapper-110 Calories, 17g of carbs). I had 2 or 3 gulps of water at each aid station-no gatorade. This is a large reduction in fuel compared to my previous marathons. Could I now be a fat burning machine?? LOL. I guess my consistent running with moderate mileage for the last 3 or 4 years has had a good training effect. Running long, eating “high fat” and running when fasted are techniques people use to improve fat burning. I enjoy my breakfast far too much to try running fasted and my diet is not “high fat”. My own experience shows me that fat burning for the average runner can be gained by consistency without fasting or eating a lot of fat (regular long runs will inevitably cause glycogen depletion and glycogen depletion is the stimulus for the body to adapt from carbohydrate burning to fat burning)
I enjoyed yesterday enormously and had a fantastic birthday. Roll on the 100 miles :))
Mandy's Running Blog 