Running on empty

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Missing mile marker on the tree - sort of like our diet on the detox

Ok, running on empty might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it sure felt like it. Susan and I decided in the middle of one of our highest mile weeks (~70 miles) to start a 10 day detox. We decided to try Dr. Mark Hyman's The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox because it had excellent options for vegans and vegetarians. In a nutshell you cut out sugar, grains, caffeine, alcohol, dairy and gluten. There wasn't any real reason I/we needed to do a detox, we have had several friends do similar detoxes and post about awesome they felt, so I was really just curious how I would feel.

None of our friends who did similar detoxes run the amount of miles we do, so I wasn't sure what we would do about food for our 23 mile run on Saturday. The first 2 days of the detox we were both hungry and a little irritable, Saturday was day 3 of the detox, I was hoping my energy level would be up by then. Back to our food dilemma, we normally take tortilla wraps with peanut butter or avocado or some other protein, along with bars, dried fruit and gels. Besides the insides of the wraps most of this wasn't allowed on the detox. I really wanted to stick to the detox as closely as possible without suffering too much on the run. I looked through all my "running" food and everything had some sort of sugar in it, so I ran over to REI to see what they had. I was able to find an assortment of things that didn't have any artificial sweeteners or sugar in them, they did however have dates but I figured that was as close as I was going to get. I also picked up some Pocket Fuel which has sugar in it, but again it was better than a lot of the other options. I also packed almonds and soy jerky. Susan was more creative, she make quinoa sushi roles with tempeh and avocado. (Quinoa is allowed on the vegetarian/vegan detox in small amounts.)

My mostly "ok" detox foods from REI for our run
We decided to run from the end of Wildwood at Newberry to the Birch trailhead on NW 53rd. The start of the run my legs were feeling really heavy but I started to perk up a few miles in. We stopped more frequently than we normally do to eat, but we had smaller snacks rather than one stop in the middle of the run for "lunch". When we got to the top of the hill at mile 11 on Wildwood, Susan said she needed to sit down because she felt awful, I was surprised because I was feeling great. She said most of the run she was feeling horrible. The only thing I equate to the difference in the way we both felt was she was getting less sleep than I was.

We are now on day 5 of the detox and I am feeling great, I was in a good mood all day at work and I have slept well the last few days. All I can think is the detox is working, but who knows. But I really miss beer! I think some of the detox is sustainable but not the no alcohol thing, life is too short!

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