2 hr 45 min Mountain Race, Fasted, in Vibram Five Fingers

The Event
Making Life Difficult for Myself
The Race
The Vibram Experience
The Fasting Experience
The Training Verdict
More Fell Running?

Location: Snowdonia, Wales, UK
Date: 5th September 2009

The Event

Fell (Mountain) Race: The Peris Horseshoe

From the BBC website: "I've taken part in the 1000m peak race on four occasions... but the toughest one anywhere is the Peris Horseshoe. " Peter John Rhys Lewis, Llandudno

Thankfully, we just did the half horseshoe - but that was tough enough.

Distance: 8.5 miles
Elevation: 4500 feet

Before race:

After the race:

Making Life Difficult for Myself

Food: I hadn't planned on running this race having eating nothing but tandoori chicken all day on the previous day. But I just wasn't hungry in the morning and once it got to 9.30am it was too late, as the race was starting in an hour. A stitch is worse than hunger. In any case, I've been wondering for a while whether I could fuel a race like this without carbs. It would be the first time I'd tackled a long race at race pace since going Paleo. Yet tackling it without any food at all was perhaps a bit extreme.

Footwear: I had planned on trying the Vibram Five Fingers on a fell race - it just so happened that the next race to come along after that decision, was this monster.

So you could be forgiven for thinking I go out of my way to make life difficult for myself. Whilst that may be true, I don't normally try to make it this difficult.

The Race

This was a punishing course and seemed to include every conceivable kind of terrain - large rocks, fist-sized rocks, scree, embedded slate paths, grassy slopes, boggy mud. There was 4500 feet of ascent across an 8.5-mile course.

Here's a picture of the organiser, organising. I should extend thanks to him and his helpers, as it was a great event.

Section 1

At my pace this was a relentless one-hour climb to the first peak, Elidir Fawr, about 2700 feet above sea-level. I am guessing we started at 300 feet. The route first follows mining rail tracks, then zig-zags though a quarry, before finally becoming a steep slog up a scarcely-defined grassy path.

This picture shows the quarry and the peak above, and I think this is the range of mountains we went on to negotiate in the other sections.

After a brief spell of flat and a bit more uphill on a stony path, the final 100 yards is a kind of ridge composed of large granite slabs which must be carefully negotiated. It would be safe to say I was cooked by the time I reached the top.

Section 2

There followed quite a long section of flat slightly downhill terrain, mainly on good paths. I am guessing a few miles. At this height the mist was pretty dense, so I was running as fast as I could to keep the guy in front in view. I was pretty much clueless about the course and relying entirely on others to stay on track. At one point he appeared unsure whether to go left or right when the path forked. I followed him right but had the horrible sense that we might both end up lost. Somewhere in this section I forgot I had no tread on my shoes, drove my heel into a patch of mud and was rewarded with a face full of ground.

Section 3

The flat became a steep slope once again and although the runner in front had disappeared, some walkers I was passing kindly confirmed they had seen other runners pass this way. It took a few minutes for my legs to wake up again. It's always a killer when there are multiple ascents because the legs are never the same after a first one; but after the initial deadness they do warm up again. This was an estimated 900 foot climb up to Garn at about 2700 feet, where I checked in with the marshal and was sent onwards in the right direction. No one visibly in front, no one visibly behind - very disconcerting.

Section 4

For 10 minutes I tackled killer downhill terrain like a cat on a hot tin roof. The small rocks and pebbles slowed my progress right down and laughed at the thin soles of my Vibrams. Finally this gave way to a gently descending path flanked by marshy grass I was able to bound freely down without fear of foot pain. At times I strayed back onto the path without thinking, which by now was made of embedded, immovable stone, and was driven yelping back to the grass.

Section 5

Part of me believed there might not be a section 5. But as I drew close to a lake the mist cleared to reveal a vast rocky swathe on the side of the mountain behind, up which were scattered scrambling competitors. The good news: I wasn't lost. The bad news: I had to follow them. After a few minutes of sluggishness from my legs, they started working again and I grimly proceeded with the final 1200 feet of ascent. The terrain was about as bad as it gets, regardless of shoe type. Big, semi-stable rocks and sections so steep you can lose your balance if you look up as you climb. I had been slowly but surely putting distance between my running partner and me - and when the mist cleared beneath I could see his distinct red top in the distance as he stoically hauled his additional ballast up the rock field, at least 10 minutes behind. When finally the gradient levelled out there was an outcrop of granite slabs to negotiate before the checkpoint at 3000 feet - Glyder Fawr.

Section 6

As I came off the top I got briefly lost with a lady who thankfully had a compass and map she was actually using, and when we were re-united with the path we found my running partner bounding confidently downwards. While he comfortably negotiated the reminder of the course I skittered around like a bad ice skater, catching occasional glimpses of his increasingly distant figure. Had I been wearing my well-studded fell shoes I would have been fine on these wet, grassy slopes; but I was not, so it wasn't. By the time I got down I had fallen over at least 4 times.

As I finished, others continued to the second half. Hats off.

The Vibram Experience

I want to tell you that the Vibram Five Fingers were a great way to do the race; but they really weren't.

Grip Problems
I had about 6 serious tumbles. As I mentioned, the first was in section 2, when I landed more or less flat on my face and the rest were on the grassy final descent. It was fine when I was expecting it, but on one occasion I was not, and flew backwards, cartoon-style, legs cycling in front of me, landing flat on my back like a startled beetle.

Toe Crunch
At one point I did something to a toe in my left foot. It felt like it might be broken, but having followed the steps described here, I have established it's probably just bruising. At the time it sounded pretty nasty - there was a distinct crunching or grinding sensation when a piece slate got wedged between two toes. On balance I think this was just bad luck coupled with not paying attention to foot placement.

Painful Stones
As I mentioned above, the terrain was pretty varied; but for the most part, it was hard ground or stones, most of which seemed perfectly sized to challenge thin soles - too small to step onto, too big to be absorbed by the sole. It slowed me down considerably on some descent sections.

Monkey Magic
Yet on the uphill and on certain stretches of flat, some of the magic I had enjoyed when hiking in the Pyrenees was still evident. There was excellent grip on dry granite and a real sense of stability from being so close to the ground. The extra toe leverage came in handy on parts of the grassy path and when moving on larger stones. I felt agile and monkey-like.

Unexpected Blister
I did manage to acquire a small blister on the big toe of my left foot. That's nothing compared to the monster I would routinely get on my right heel in fell running shoes, but it was still a surprise to get one at all in the Vibrams.

Tougher Feet
This is the first time I have run a fell race in the Vibrams - so I would expect my feet to get tougher with experience. I might consider a future fell race in a pair of Five Fingers if there were a solution to the grip problem, and perhaps a slightly tougher sole.

Are the new Treks the Answer?
Better grip and a tougher sole is exactly what is offered by the new Vibram Five Finger Treks. I have ordered a pair of these bad boys which should arrive next month. Here is a review by Barefoot Ted. Basically, they have more tread and are apparently the Kangaroo skin uppers are very comfortable.

Fell Shoes on the Next Race?
My treks will not have arrived by the next fell race (likely to be the Langdale Horseshoe - 14miles /4000ft.)

If I do go back to fell shoes, I may not be too worried - the rationale behind a shift to barefoot from traditional running shoes (well documented in this article) is around the unnatural geometry they create. So I am assuming that the biomechanical problems created are worse when:

1. ...running on flat, hard surfaces like roads, and
2. ...the soles are larger.

Occasionally fell running in relatively thin-soled fell shoes does not feel like the worst offense against the body, especially if, like me, you spend the rest of the time wearing Vibrams and being sniggered at by kids and drunk adults.

The Fasting Experience

So just to reiterate, here was my pre- and post-race nutrition:

Friday
9pm: Tandoori platter with salad

Saturday
10.30 am - race starts
1:15 pm - I finish
1:20 pm - black coffee while waiting for coach back to our car, where my food was. (All the food on sale was garbage.)
2:30 pm - finally, some food: paleo breakfast of champions (recipe here)
7.30 pm - dinner: cow's tongue with veg, drizzled in extra virgin olive oil and coconut cream

Sunday
2.30 am I wake up, ravenous, and consume a tin of sardines and a selection of nuts My body obviously knew it needed more and was not willing to let me sleep until it got it!

As a Paleo advocate, I obviously wanted to show I could do this race without needing to pre-load with carbs, take carbs during the race, or guzzle them afterwards - so my assessment is hardly unbiased.

Yet the sheer fact of completing a race without suffering any 'bad moments' means something, regardless of experimenter bias. I must surely have run this race in a state of ketosis. I had a very low carb meal the night before having fasted all day, then had nothing but water before the race.

I have been reading and re-reading this excellent article about how our ancestors might have fuelled their hunting. It is written by Don Matesz on his Primal Wisdom blog.

My conclusions, based on the information in that article are:

I can do events like this on a Paleo diet: I have been eating a nutritionally dense, mostly ketogenic diet for a couple of years, punctuated by occasional carb binges. Therefore, I should be able to fuel endurance exercise like this with my diet.

My glycogen stores were pretty high when I started the race: I had done a Body by Science workout on my upper body two days previously and sprint intervals 5 days before. Each session would have dumped much of the glycogen stores of the relevant muscles; but since glycogen can be replenished via dietary protein, my tandoori chicken the night before the race and high protein meals over the preceding week would have contributed to replenishing my glycogen stores before the race. I'd done no other exercise so dietary protein would have been sufficient and pre-race carb loading not required.

I squandered lean muscle mass: for me the race lasted nearly 3 hours, so although it was steady state cardio, my glycogen stores would have been depleted significantly. By not eating until an hour after the race I probably forced my body to use lean muscle to manufacture and replenish glycogen instead of dietary protein. I am not sure whether lean muscle would have been consumed during the race itself.

Most of my fuel came from body fat: aside from the muscle glycogen question, the fact is that stored body fat would have fuelled much of my aerobic exercise.

I will ask Don whether he would like to comment on my conclusions.

During the race I did have moments of tiredness, but came through these in the same way I remember from my carb-fuelled days. Comparing notes with my carb-fuelled running partner, it seemed we were both pretty much in the same state after the race.

The difference is that whereas he holstered up 3 bars of Kendal mint cake (basically sugar) to consume during the race and downed a sugar-laden coffee and slab of cake afterwards, I ate nothing before or during and waited an hour afterwards before consuming a pretty low carb meal.

Although I didn't feel significantly hypoglaecemic at any point, I will say that during the car journey home I felt on the edge of something like mild hypoglycemia which seemed to fade as the food food digested. By the time I got home at 6pm, I was pretty much back to normal energy levels.

The Training Vedict

My Training before this Race
In the past 6 weeks, you can see from my workout diary that I've been doing less than 30 minutes of training per week - but highly intense. In total, over 6 weeks:

• 5 x Body by Science 10 - 25-minute weight sessions
• 1 x hill sprints (10 minutes)
• 1 x rowing machine tabata (4 minutes)
• 2 x flat sprints (10 minutes and 8 minutes)
• 1 x swimming sprints (10 minutes)

Other than that, my only aerobic conditioning conditioning in the past 6 weeks has been:

• One 90-minute session of hiking/jogging on the Malvern Hills
• Brisk weekday walking to and from work via train stations (15 + 15 + 10 + 10 minutes per day)

Was it Enough?
Previously, I felt compelled to train for fell races by putting in lots of miles on the hills. I was sure that if I did not, I would not be fit enough. I was wrong - on this occasion I still ran, power hiked and scrambled more or less continually for nearly 3 hours; and I felt almost as fit as I remember feeling before.

Again, it feels like although I am clearly biased towards showing my training approach worked, the sheer fact I completed the race without having to rest tells must be significant.

I concede that I would probably have run it quicker 3 years ago (ignoring for a moment the Vibram factor) But I am not sure I would have been that much quicker; and just one more strategically placed long, low intensity mountain training session around 3 weeks before the event could have been enough to achieve parity.

Chronic Cardio
If you are a regular reader you will know I avoid what Mark Sisson calls chronic cardio - regular, long, relatively high intensity sessions. Instead, all my aerobic exercise is done at a low heart rate (55-75% of max) and where possible for a long time. I try to stitch this into normal life - for example through hiking or walking.

Yet one of the things Mark says in the Primal Blueprint is that occasionally blasting out a sustained, tough cardio effort, such as a race, can have excellent fitness benefits. I am hoping this race will count in that way.

More Fell Running?

Two days later my legs are still pretty shot. I also have a stiff lower back and some arm stiffness. It was clearly a traumatic experience for my body so now I must give it the rest it needs. We would have encountered these traumas when evolving but would not have sought them out, so whereas previously I ran hard on the hills every Sunday, now I will save it for fell races. I will build fitness with short intense workouts and long, easy hikes. It might mean I am stiffer after races, but I will probably appreciate the race experience more, and I suspect I will be healthier.

So I have fallen back in love with fell running. Who knows, I might even get better times this time by training less.

The Event
Making Life Difficult for Myself
The Race
The Vibram Experience
The Fasting Experience
The Training Verdict
More Fell Running?