The Two Week Test

It has been two full weeks since the Leadville emails arrived, announcing our participation in the 2012 Leadville Trail 100.  This traumatic and shocking event was followed by days and days of obsessive behaviour.  Bruce spent hours on his computer, reading every detail he could find about which bike to ride, what food to pack, how to acclimatize to the elevation, and everything else.

I, on the other hand, sought information from a more reliable source: the Library.

I've never taken part in a race before.  I've never biked 100 miles in a single day or done anything even remotely resembling an endurance event.  So, understandably, I've been a bit worried.  My research has centered around how to prepare for such an long athletic endeavour, including how to train and nutritional strategies.  I checked out all the books I could find about "nutrition for endurance sports".

I've picked up some useful information from these books.  One important thing I learned is that increasing dietary iron and vitamin E can help to build red blood cells before racing at high elevation (the town of Leadville is at 10,200 feet above sea level and the race tops out at 12, 400 or something stupid like that).  I'm also trying to figure out nutritional strategies to help me build muscle and strength during training.

In that interest, I was browsing through The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing by Phil Maffetone when I came across the Two Week Test.  Basically, Maffetone's claim is that lots of us endurance athletes are suffering from Carbohydrate Intolerance, which causes us to be tired and cranky and slow and oh-by-the-way it also causes every disease known to man.  My quack alert should have gone off when I read that last bit.  Unfortunately, in desperation for something to help me train better and because I hadn't read the dietary restrictions closely enough, Bruce and I decided to leap in and take the two week test.  In two weeks, we would know if we were carbohydrate intolerant and we would have the keys to being stronger, fitter, and healthier!

We started first thing on Monday morning.  I went shopping and bought a whole cart full of lean meat and vegetables.  It was really expensive. 

I didn't start freaking out until after supper (dry ribs and salad).  The two week test doesn't allow any condiments with sugar, so we had no sauce and no salad dressing.  It also doesn't allow rice or potatoes or bread, so we had no starch.  It doesn't allow milk or fruit juice, so we drank water. 
I was craving potato chips by 7:00.  And it didn't stop there.  I made Bruce go out and by peanuts so I would have something to snack on, but I've never liked peanuts so they weren't very satisfying.  Today, I couldn't stop thinking about cookies.  Mmmmm, cookies...

I've made it through almost three whole days of the test now.  And I'm seriously considering throwing in the towel TONIGHT.  Further research indicates that real doctors don't seem to regard Maffetone's "carbohydrate intolerance" as a real condition.  For example, all of the best medical dictionaries list carbohydrate intolerance as related to lactate intolerance, testable by breath test (and they don't mention that it causes diabetes, cancer, heart disease, lupus, and crankiness).  And Maffetone's website has a music section... what kind of doctor is this guy?

The past three days has been helpful in one way.  I've realized that I do eat too much junk food.  Moving forward, my nutritional strategy is to eat less candy and potato chips in the hopes of dropping a few pounds and being better fueled for training.

In sum... I think I'll go help myself to some bread.  And rice.  And maybe some french fries for desert.