March 2012, an update:

After some initial doubts about running a 50 miler in the midst of training for IM Coeur d’Alene (CdA), I have decided to stick with it and I will be running the American River 50 mile race (AR50) on April 7th. Martina and Rajeev Patel have been instrumental in pushing me towards the race. On Feb 26th Chakri, Martina, Rajeev Patel and I ran a 50Km trail run called the FatAss 50K in Los Gatos. The run was VERY hilly, total elevation gain of ~9K feet. It took me a week to recover from the run as my legs were extremely sore.

On March 17th Rajeev Patel, Murali, Ankita and I ran the last 31 miles of the AR 50 course (in Auburn). It was not as hilly as the previous run (FatAss 50K) but the trail was wet, soggy and very narrow for most of the way (single track). We drove up to Auburn at 3:00 AM and got to the start at 7:00AM. I stuck to my diet of eGels/Gu every hour, I felt pretty good throughout the day and Rajeev & I added a few more miles towards the end to make the total closer to 34 miles. We had good weather throughout the day with a bit of rain towards the end of the run. All in all a good trial run for AR50, I feel a bit more confident now. May even give the sub 11 hour finish a shot…let’s see how things pan out on race day.

Training for Ironman Coeur d’Alene has been going on well, I’ve done close to 47,000 yards of swimming this year (~26.5 miles) and biking is coming along fine, close to 700 miles so far, running is coming along fine too ~ 250 miles for the year. We had our fist Open Water swim of 2012 on Sunday (March 18th) at Quarry Lakes in Fremont. Nice place, the water is clear. It was very cold and windy though.

In Feb I made a change to my diet, I switched to a gluten free diet to see if it helps resolve my frequent GI distress issues on race days (no, I have not been tested for gluten intolerance, but I suspect I have a mild case of gluten allergy). It was an article on Slowtwitch.com that got me thinking about going gluten free. The things I’ve removed from my diet are; bread, rotis, pastas and all gluten based foods (including most beers…sigh!). Given that we have a host of gluten free foods these days, the switch has not been too hard. We heard about Red Bridge beer on the Dr Oz show and that works fine for me . Diet replacements have been rice/corn for wheat and other gluten grained foods. Rice bread works fine once it is toasted and I like corn tortillas, rice pasta & am ok with quinoa. So far I do feel a lot better after a long ride/run so I’ll stick with this diet and may be get tested later in the year. The good thing is I do not have to change any of my race day supplements as all Gu and Hammer products are gluten free. I’m still sticking to Sustained Energy and eGels as my race fuel.