28 Feb Danny Vega – Gasparilla Half Marathon Race Recap
I just ran the Gasparilla half marathon on February 26th. I’m currently doing a 3 month powerbuilding block, with minimum running to keep a good base. I’m running the Savage Race in March for fun. The 10/20/Life Powerbuilding book should be out in the late spring/early summer.
[wa-wps]I know I’ve been somewhat lost the last couple of weeks, so an update is overdue. First, let me say this. I accomplished my goal of training for and running a half marathon while staying fully ketogenic, and now I’m taking a week off before I start my spring powerbuilding block. This is becoming a yearly tradition. After that, the only thing I have left is Tough Mudder at the end of October, so I’ll be looking to compete at SOMETHING between June and October. What exactly? That’s up in the air right now, but I have a good idea.
Ok. So the last couple of weeks of training went really well. I was on pace to hit my goal time of 2 hours. My last long run was 12 miles, and I finished in under 1:50.
Little did I know I was about to hit a big roadblock. First, let me say I did not plan on mentioning this whole stomach debacle because I thought it would pass through pretty quickly when I found out I had it. But we THINK it happened Friday night when we went to Orlando to eat sushi with Brian, Ria and Channing the night before Channing’s meet. I ordered a big plate of steak and shrimp, and a sashimi boat. I killed both plates and ate Maura’s too.
Saturday morning’s run sucked from the very beginning. I thought it may have been from a sweetener in the ice cream we had after dinner, but it never affected me before. Regardless, Saturday I felt like crap all day. Sunday morning was much worse. I had terrible cramps and pains and was stuck in bed. Had to text church and tell them I couldn’t serve. Sunday night terrible sleep. I wenr to work on Monday but then after I tried to eat lunch, I had to run home ASAP. It was the longest 60 min drive ever. Monday night at 1am I was so miserable I told Maura I was gonna go to the ER. It had been a few days of so much pain and no eating or bowel movements. She told me to try some pepto, which I took at 1:30am and again at 3 and was able to sleep until about 6:30am.
Tuesday I took the day off and just rotted on the couch all day. I drank bone broth, diatomaceous earth, charcoal, etc etc. That’s when things got going. From Tuesday to Saturday morning, I went to the bathroom at least 10-15 times a day. Mornings were the worst part. I woke up each night a few times as well. By Friday I had lost 7 lbs.
Friday night I got a surprise phone call from Peter Defty. If you don’t know who he is, he is one of the foremost authorities on endurance and optimized fat metabolism. To say that I was honored was an understatement. Peter has become a friend recently and I really value his input. So when we spoke, he said he’s not usually the type to take the pharmaceutical route, but in this case antibiotics would probably help. I listened. Got a friend to call in the script and was able to take my first dose Friday night. By my 3rd dose on Saturday I felt like the evil inside of me was being destroyed. I had my first normal trip to the bathroom on Saturday and it was just in time.
Saturday I was able to get a Meyers cocktail in hopes of rehydrating. I also drank electrolyte drinks and put lots of salt on my food.
Saturday morning I felt pretty dang good. Started the race with 5500 of my closest friends and had no idea how packed it was going to be. I ended up having to run a little over an extra quarter mile from all the zooming in and out of traffic I was doing, which slowed me down. But at the halfway point, I was at 60 min exactly. Right on pace!
All I had before the race: 90 min out, coffee with 1 scoop of mct oil powder. Drank salted water with electrolytes on the way over. 30 min before the race, one Vespa pack, and 40 min into the race, one more Vespa pack. That’s it. At mile 9 I started to feel some cramping in my left quad. I have not dealt with cramping once my whole prep. By mile 10, I was cramping on both quads and by mile 11, my hamstrings joined the fun. I had to switch from my interval strategy of running two min, walking one min, to a slow jog because the walking would make the quad cramps worse. Then when it felt like my hamstrings were about to pop from running, I would walk again, and on and on. My lats were cramping the last mile. At that point the only goal was finishing, and I did. But it was tough. Here’s the pacing. You can see how things went way south after mile 10.
Anyway, I’m really happy I finished, albeit 13 minutes slower than I wanted. This is over, and now it’s on to the next goal. I have so many cool things I wanna do in the next year. I’m gonna show you all what it means to be a multi sport athlete. With my diet in check and Tony Cowden coaching me, I’ll be unstoppable. Thank you to everyone who helped me and supported me through this.
On to the next one!
Danny Vega
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