Well I’ve decided to get started with this blog, finally. It’s been prepared and ready to go for a long time, but somehow I kept procrastinating the real writing. Am I afraid to fail? How could that really happen? I imagine the initial readers will be people I love that care about me. How could I go wrong?
What can I write about that’s interesting? I’ll write about my attempts to live a healthy lifestyle: to follow a low-fat, raw, vegan diet and run a marathon in March 2008. What is a low-fat raw vegan diet you ask? It sounds pretty restrictive. Well, I don’t look at it that way, but instead focus on what I can eat: many amazing raw fruits and vegetables, in quantities that satisfy and nourish my body. Of the numerous books on eating raw foods, by far my favorite is Douglas Graham’s, The 80/10/10 Diet
I first heard of raw foods from Victoria Boutenko, at a small seminar at Cafe La Vie in Santa Cruz, California. Phillip and I went there on a whim, to hear her speak about green smoothies and better health. Cafe La Vie is a wonderfully positive and alive place and her one-hour talk was inspiring. I bought all of her books that day and started to read and study. The story of her family’s improved health through diet change is fantastic.
And what’s this about a marathon?! Well, I’ve run many races and half-marathons and love running. This is something I really have needed to do for a long time, in order to properly call myself a runner. And it’s a great way to keep from putting on too much holiday cheer this season, ho ho ho! I don’t want to be asked to play Santa Claus at the next party (sorry Santa, but you can keep your jollies!)
Marathon training actually began weeks ago and I have already made long runs of 8, 10, 12, and 14 miles on the last 4 Sundays. This Sunday it’s time for 16 miles. The 14 mile run took 147 minutes to complete and included a big hill at Wilder Ranch State Park. Hills and ocean go together and getting out there really motivates.
A great run is exhilarating. That 14 miles felt like 3 separate runs. The first third was up hill, slow and easy, felt like a lot of work, but well worth it. The second third was downhill, running fast, an amazingly great feeling, with beautiful views, this should never end, feeling great. The third was flat, around the top of ocean cliffs, wow how long is this going to take, only 5 miles left, wow this is a long way, chugging along, feeling okay but getting increasingly tired.
I was a happy man when I finally got back to the car. And I couldn’t afford to give up early, because it was a big loop, and it was 5 miles to the car at the beginning of that last third and walking it didn’t feel right. I’m glad it wasn’t an out and back from the parking lot, because I admittedly would have been tempted to skip it.
Running for more than 90 minutes is a different kind of feel than 30-45 minute runs. It’s long enough to get a runner’s high in the middle of the run, and that feels great for as long as it lasts. Once over 2 hours though, and high fades, the end of the run feels more like work.
So what do I eat before a 14 mile run? Lots of fruit. Sunday it was orange juice at 8am, followed by 12 oranges at 9am (erm, that’s a lot of oranges!). The run began around 11am. Two hours between eating and running helped, I felt really energetic. Energy is easy to come by if I’m eating just fruit and salads for at least 36 hours before a run. This one worked because although it was on the Sunday after Thanksgiving (ug! and my eating on Thursday on Friday was the worst its been in a long time), I cleaned up on Saturday, and felt really good by Sunday.
Two-thirds of the way through the run, I ate 2 oranges I hid 90 minutes earlier, near a road I crossed in the car on the way. Could I “refuel” during the run? I ate these when I still had 5 miles left. I stopped running completely for 3 minutes to eat them and the next 10 minutes I felt slow, not sure if from stopping or from eating. After 10 minutes, strength returned, and it helped during the next 45 minutes to have those sugars. I would have felt more depleted at the end without it, so on my next run, I’ll experiment with placing the oranges earlier in the run, or putting fresh squeezed orange juice into my water bottles. About 1 part OJ to 4 parts water should do the trick nicely.
Way to go. I’m also training for a marathon and eating a raw vegan diet. When I got up to the 14 mile long runs I started eating pasta and potatoes with my family (thinking I need the extra carbs from grains) but I switched to cooked carbs and grains, then other junk food cravings came and now I feel like I did before I even started on a raw diet. It’s only been a week so I can knock it off and get back on track. Do you eat sprouted grains or other similar dishes to build more carb stores? Maybe I’m just listening to popular programming that’s not really accurate? Keep up the good work!
Great Job Van! It’s encouraging to see someone train successfully for a marathon on a raw vegan diet. I recently decided to do the same for a marathon in June. I’m weeks away from any really long runs but I’ve felt energized so far. Keep it up,
T. P.
T.P. and Van…AWESOME!! I am getting started training again for my next marathon and after being diagnosed with a auto-immune disease, I’ve started eating raw vegan. Any advice on increasing calories for those long runs?
Thanks and keep running raw!
WH
Thanks everyone for your comments.
7kidmom, I can really appreciate the cravings for complex carbohydrates that you talk about. I’m not a perfect follower of the raw vegan diet just yet, and I found that if I don’t eat enough fruit during the day, and especially after working out, that by 9pm I will be seriously craving carbohydrates and fall prey to an old favorite: almond milk and raisin bran.
I can’t really get excited about uncooked, sprouted grains because the taste just isn’t there for me. Raw, sprouted garbonzo beans taste kind of like chalk to me. I think as far as sprouts go, I’m going to use them for the tasty and tender green parts that grow off of them. I enjoy adding them to my salads occasionally, especially snow pea and sunflower shoots.
Wendy, I have found that a good way to avoid binging on cooked carbs later is to do two things on long run days: a) eat immediately after the run, and b) eat again as soon as possible.
For (a), I typically pack a bunch of oranges slices (usually about 6 oranges worth), and maybe some kiwi fruit as well. These taste great after a run and also serve to quench my thirst. For (b), I wait about an hour (ie. after I’ve returned home and showered) and then eat as many bananas as I can fit in, usually about 6 or 7. That’s a total of about 1000 calories or more between (a) and (b).
It’s still not quite enough, so in summer I recommend eating watermelon as well, because it’s high in calories. Later on a salad is nice too, and celery, yum. And lately, I’ve been supplementing my calorie intake by adding dates to my diet, because they really concentrated in terms of calories.
I hope that helps!
- Van
Van,
Got a question for you. I tried the raw diet a year ago and did well for a few months. I don’t remember why I returned to cooked food though. Anyway,I have completed two marathons this year on cooked foods. I’m thinking about converting to the raw diet over the next five months. I also plan on running two more marathons. Is there a book or something that supports raw diets for runner? My next marathon is in October and I am starting a very slow conversion - i.e. cutting out all chicken, fish, meat. I can do without those for energy sources. But man, I’m getting antsy about eliminating the rice, beans, pasta . . . Also, how are you carrying all those orange slices when you run? Are you running with a backpack or something? I hate carrying those things, but on long runs I will strap on a hydration belt (I’m in Los Angeles - it get’s hot)! Basically, I’m just wondering how you are doing this whole thing.
Thanks,
Paula
Hi Paula,
Thank you for your comments and question. A great book I’d recommend for anyone who wants to be physically active while eating a raw food diet is Dr. Graham’s book, The 80/10/10 Diet. It lays out in great detail the way you need to eat and why to get enough calories to be so active. Even so, I found it took me months of trying, and even attending his two week walking tour in Costa Rica, before it really clicked for me. I just couldn’t conceive of how much I really had to eat until I saw other people doing it.
Bananas were the biggest help for me, since it was fall/winter when I started trying, and fresh fruit gets harder and harder to find. I started feeling more satisfied and started losing my cravings for cooked food once I had more practice with how to buy enough bananas, wait for them to ripen, make them into smoothies, and consume them for lunch every day to insure enough calories overall.
As far as carrying enough food for a long run, what I started doing was placing/hiding the food and extra water at the halfway point on training runs, or wherever appropriate, before the run begins. When I ran the actual marathon in March, I didn’t want to use solid food, and instead I had 3 small water bottles filled with the water from soaking dates overnight. I placed in boxes for the aid stations at the beginning of the race, so I’d have a new bottle at miles 2, 19, and 16. There were about 300 calories worth of fruit sugar in each bottle, and it was enough to help me through the race. After the race I ate a lot of bananas at the finish area.
I haven’t written a blog post about the marathon yet, but I did mention it briefly at the end of the Costa Rica wrapup post. In the walking higher and harder post, I mention some advice I got from Dr. Graham about the date water (he actually suggested using raisins instead because it’s easier on some folks digestive systems). I’ll repeat it here:
And lately, there been a great discussion on the VegSource forum about quantifying 80/10/10 athletic gains. It’s a great thread, and I agree that eating a low-fat raw vegan diet, and getting almost all my carbs from fruit really gave me a boost, similar to what some of these other folks mentioned.
I hope that helps. When I get a chance, I want to write more about the marathon experience in a new blog post. Good luck with your marathons. I hope you find it possible to successfully give up the rice, beans, and pasta. In time, as I have become accustomed to this new way of eating, I have found the level of nourishment I can sustain makes it possible for me to exercise longer without refueling than it was possible for me before. Fruit, eaten in enough volume, really can be a complete substitute for the more traditional forms of carbohydrate.
Cheers!
- Van
Wow! Thanks so much for all the advice. I will try the raisin soak on my upcoming long run. It sounds like a great alternative to those gummy high preservative gel packs. I’ve developed an aversion to those things. If I can fuel a raw and natural way - AWESOME. I’ll also purchase the book this weekend. I’m really excited about making the transition. Taking up marathon running was about improving my health. Exercise is one part of it. The other part is correct nutrition. I’m a work in progress on that end.
I truly appreciate all the great advice you posted here and wil read every last link you noted. I am open to all the help and advice I can get.
Gracias!
Paula